THE PENTAGON – In a move that aims to overhaul the Department of the Navy’s dated information technology infrastructure, the Navy awarded defense company Leidos a contract worth up to $7.7 billion to overhaul several data networks, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday.
In particular, the new contract will start to modernize the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) in use by almost every sailor and Marine in the Department of the Navy over the next nine months.
“This contract will enable the digital modernization of our enterprise networks, which are the foundation for the Department of Navy business,” said James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. “Our future enterprise networks will provide sailors, Marines and our civilian workforce the tools they need to be more efficient at increasing Naval capabilities – and further empowering our Navy-Marine Corps team to compete and win.”
NCMI was first contracted in 2000 and designed to be the backbone of how the Navy and Marine Corps talked amongst themselves in what’s billed as the world’s largest intranet serving about 700,000 sailors, Marines and civilians, according to current network manager Perspecta.
Complaints about NMCI speed and reliability are near-constant, USNI News has heard from service members often.
The award to Leidos of the Service Management, Integration and Transport (SMIT) contract will also refresh the DoN’s, “OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network (ONE-Net), Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN) and other legacy networks,” according to a release from the Navy.
The improvements will include migrating the networks from the legacy Microsoft Windows platforms to a more modern Windows-as-a-service model, introduce the use of Office 365 and make the networks compatible with the emerging JEDI cloud computing infrastructure developed for the Department of Defense.
The Tuesday award is part of the Next Generation Enterprise Network Re-Compete (NGEN-R) family of contracts. It follows an October award to HP for end-user hardware (EUHW) like laptops, desktops, tablets and accessories.
“The capabilities and network services acquired through the NGEN-R family of contracts will transform the working environment for Navy and Marine Corps users by providing additional flexibility, enabling cloud capabilities and allowing the DON to operate, maintain and protect critical operational and business platforms,” said Ruth Youngs Lew, program executive officer for Enterprise Information Systems said in a statement. “Moving from a single-service contract to a multiple contract model provides the DON with best value by fostering competition among best-in-class service providers.”
The current NGEN contract with Perspecta expires in September.
The following the Feb. 5, 2020 contract announcement.
Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, is awarded an estimated $7,729,639,286 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to include all options, if exercised, for the procurement of Department of Navy (DoN) service management, integration and transport used on the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet, the outside continental U.S. Naval Enterprise Network and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network. This acquisition will provide the DoN with base network services that are currently provided under the Next Generation Enterprise Networks contract such as electronic software delivery, end user core build, endpoint detection, logistics management, network operations, security operations, service desk, transport and virtualization services. Work will be performed across the DoN and is expected to be completed in February 2025. If all options are exercised, work could continue until August 2028. The first task order will be awarded with the basic contract and fulfills the minimum guarantee of $10 million with fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds. Contract funds for the initial task order will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This requirement was solicited using full and open competition via the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command E-Commerce Central website and the Federal Business Opportunities website, with three offers received. The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N00039-20-D-0054) and awarded the contract on behalf of the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems.
