The companies that landed awards under Interior’s Foundation Cloud Hosting Services II contract are Accenture Federal Services, IBM, CGI Federal, SAIC, Cognosante, Zivaro and Smartronix. Those seven vendors will compete for task orders under the greater indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. 

The announcements of the seven awards detail Interior’s statement of work for the contract, requiring cloud license and support services for infrastructure, platform and software in a cloud environment. 

This contract comes as the initial iteration of the Foundation Cloud Hosting Services vehicle is set to expire later this year. Awarded in 2013 to 10 contractors, the initial contract has a $10 billion ceiling.

In the department’s initial statement of work, it wrote about the latest contract: “This follow-on FCHS contract is shifting to multiple service provider focus and integration among our solutions and a hybrid model hosting environment vision. Providing interoperability and data integrations between multiple technologies and services across the Department bureaus and offices.”

It also complements Interior’s $1 billion cloud contract award to Peraton last year for its Cloud Hosting Solutions III acquisition, which enlists the IT contractor to manage the department’s portfolio of cloud services.

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The agreement is meant to boost the agency’s enterprise operations and work in support of “human health and the environment,” according to a press release shared by the company. 

“We must confront the nation’s most urgent health and environmental challenges today by expanding our range of innovative technology capabilities, aligning those capabilities to our mission, and optimizing our overall mission support operations,” EPA Chief Information Officer Vaughn Noga said in a statement included in that release. 

The Information Technology Enterprise Development contract “provides new opportunities to meet these challenges through technical innovation and strengthens our efforts to protect human health and the environment for the American public,” he added.

The ITED program is supposed to help automate aspects of EPA’s business operations and introduce emerging technologies, among other goals. Notably, CGI has worked with the EPA on a variety of other technology programs, including the Central Data Exchange, a key part of the agency’s electronic data reporting system. 

The contract is a reminder that software and other technology play a major role in assisting environmental regulators. It also comes amid a range of other IT challenges at the agency. For example, the Government Accountability Office recently flagged that the agency’s air quality tracking systems require major updates. Earlier this summer, the agency’s watchdog found that a system used to monitor radiation included vulnerabilities.

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Top cyber executives from CrowdStrike, CGI Federal, Armis and Intrusion said there would be “major impacts and delays” to key government cyber projects if the government is unable to pass annual appropriations bills or reach a continuing resolution, resulting in a shutdown, which is a realistic possibility according to some political experts. 

“Having done this for many years I’ve lived through a couple of government shutdowns and the impacts I think really day-to-day operationally are ones of continuity and resource availability,” Stephen Zakowicz, vice president of CGI Federal, said during a House Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee hearing. “So what are we able to do and make progress on? And ultimately what trade-offs are cyber agencies making when they’re facing questions of what resources they have left and how are they going to keep the doors open?”

Another cyber executive testifying Tuesday, Brian Gumbel, president of cyber intelligence platform company Armis, said that “this shutdown will obviously cause delays and some cyber projects will come to a halt. The longer we delay the longer our adversaries will have a chance to get in front of us. So delays are just terrible for this nation and it’s going to cause some major impact.”

While a continuing resolution would keep the government open and operating, some cybersecurity executives highlighted that without the full funding of annual appropriations, the government would be unable to move forward with new, innovative government cybersecurity programs, leaving big gaps in the government’s defense systems. 

“The thing that hits you the hardest is the new initiatives just get stopped completely and we need a lot of innovation in cyberspace. So y’all need a way to fund during a CR especially new programs and reactive reach responses and that’s sadly lacking across the table,” said Joe Head, the chief technology officer at cybersecurity company Intrusion.

“You can’t start a new effort under a CR but you can continue an old one. And this is all new, it’s new every day with a new breach, a new zero-day, a new attack,” Head added.

During the hearing, Rep. Rob Menendez, D-N.J., asked the cyber executives about the potential negative effects and ramifications on the ability of CISA to innovate and match the current threat environment if a year-long CR that locks in last year’s spending limits is passed.

“We need to obviously match what CISA is doing in order to progress some of the changes in the systems that we’re looking to put forth, so I think it’s a big concern,” said Gumbel from Armis.

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Systems development, data analytics and project management are all covered by the OneARC Strategic Support Services (OSSS) contract benefitting BFS.

The Fiscal Service leads the Treasury Department’s efforts to partner with agencies and slowly share information technology and services.

“The work we and our peers will do under the OneARC Strategic Support Services contract will ensure the bureau reaches as many customers as possible, with the very best technologies, processes and customer service available,” said David Cassidy, vice president of TCG, one of the 12 vendors awarded spots on the BPA on July 30.

