Air Force Readies $800 Million Outsourcing DealAir Force Readies $800 Million Outsourcing Deal

The Air Force is ramping up a search for a new contractor for its Global Combat Support System (GCSS-AF) contract, an IT infrastructure and services outsourcing deal estimated to be worth almost $800 million.

Late Friday, the Air Force issued a request for proposals for the deal, which is expected to be awarded in April 2011. Government market research firm FedSources pegs the value of the contract at $791 million.

GCSS-AF has long had at its core a set of logistics systems, but also includes a litany of other Air Force systems integrated together with a services-oriented architecture. Included under its umbrella are a common hosting and messaging environment, business analytics, collaboration services including instant messaging, security services for almost 300 Air Force applications, a logistics data warehouse, and even the Air Force's Web portal.

The fact that GCSS-AF includes the Air Force portal means that more than 800,000 users across the Air Force use GCSS-AF regularly. According to the IT Dashboard and the Air Force's Exhibit 300 capital asset plan for the project, the plan is to increase that number by 40,000 this year alone. The Air Force is working to improve the site's search function (powered by Autonomy's search products), among other improvements.

According to the RFP, the new contractor may be responsible for, among other things, managing GCSS-AF's security service, supporting the hosting of applications, providing data warehousing and messaging services, and potentially developing an "enclave" to provide GCSS-AF services to the Department of Homeland Security (GCSS already has a third-party user in the FBI).

Lockheed Martin has been the contractor on GCSS-AF since the mid-1990s, but its original contract ended in 2008 and the Air Force is now in the middle of a short-term bridge contract as it looks for the next long-term partner on the deal. According to the government's IT Dashboard, the Air Force is spending $91.1 million on GCSS-AF in fiscal 2010. The new contract has three base years with four one-year options.