Updated June 13, 2022
Notice ID: 36C10B21Q0551
“The purpose of this RFI was to gather additional information to help VA determine the most suitable acquisition strategy to maintain and evolve its existing VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) which is currently built upon the cloud services of Microsoft Azure Government (MAG) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud. This included contemplating the complete replacement of one or both of VA s existing Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and/or expanding the VAEC to include additional FedRAMP High certified CSPs. Currently, VAEC requires access through the purchase of cloud credits to only FedRAMP High Government Community Cloud (GCC) service providers with VA Authority to Operate for the full suite of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. Further, VA anticipates any expansion effort involving the integration of additional CSPs within the VAEC will be executed through separate brand name acquisitions. VA has architected and operates its enterprise cloud, and any additional CSP would need to be architected in accordance with VA technical requirements. These facts do not restrict competition for other SaaS and PaaS cloud offerings which are outside the scope of the VAEC. Based on the above, the Request for Quotation will be posted to National Aeronautics and Space Administration Solutions for Enterprisewide Procurement Governmentwide Acquisition Contract for limited competition among resellers for the required brand name AWS cloud service capabilities and professional services.”
Posted September 17, 2021
Notice ID: 36C10B21Q0551
“Background: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has successfully stood up its own VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) over the past 3-4 years consisting of two Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High Cloud Service Providers (CSP), Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Additional security and tooling has been established on top of these Government clouds. During this time, VA has amassed significant, Veteran-facing and VA-facing cloud IT solutions for its three administrations, the Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration and National Cemetery Administration as well for its Office of Information & Technology and VA Central Offices. Significant investment has been made in customizing workloads for the underlying CSPs. Security controls were inherited by the CSP’s FedRAMP Authority to Operate and VA added security controls to both clouds equally but separately…”
“The vehicles through which VA is procuring its cloud capacity and associated services are expiring in fiscal year 2022. As such, VA is in the planning stages of developing the acquisition strategies to meet these continuing requirements. VA is seeking input from FedRAMP High certified CSPs to determine the impact (i.e., cost, operational, schedule) of replacing one or both of VA’s existing CSPs, and/or the value and benefit (i.e., cost, technical) of expanding its existing VAEC to include additional CSPs. Initial market research and technical analysis efforts have revealed that replacement efforts could result in duplicative costs, schedule and operational impacts. Similarly, introducing any new CSPs into VAEC could result in duplicative costs, and significant time per additional CSP just to replicate all of the required tooling, security controls and monitoring capabilities that are already present within and around VAEC-Azure and VAEC-AWS for successful operation within the FedRAMP High VAEC architecture…”
