10 ms·

This is an ID/IQ, which means that DISA has set aside $927M over five years for optional services and support. ID/IQs are a cool contract vehicle because it giv

by blister 10y ago

This is an ID/IQ, which means that DISA has set aside $927M over five years for optional services and support. ID/IQs are a cool contract vehicle because it gives the government a cost-effective way to buy just what they need as they go along. Even if they leveraged the hell out of this contract, they're basically buying the full power of MS for $185M per year. That's a hell of a good deal for the government.

frankydp 10y ago
+-1.5M DISA email users(Navy/MC unclass contracted separately) at 185M a year is quite a bargain. Not to mention desktop/laptop OS, collaboration tools, web servers, forest/domain management at 800 sites in 70 countries.
- blister 10y ago
  Oh dang. I estimated tens of thousands. I was off by an order of magnitude and I was the one trying to defend this contract to HackerNews. Lol. Yeah, DISA is freaking huge. We're doing some work for them right now and the scope is massive. Speaking of which... if any of you have a Secret clearance and want a job... :)
  - Retric 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, if you have a Secret clearance and it expires after 10 years where does that place you on the scale from never having a clearance 0 to having an active clearance 10.
    - USNetizen 10y ago
      Your Secret clearance now expires sometimes within a matter of months of being off a contract or out of a job that requires it. OPM is cleaning up the clearances, and revoking millions of them. I've had employees go from active TS to "eligible" status (which mean no clearance) in a matter of a few weeks after their contract ended. That whole "10 year active period" is not true, at least anymore, unless you are in a position that requires the clearance for that whole period of time. You're considered lucky to retain a clearance more than a month out of the service now, too. OPM is taking a tough stance on unused clearances and it has negatively impacted the job market for recently separated Veterans because the contracts that come out all require a pre-cleared workforce, which is a rapidly diminishing pool of people to pull from given that clearances are now being revoked as soon as someone gets out of the service or leaves their last position.
      - jonwachob91 10y ago
        I don't recall what the actual text says, but when I became a security manager we were always told it was 10/5 years eligible. But I've never even attempted to get a job that required a clearance after my ETS... But I think the question being asked is not what you answered. I think he's wondering if his clearance eligibility expired last year, where does he stand in line for getting a job that requires a clearance?
        blister 10y ago
        Yeah, and having already had a clearance in the past definitely helps speed up the process to "reactivate" it. The big bummer for companies like mine is that our contract says that we have to have employees with an active clearance. So to activate the clearance, we have to hire them, keep them on overhead for several months and they can't start working until their clearance is approved. It's a painful $20-$40k hit to the budget. :/
        frankydp 10y ago
        Do you not have a Prime? They should be supporting these kind of issues with supplement contract workers.
    - frankydp 10y ago
      Being eligible for a clearance is binary on the current investigation. Holding an active clearance is dependent on being read in, which is dependent on being eligible and having a need to know. Also, having an expired investigation is synonymous with having no investigation. If you miss the window to re-investigate you start from 0.
      - wyldfire 10y ago
        Interesting, thanks for the update. I always figured that for Secret level, at least, it seemed like a not-too-detailed investigation. No interviews, anyways.
  - ckozlowski 10y ago
    frankydp is likely referring to the DISA Enterprise Email (DEE) service. It's, in my opinion, DISA's largest and most mature "cloud" service. And it serves all of DoD. http://www.disa.mil/enterprise-services/applications/dod-enterprise-email http://www.disa.mil/enterprise-services/applications/dod-ent...
  - drharby 10y ago
    I have a Secret and am mid job-hunt. Working anywhere warm? :V Clearence has been verified as active as-of last month? I suppose they are keeping it due to my IRR status
- jbob2000 10y ago
  Jesus, I want to read the RFP for that.
ageofwant 10y ago
No, it simply means that DISA has chained itself to Microsoft in the past and now paying for that mistake. Its most certainly not a good deal considering all the options. $927M buys a whole lot of OpenStack or even AWS, with no "leverage a variety of proprietary resources and source code", i.e. gratuitous rent-seeking.
- blister 10y ago
  What is their option? 1.5 million Macs? 1.5 million RedHat installs? They've tried going that route in the past and then paid through the nose just to get basic desktop applications available to their workforce.
  - ageofwant 10y ago
    Yup, seems like their only option is to pay the ransom.
    - blister 10y ago
      Let's do some math. So, this is a $927,000,000 five year contract. Right? So let's tell the government not to pay talented companies to provide services and instead hire federal employees to build out infrastructure to do the same thing. Assuming we have kind of a $200,000/year base salary for the types of people we need (so like a GS-15 or so), how much does that cost the government over the same time span? $1,000,000/employee. So you would prefer the government hire 927 people full time for five years to completely replace MS? Do you think they'll do a good job? Is $200,000 salary a good deal, or will you end up hiring bad software developers at that rate? Can you hire better developers for $400,000/year? Can 464 people build a MS replacement in 5 years? Also, who will support it? Do we need to factor that in as well? Will we have to replace this new OS/tech stack in 5 years? Is that another billion dollars? I suspect that you're looking at the price and being blown away by the number. The DoD spends $580 billion each year (roughly). Are there any comparable companies with a $580 billion/year run rate? Expand your mind, friend. This is a bargain price for the government. You should do some digging and try to find out how much DISA is paying for their own version of AWS. I suspect that number will blow your mind as well.

