USDA STRATUS Program Pre-Solicitation Notice

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USDA STRATUS Program Pre-Solicitation Notice 

Pre-Solicitation Notice 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is contemplating issuing a suite of department-wide Cloud Basic Ordering Agreements (BOA) to obtain rapid access to hyperscale cloud service providers, cloud integration and development providers, and SaaS providers/resellers. This collection of BOAs, formally known as USDA STRATUS, will provide rapid access to cloud capabilities.  

 STRATUS is envisioned as consisting of three multi-award pools of services and vendors:  

Pool 1: Hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSP) 

Pool 2: Cloud Integration and Development 

Pool 3: SaaS providers/resellers 

The Office of Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) of USDA OCIO’s Digital Infrastructure Services Center (DISC) https://www.usda.gov/disc is the program owner. DISC provides enterprise-wide IT services to USDA Mission Area (MA) (see https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas) customers as well as external Federal Government customers. 

One of DISC’s current offerings that is included under STRATUS is serving as a consolidated point of entry for cloud (Hyperscale / Infrastructure as a Service [IaaS] / Platform as a Service [PaaS]) procurements. This has historically been viewed as the “easy button for access to the cloud”, providing shared USDA Authority to Operate (ATO) inheritance beyond the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) controls, consistent billing and approved services, and the ability to access cloud integrator services to support USDA Mission Areas and Federal Government customers. 

As the DISC organization meets the demands of its customers, it will increasingly incorporate commercial cloud capabilities and further extend them with mature platforms and DevSecOps capabilities that improve: 

• Flexibility 

• Data Transparency 

• Cost Optimization 

• Responsiveness to Mission Area Needs  

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 DISC 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 USDA vision for how STRATUS will enhance their ability to provide services includes: 

• Expanding the portfolio of providing complex solutions from design/architecture to implementation and support. 

• Increasing DISC ability to quickly respond to Mission Areas and external agencies who already have a design/architecture and are looking for competitive pricing and rapid implementation. 

• Continue providing cloud brokering services for customers who want to own their own task orders but with more data transparency and shared services. 

• Identify approved sources of supply for commercial cloud landing zones, enterprise SaaS and data, geospatial, and security management services. 

Achieving this vision is enabled by having:  

• A contract solution that will serve the next ten years and beyond. 

• Established contract guardrails. 

• Malleable contracts that can evolve with maturation of governance, evolution of technology, and vendor dynamics. 

• Vision for the future captured uniformly across support contracts. 

• An ecosystem of contractors aligned to the DISC vision for information transparency and integrated efforts across contracted services regardless of contractor selection for specific tasks/requirements  

• Accessible contracts with intuitive, streamlined business processes 

STRATUS includes a combination of new work and the potential to shift some work from existing contract vehicles. 

Industry Engagement 

There is no formal request for information or solicitation at this time. This notice is intended to publicize USDA’s upcoming intent and prepare industry for the USDA STRATUS program and acquisition. Additional requests for information, sources sought, or other notices may be issued soon.