The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is opening an $18 billion competition for a 10-year contract vehicle that would provide the CMS a single avenue to buy data center services, according to a Washington Post report.
Alexander Serbau, Deltek senior analyst for health and human services, told the Post the program is intended to set up a group of data centers owned and operated by contractors, but all purchased through one program.
“The biggest source of frustration for CMS is they have to procure data center-related services using several different acquisition vehicles, ” Serbau said.
The program covers seven areas of services:
- application hosting
- resource-based enterprise
- telecommunication and networking
- disaster recovery and enterprise security
- infrastructure systems software development
- seat management
The CMS will award both a large-business and small-business version of the contract, the Post reported. Proposals are due Feb. 29 and Serbau said the government is expected to announce awards next fall.
