USDA to Drive Cloud Adoption Across Department With STRATUS Contract
Summary
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plans to drive cloud adoption across the department with a new centralized cloud basic ordering agreement it calls STRATUS, according to a pre-solicitation notice USDA released last week. This collection of BOAs, formally known as USDA STRATUS, will provide rapid access to cloud capabilities, with individual pools of contractors for each of the three categories. “The intent is to create efficiencies across USDA IT operations, allowing customer Associate and Assistant Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to focus on mission business application deployments and sustainment, while using [Digital Infrastructure Services Center] services supported by the STRATUS BOAs to reduce costs, better allocate resources, and continuously improve and evolve USDA’s IT enterprise to keep pace with technology and business model advancements,” the notice explains. Specifically, USDA hopes to expand its portfolio of “complex solutions from design [and] architecture to implementation and support,” increase the speed at which it can deliver competitive pricing and rapid implementation of cloud services for its internal customers, provide enhances cloud brokerage services, and “identify approved sources of supply for commercial cloud landing zones, enterprise software-as-a-service and data, geospatial, and security management services.” However, USDA has yet to offer any details on what the STRATUS acquisition will look like. However, USDA expects to issue additional requests for information, sources sought, or other notices soon.