Why Can’t We Eliminate the “Technology Refresh” RFP?

February 2, 2009 / G C Network /

NJVC to Spotlight Cloudcuity at Gartner Data Center Conference

By G C Network | November 15, 2012

Las Vegas., Nov. 15, 2012 — NJVC, an information technology solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, announces it will spotlight its Cloudcuity™ framework for delivering secure and unified cloud management…

NJVC Cloud Expert Kevin L. Jackson Launches Second Book: GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services

By G C Network | November 9, 2012

VIENNA, Va., Nov. 8, 2012—NJVC, an information technology (IT) solutions provider headquartered in northern Virginia, is pleased to announce that Kevin L. Jackson, vice president and general manager, cloud services,…

Virtustream a Visionary in Gartner 2012 IaaS Magic Quadrant

By G C Network | October 27, 2012

Congratulations to NJVC Cloudcuity partner Virtustream for being positioned as a visionary in the Gartner 2012 IaaS Magic Quadrant! Magic Quadrants provide a graphical competitive positioning of four types of…

GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services Now Available

By G C Network | October 22, 2012

I’m happy and proud to announce the release of my second book, “GovCloud II: Implementation and Cloud Brokerage Services” by my publisher Government Training Inc.   The public and private…

NJVC® Introduces Cloudcuity™ AppDeployer to Create and Sell Software Applications

By G C Network | October 18, 2012

Developers Can Create, Deploy and Publish Apps in the Cloud for Free Vienna, Va., Oct. 18, 2012 — NJVC®, an information technology (IT) solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, introduces…

NJVC® Announces the Cloudcuity™ Government Marketplace, Powered by Virtustream’s Secure Cloud xChange

By G C Network | October 4, 2012

Vienna, Va., Oct. 4, 2012—NJVC®, an information technology solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, and Virtustream, Inc., a leading enterprise cloud software company, today announced a new alliance to provide…

Cloudcuity™: Thought Leadership Translated to Operational Excellence

By G C Network | September 26, 2012

As my long time readers have certainly noticed, the frequency of my posts have lengthened over the past few months. First, I would like to offer my apologies for being…

NJVC® Unveils Cloudcuity™ Umbrella Framework for NJVC Cloud Services

By G C Network | September 13, 2012

Vienna, Va., Sept. 13, 2012 — NJVC®, an information technology (IT) solutions provider headquartered in Northern Virginia, introduces Cloudcuity™, a new framework for the company’s cloud service offerings to help…

NJVC® Announces SaaS Accelerate: Specialized Infrastructure Hosting and Managed Services Program for Software-as-a-Service Providers

By G C Network | August 25, 2012

VIENNA, Va., Aug. 15, 2012 —NJVC® announces the release of NJVC SaaS Accelerate, a specialized infrastructure hosting and managed services offering designed to support the business needs of software-as-a-service (SaaS)…

Texas Cloud Computing Lessons Learned

By G C Network | August 12, 2012

Late last week  the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) released an important whitepaper that reviewed it’s multi-year Pilot Texas Cloud Offering (PTCO). This project was designed to allow a…

In order to maintain life cycle and technology, the Navy is upgrading server farms at fifteen (15) sites and any future sites throughout the Far East, Europe and Middle East regions. According to the RFP:
“The Server Farm Refresh is focused on upgrading hardware that is already out of warranty and also improving the data services, performance and future capabilities while still meeting the needs of the Fleets.” 
In outlining the service’s requirement, the RFP specifies a solution that shall not:
  • Require a significant increase in staffing levels;
  • Introduce the requirement for senior skill sets that may not be available or exceedingly costly to obtain; or
  • Exceed a 10% increase in seat cost of $2244 per year.
In their proposals, offeror’s are directed to include:
  • all KVM and UPS devices & associated peripherals
  • administrators and systems engineers
  • the capability to power up, power-down, reboot and install operating system and applications and perform administrative functions remotely across the enterprise. 
  • a solution that is secure, scalable, manageable and supportable through 2015.
  • a minimum 5 year warranty on provided hardware. 
  • A component failure will not cause outages for the customers
  • use of redundant/load balanced servers for critical devices is required
  • a target service availability of 99.999% or greater 
  • the necessary capacity to support future growth of sites, users, and services without major disruption or overhaul of infrastructure 
  • scalable/upgradeable to the latest technology
  • able to support industry changes to operating systems or software upgrades without requiring expenditure of additional funds 
  • COTS based
Is it me or is this RFP a commercial for cloud computing?
This procurement explicitly procures new technology to refresh old technology. All that does is guarantee another refresh after another few years.  Why not outline a competition for the design and delivery of a private cloud that meets these requirements and all applicable DoD directives. Isn’t that much simpler and more direct? 
What do you think?
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G C Network

1 Comments

  1. Anonymous on March 25, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    “Is it me or is this RFP a commercial for cloud computing?”

    It’s you. Sounds like the Navy wants new equipment right down to the laces, and someone to manage availability, complexity, and drudgery – the headaches.

    They will be required by DISA/DoD to keep their computing/storage on a DoD site (such as a DECC). They will be required to keep the data and custom applications on DoD soil, and isn’t offsiting that stuff what cloud is (the vendor provides everything but the end station)?

    I don’t think DoD can buy cloud. They can DO cloud, but they can’t buy it.

    I’d like to know if I was right…

    Derrick Foy

    [email protected]
    http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1215307823



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