TCG is one of six small business awardees along with Creoal Consulting, eMentum, i360technologies, PotomacWave Consulting, and TeraThink. The other awardees are Accenture Federal Services, Booz Allen Hamilton, CGI Federal, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, and Guidehouse.

As a center of excellence for financial management, the bureau shares those services with agencies, as well as IT, human resources and portfolio management. The OSSS contract will also support those efforts throughout its lifespan, which ends July 29, 2025.

Correction: Aug. 11, 2020. An original version of this story incorrectly stated the contract would support the Treasury Department’s effort to create a federal marketplace for shared financial management services. The contract has nothing to do with the quality services management office (QSMO) initiative.

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Accenture Federal Services, CGI, KPMG and Deloitte are all part of the potential $127 million, five-year contract.

Part of HUD, Ginnie Mae is a guarantor for the timely payment of principals and interest on mortgage-backed securities. The organization’s services, it says, minimize risks to taxpayers and make it easier for underserved populations to obtain mortgages.

The goal of the new BPA is to help Ginnie Mae modernize the software it uses to help lenders find mortgages for home buyers. The update also aims to improve user experience with the government mortgage lender.

To do this, Accenture, as one example, plans to introduce “innovative practices” like agile software development and new technologies like robotic process automation.

“We’re honored to help Ginnie Mae advance the IT transformation initiatives that are critical to supporting the modernization of the securitization platform,” Elaine Beeman, who leads AFS’ civilian portfolio, said in a statement. “We’re bringing together proven commercial capabilities, significant experience in financial services, and expertise in federal IT modernization and application development to help Ginnie Mae scale its capabilities quickly and deliver more value to their partners and customers.”

This software services contract is part of HUD’s overall push to modernize Ginnie Mae’s policies, processes and technology.

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Agency officials said last week that Henry “Jamie” Holcombe will assume the CIO position at USPTO, taking over from acting CIO David Chiles, who has served in the role since Owens’ October 2017 departure.

Holcombe comes to USPTO from IT contractor TJ Westlake, where he served as chief operating officer. He also previously served as CEO of cybersecurity contractor Visium Technologies and as vice president and general manager of Harris Corporation.

“We are honored and excited to have Jamie and his decades of demonstrated expertise and leadership skills come to serve at the USPTO,” agency Director and Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Andrei Iancu said in a statement.

Holcombe will oversee IT operations at the nation’s principal intellectual property agency, including ongoing modernization projects to wind down the agency’s legacy patent systems by 2020, and efforts to reduce a patent processing backlog.

“Our legacy IT systems are old and it is well beyond time to undertake a fundamental stabilization and modernization effort,” Iancu said. “As our new CIO, Jamie will have a unique opportunity to help the USPTO improve these systems and transition our agency to state-of-the-art technology.”

Those projects began under Owens, who tried to move USPTO to a more agile-based approach to technology. He later joined CGI Federal in November 2017 as the vice president of its solution development group for emerging technologies practice.

Chiles will continue to serve with the agency as its chief technology officers, USPTO officials confirmed to FedScoop.

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The continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM) program advanced progress on its Phase 3 plans this year, standing up a collection of data dashboards to monitor network traffic throughout federal agencies.

Officials also aimed to provide agency CISOs more flexibility to acquire the program’s cyber tools in a massive recompete of CDM contracts that were awarded over the summer and fall.

The combination of new visibility for agencies and new cybersecurity tools was intended to bolster the cyber defenses across the federal enterprise, hopefully allowing CDM to provide greater protection of government networks.

But while the acquisitions came fast, transitions to the CDM dashboards took a measured pace. Congress and the Trump administration also signaled the intent to reshape policies behind the program to reflect more efficiency and to solidify agencies’ stature in the cybersecurity sphere.

Here’s a look back at CDM’s highlights in 2018:

February: CDM awarded a six-year, $621 million contract to Booz Allen Hamilton as part of its Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense (DEFEND) program for Group B. The DEFEND contracts offer agencies updated cyber tools through a series of task orders that will be awarded throughout the year.­

Group B includes the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Interior, Transportation and Veterans Affairs, plus the Executive Office of the President and the Office of Personnel Management.

March: CDM program manager Kevin Cox said that portions of the CFO Act agencies had begun reporting their data to individual dashboards that would allow the program to monitor their network traffic.

DHS officials also received an authority to operate for a shared services network dashboard that would monitor small agency networks, plus provide a host of potential cyber capabilities.

April: Following DHS’s decision to consolidate its 16 security operations centers (SOCs), Cox said that the CDM program was “exploring” providing SOC-as-a-service capabilities through its newly created shared services dashboard.

June: CACI secures a $407 million contract to provide new cyber tools for CDM DEFEND’s Group A, which includes DHS and its components. Cox said then he expected $1 billion worth of DEFEND contracts will be awarded over the course of the summer.

July: Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, introduced the Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act, which aims to make the CDM program a systemic requirement for DHS and calls on its secretary to deliver a comprehensive CDM strategy to deliver to Congress.

CGI Federal secured the $530 million Group C contract to service the departments of Commerce, Justice, Labor, State and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

August: Booz Allen Hamilton obtained its second DEFEND award, a $1.03 billion contract for Group D, which includes the General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, NASA, Social Security Administration, Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Postal Service.

Cox also said later that month that CDM was working on addressing the challenges of monitoring mobile devices on federal networks by leveraging the request for service (RFS) functions built into the $530 million DEFEND Group C contract.

September: The House passed the Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act in a voice vote, while ManTech obtained the $668 million DEFEND Group E contract.

The contract serves the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, the HUD Office of Inspector General, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Science Foundation, Securities and Exchange Commission and Small Business Administration.

October: The Office of Management and Budget issues new FISMA guidance that requires agencies to purchase continuous monitoring tools from CDM contract vehicle unless they can provide a valid reason not to.

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The Fairfax, Virginia, technology company secured the Group E contract of DHS’s Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense (DEFEND) program, ManTech officials said Tuesday in a statement. The company will provide cybersecurity services to nine federal agencies.

“Government agencies are increasingly the target of sophisticated cyberthreats. We’re excited to support the CDM program to rapidly implement advanced cyber capabilities and secure the critical missions of our customers,” said Rick Wagner, president of ManTech’s Mission, Cyber & Intelligence Solutions group.

Officials from the CDM program — which monitors federal networks and protects them from cyberattack — have awarded a series of DEFEND contracts over the summer to provide federal agencies new tools and more flexibility on how to apply them.

Last month, DHS awarded its $1 billion Group D contract to Booz Allen Hamilton. CGI Federal secured the $530 million Group C contract in July, which includes request for service functions for cloud, mobile and boundary protections.

The Group E contract will run six years and service networks for the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, the HUD Office of Inspector General, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Science Foundation, Securities and Exchange Commission and Small Business Administration.

ManTech is no stranger to the CDM program. The tech company last secured two task orders worth $110 million in 2016 to provide continuous monitoring as a service and privileged access management services.

“ManTech has played a strategic role in the CDM program for over three years, supporting more than 65 agencies in both Phases 1 and 2, and we’re honored to continue supporting the CDM program’s critical role in defending federal networks,” said ManTech President and CEO Kevin Phillips, in a statement. “This latest award underscores their confidence in us as a long-term trusted partner.”

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Owens will take over as vice president of the solutions development group within CGI Federal’s emerging technology practice. The group is responsible for the contractor’s intellectual property business.

“I am excited to join such a well-regarded, high-end IT services and solutions provider and looking forward to leveraging my USTPO experience to develop cutting-edge solutions for CGI’s federal client base,” Owens said in a statement.

Prior to leaving USPTO, he spoke with FedScoop about his work modernizing the office’s legacy systems, sharing the lessons he learned over his nearly decade-long tenure as CIO.

“We do [have failures],” Owens said. “But we learn from them.”

“Any CIO who tells you that they don’t have a failed project is probably not challenging themselves,” he said.

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The agency — which projects it will have to process benefits for an additional 70 million Baby Boomers over the next decade — selected Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and CGI Federal Inc. to handle its IT operations.

“Because workloads in most critical areas will increase, we will continue to rely heavily on increased automation to provide high-quality services to the public’s changing needs, delivered more efficiently, faster and at lower cost,” the agency said in its original statement of work for the contract. “We will continue to modernize our systems, particularly in the internet environment to achieve agency goals and objectives.”

The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract may last up to 10 years —it has four two-year options to extend — and will cover software and web lifecycle opportunities, database administration, software engineering and management support, and systems administration and security support.

Northrop Grumman took the lion’s share of the contract’s value, netting a $3 billion award in potential task orders, followed by CGI Federal’s $2.4 billion and Lockheed Martin’s $2.3 billion, if all options are exercised.

The current IT contract — which was held by Northrop, Lockheed, Accenture Federal Services and CSRA — expires on Sept. 28, after which the new contract will provide IT task orders for new awardees and incumbents for technology and increased automation services across the enterprise.

If all options are exercised, the contract will run until September 2026.

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