DHS wants to consolidate portals and Web sites, now it’s looking for the right tools
The Homeland Security Department will consolidate more than 20 existing portals and 150 Web sites into one enterprise portal serving the entire agency—just as soon as commercial software catches up with its needs.
DHS earlier this month issued a Sources Sought notice on Fedbizopps.gov, asking vendors to describe their qualifications for building a sophisticated Web portal.
DHS last week extended the deadline for responses from contractors for at least 30 days from the original May 25 closing date. Officials said vendors submitted “numerous comments and questions,” and the agency would respond to them before accepting vendor information.
Part of the delay is because vendors still are bringing their service-oriented architecture products to a mature state of development, department officials said in the notice. The procurement documents call for the vendors to build systems that rely on open architecture and commercial products, as well as standards that do not restrict the portal to using one software product.
Officials do have a plan in place for when they eventually receive vendor technical and past performance statements.
DHS would issue a request for quotes from companies selected based on their abilities. The RFQ would include a statement of objectives that would let bidders define many of the methods used to satisfy contract goals.
This is the latest delay in a project that is already lagging about two months behind a previously announced schedule.
A DHS spokesman said the department likely would not comment on the acquisition now that it is under way.
When DHS finally awards the contracts, it plans to use its enterprise contract with Akamai Technologies Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., to provide the platform for the new portal, which is to serve both internal and external users.
Several DHS organizational elements already use Akamai’s fleet of more than 14,000 servers, which the company claims handles about 15 percent of global Internet traffic, for content delivery and application processing, department officials said.
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