What Interested Vendors Should Note for the Upcoming DHS CBP Enterprise Cloud Integration Services (ECIS) Procurement

Overview

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Office of Information Technology (OIT) is seeking a contractor that will allow the program office to leverage multiple Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Anything as a Service (XaaS) across a multitude of leading providers within industry to include CBP’s existing CSPs. DHS desires for the eventual awardee to use the public cloud infrastructure for the provisioning of CSP resources, connectivity between the CSPs and the CBP network, and secure Cloud Access Points in order to provide integrated cloud operations and management services, oversight, reporting, consulting and other SME requirements as they come to fruition.

Recent Developments

As AlphaBrook set out to determine the procurement vehicle for this contract, Contracting Officer Jaime Reed informed us that CBP stakeholders “hope to have the solicitation issued on GSA MAS,” indicating that GSA MAS is the likely procurement vehicle for this effort. In addition to our conversation with Ms. Reed, we also spoke with ITCD Director Hyun “Julie” Koo on the structure of the CBP ECIS contract. She explained that the contract will "most likely be a BPA." We also asked if this procurement will be full and open, as our previous research and feedback indicates, and she agreed, “Yes, right now we are leaning towards full and open.”

In determining the RFP release date for this effort, further discussed with Ms. Reed, who informed us that CBP decision makers "hope to have a solicitation issued sometime in FY2022." Therefore, the award date is predicted to be the end of FY2022, possibly FY2023. We caution that this information is subject to change as the government finalizes details.

Incumbent Performance

After speaking with Delese Braxton – the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) for ECIS, to find information on the incumbent performance, it was determined that this is a new effort. Ms. Braxton explained, “This is a brand-new effort. There are no bridge or incumbent contracts. The ECIS effort is so completely different than what we are doing right now. So, right now, we’re kind of getting cloud services independently through FirstSource II and NASA SEWP and those types of vehicles. There’s nothing that we’re replacing it with that is essentially equal to what we’re trying to do with ECIS.” The fact that they are currently using SEWP and FirstSource II to obtain cloud, highlights the fact that current cloud work is the simple provision of needed products, as these vehicles are almost exclusively focused on product availability, and do not have comprehensive services with them as required under ECIS.

Pain Points Interested Vendors Should Note

Agility in Data Transfer – Through the course of our outreach, we engaged with OIT’s IT Acquisition Director, Lorenzo Jacobs, who works directly within the responsible program office. While discussing the ECIS requirement, Mr. Jacobs stated, “I think the biggest thing is being able to move our data at will, when we need to,” indicating a need for agility in data transfer. Mr. Jacobs continued to highlight the challenges faced in following the cloud guidelines set by the federal government, stating, “This is a government agency, so, if a policy comes down and says that we need to move, then we move, or we need to follow suit with what all other government agencies are moving to – we have to have the ability to do that. So, when it [federal government] says we need to recover our data, we need to recover it with no ifs, ands, or buts about it,” indicating the winning vendor will more specifically be responsible for enabling the systems and platforms to be flexible and efficient in their ability to quickly recapture data and transmit to other systems or applications. Increased fluidity in this process is thus highly sought after, and vendors that can showcase a previous history of improving IT systems data recovery and transfer capabilities with cloud technology could increase their chances of winning the competition.

Integration of Future Requirements to Existing Effort – AlphaBrook also identified Travis Ross, IT Manager within OIT, as someone who is highly involved with ECIS, which he confirmed by answering, “That’s correct,” when asked if he is the program manager for this requirement. While discussing contractor attributes important to ECIS, he stated, “the ability to dynamically integrate future requirements into like a single pane of glass” is very important. Mr. Ross further explained, “So, let’s pretend the vendor or offeror has a portal that we acquire all of our services through. You know whether that’s databases, monitoring, audit log retention, and we find out this brand-new fancy service is available in two years, so two years in the future. And we go ‘Oh man, we got to have this, this is awesome!’ Well, [what is] expected to be provisioned within the requirements of the solicitation is to have whoever the vendor may be, to work those business-to-business agreements, on behalf of CBP, and provide that through the portal so that in 30, 60, [or] 90, days from the point of identifying that we need a new service, that they add it to us so that we can subscribe to it. Versus CBP having to go out and acquire that service on an individual basis.” This suggests that prospective vendors should have the capability and wherewithal to integrate future cloud services and capabilities into the existing requirement as they arise and are seen to provide value to the CBP organization.

Considerable Experience with Many CSPs – AlphaBrook spoke with Elizabeth “Liz” Scharen, a Program Analyst for OIT, explained the current cloud environment to AlphaBrook, stating, “What we are using the most of is Amazon Web Services [AWS].” When questioned if there is any other CSP that is being utilized by CBP that could be included in ECIS she replied, “We are looking for [the utilization of] multiple services providers, not just one,” indicating that CBP desires a vendor capable of working across multiple CSPs. During another conversation with Mr. Ross, he also noted, “We use services from IBM, from Amazon, from Microsoft, from Google, so I wouldn’t focus too much on any single service provider.” In addition to Ms. Scharen and Mr. Ross, Ms. Koo, also noted that OIT is seeking a vendor “that has the different platforms – the cloud platforms – the actual cloud – so all of the cloud services, and it offers SalesForce and ServiceNow and other things that are a part of the entire cloud infrastructure [of CBP].” Vendors who have extensive experience with the cloud solutions utilized by CBP, such as AWS, Oracle, IBM, Azure, SalesForce, ServiceNow, among others, will likely be favored by the source evaluation board for this requirement.

Large-Scale Cloud Integration Experience– While discussing challenges with the upcoming effort with Ms. Koo, she noted of ECIS, “It’s just going to be an integrator contract that manages and helps us oversee the entire cloud infrastructure” suggesting that the contract will require a vendor to oversee the entire portfolio of cloud providers that support CBP. She continued, “It’s more of an [cloud] integrator type role. What, we’re trying to do with ECIS is completely different than what we’ve done [before]. This is a totally new effort, with a totally new construct and a new paradigm. This is why it’s $2.2 billion dollars and not just a compilation of all the spend that we have currently on cloud, because we’re just trying to do something completely different.” Thus, it is imperative for vendors seeking a prime award on this effort to have experience both integrating and fostering widespread multi-cloud environments for large departments.

High-Level Communication Issues – On further discussion regarding challenges with ECIS, Mr. Ross actively voiced frustrations over a lack of communication within the customer office and higher up in the agency, which has led to delays in procurement. He stated, “I get amazed almost every month on how it still gets delayed because of senior management to senior management communications.” AlphaBrook also spoke with Delese Braxton within CBP’s OIT, COR for ECIS who shared a similar sentiment to Mr. Ross, relaying concerns with delays stating, “We’re waiting for approvals from DHS to move forward,” and that CBP is “almost at a standstill” due to a lack of communication between high-level stakeholders. Ms. Koo also touched on the latter point, mentioning that CBP was “at a standstill” in their acquisition process at the moment. Vendors should view this as an opportunity to showcase the ability to provide the customer with effective solutions regardless of the perceived lack of communication between high-level stakeholders within CBP and DHS, as well as their own communicational competencies. 

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