by blister 10y ago

frankydp 10y ago

+-1.5M DISA email users(Navy/MC unclass contracted separately) at 185M a year is quite a bargain. Not to mention desktop/laptop OS, collaboration tools, web servers, forest/domain management at 800 sites in 70 countries.

blister 10y ago
Oh dang. I estimated tens of thousands. I was off by an order of magnitude and I was the one trying to defend this contract to HackerNews. Lol. Yeah, DISA is freaking huge. We're doing some work for them right now and the scope is massive. Speaking of which... if any of you have a Secret clearance and want a job... :)
- Retric 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, if you have a Secret clearance and it expires after 10 years where does that place you on the scale from never having a clearance 0 to having an active clearance 10.
  - USNetizen 10y ago
    Your Secret clearance now expires sometimes within a matter of months of being off a contract or out of a job that requires it. OPM is cleaning up the clearances, and revoking millions of them. I've had employees go from active TS to "eligible" status (which mean no clearance) in a matter of a few weeks after their contract ended. That whole "10 year active period" is not true, at least anymore, unless you are in a position that requires the clearance for that whole period of time. You're considered lucky to retain a clearance more than a month out of the service now, too. OPM is taking a tough stance on unused clearances and it has negatively impacted the job market for recently separated Veterans because the contracts that come out all require a pre-cleared workforce, which is a rapidly diminishing pool of people to pull from given that clearances are now being revoked as soon as someone gets out of the service or leaves their last position.
    - jonwachob91 10y ago
      I don't recall what the actual text says, but when I became a security manager we were always told it was 10/5 years eligible. But I've never even attempted to get a job that required a clearance after my ETS... But I think the question being asked is not what you answered. I think he's wondering if his clearance eligibility expired last year, where does he stand in line for getting a job that requires a clearance?
      - blister 10y ago
        Yeah, and having already had a clearance in the past definitely helps speed up the process to "reactivate" it. The big bummer for companies like mine is that our contract says that we have to have employees with an active clearance. So to activate the clearance, we have to hire them, keep them on overhead for several months and they can't start working until their clearance is approved. It's a painful $20-$40k hit to the budget. :/
        frankydp 10y ago
        Do you not have a Prime? They should be supporting these kind of issues with supplement contract workers.
  - frankydp 10y ago
    Being eligible for a clearance is binary on the current investigation. Holding an active clearance is dependent on being read in, which is dependent on being eligible and having a need to know. Also, having an expired investigation is synonymous with having no investigation. If you miss the window to re-investigate you start from 0.
    - wyldfire 10y ago
      Interesting, thanks for the update. I always figured that for Secret level, at least, it seemed like a not-too-detailed investigation. No interviews, anyways.
- ckozlowski 10y ago
  frankydp is likely referring to the DISA Enterprise Email (DEE) service. It's, in my opinion, DISA's largest and most mature "cloud" service. And it serves all of DoD. http://www.disa.mil/enterprise-services/applications/dod-enterprise-email http://www.disa.mil/enterprise-services/applications/dod-ent...
- drharby 10y ago
  I have a Secret and am mid job-hunt. Working anywhere warm? :V Clearence has been verified as active as-of last month? I suppose they are keeping it due to my IRR status
jbob2000 10y ago
Jesus, I want to read the RFP for that.

ageofwant 10y ago

No, it simply means that DISA has chained itself to Microsoft in the past and now paying for that mistake. Its most certainly not a good deal considering all the options. $927M buys a whole lot of OpenStack or even AWS, with no "leverage a variety of proprietary resources and source code", i.e. gratuitous rent-seeking.

blister 10y ago
What is their option? 1.5 million Macs? 1.5 million RedHat installs? They've tried going that route in the past and then paid through the nose just to get basic desktop applications available to their workforce.
- ageofwant 10y ago
  Yup, seems like their only option is to pay the ransom.
  - blister 10y ago
    Let's do some math. So, this is a $927,000,000 five year contract. Right? So let's tell the government not to pay talented companies to provide services and instead hire federal employees to build out infrastructure to do the same thing. Assuming we have kind of a $200,000/year base salary for the types of people we need (so like a GS-15 or so), how much does that cost the government over the same time span? $1,000,000/employee. So you would prefer the government hire 927 people full time for five years to completely replace MS? Do you think they'll do a good job? Is $200,000 salary a good deal, or will you end up hiring bad software developers at that rate? Can you hire better developers for $400,000/year? Can 464 people build a MS replacement in 5 years? Also, who will support it? Do we need to factor that in as well? Will we have to replace this new OS/tech stack in 5 years? Is that another billion dollars? I suspect that you're looking at the price and being blown away by the number. The DoD spends $580 billion each year (roughly). Are there any comparable companies with a $580 billion/year run rate? Expand your mind, friend. This is a bargain price for the government. You should do some digging and try to find out how much DISA is paying for their own version of AWS. I suspect that number will blow your mind as well.