Understanding the GSA Ascend BPA

By Tara Franzonello, Program Development Manager, immixGroup

The General Services Administration’s FAS ITC (Federal Acquisition Service, Information Technology Center) is standardizing cloud acquisition with the “Ascend” blanket purchase agreement (BPA). Here’s what you need to know:

Ascend is a multiple-award blanket purchase agreement against the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Special Item Numbers 518210C cloud and cloud-related IT professional services and 54151S IT professional services. It is intended to help agencies simplify cloud acquisition and meet cybersecurity requirements.

BPA task orders can be placed under any of three independent primary pools identified by the government: