Cloud opportunities to pursue right now at CBP

By Kevin Shaker, senior analyst

In recent years, cloud services and cloud migration opportunities have become a large IT push for agencies that want to lower their hardware costs and hire more skilled workers across the civilian landscape. Larger agencies by nature take longer to meet cloud progress milestones due to their robust infrastructure and trickier siloed mission systems and applications.

One civilian agency starting its cloud journey is within the Department of Homeland Security, the largest funded sub-agency. U.S. Customs and Border Protection wants to push a large portion of its IT to the cloud.

On February 28, CBP released an RFI that asks for help migrating its applications out of its Office of Information Technology’s National Data Center in Springfield, Va., to cloud services. The RFI submissions are due by April 16, which means there is still time to get involved if you have cloud implementation technology.

The RFI’s cover letter states that the agency is looking for methods in which it can best perform this migration, which is where you will have legroom to incorporate your technology into the proposed solution. Responses will need to include timelines to help meet the migration goal of the end of FY19.

There are three major CBP data centers, each with their own application portfolios that will need to be migrated to the cloud. If you offer cloud implementation and integration solutions, you’ll want to tailor your message to the Enterprise Data Management and Engineering Directorate under Ed Mays. His group helps to build and sustain application platforms and can provide insight on what protocols will be needed to get the apps ready for cloud computing.

You’ll also find it helpful to reach out to individual application teams that focus on the previous in-house maintenance. If you tailor your response to the criteria you find from the two groups and incorporate proper security measures, you’ll have a decent chance at winning an important opportunity here.

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