FedBizOpps | The Contracting Education Academy

August 15, 2019 By AMK

DHS building a contract to manage all its cybersecurity operations centers

The single contract will likely have multiple awardees, each capable of managing the entirety of operations at each of the department’s 17 security centers.

The Homeland Security Department is building a contract vehicle of vendors able to manage its 17 unclassified security operations centers—the cybersecurity hubs for the government’s central cybersecurity agency.

The agency issued a request for information Aug. 7th outlining its tentative acquisition strategy and asking for feedback from industry on capabilities and approach to spinning up additional resources in times of crisis, such as during a large-scale cyberattack.

“The Department of Homeland Security has a complex and demanding mission,” the notice on FedBizOpps reads. “To assist in meeting that mission, DHS needs robust and effective information systems. It also needs to protect those systems from cyber threats posed by nation-states and criminal enterprises.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/08/dhs-building-contract-manage-all-its-cybersecurity-operations-centers/159032/

March 4, 2019 By AMK

IBM to support operation, migration on 2 GSA contract data systems

IBM will operate and maintain two online contracting data repositories under the purview of the General Services Administration (GSA) as part of a $24.5M contract from the agency.

GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service said in a FedBizOpps notice posted last Wednesday that IBM will help manage the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) and the System for Award Management (SAM) as well as migrate data and functionality to an updated version of the SAM system.

Source: https://www.govconwire.com/2019/02/ibm-to-support-operation-migration-on-two-gsa-contracting-data-systems/

May 8, 2018 By AMK

Don’t panic, FedBizOpps is working — it just has a new IP

Federal employees, vendors, researchers and reporters, alike, rely on the FedBizOpps website as a repository of all things federal contracting. But some more security-minded users might have trouble accessing the site lately.

FBO.gov was recently switched to a new hosting environment by the contractor that manages the site, Symplicity Corporation. The General Services Administration directed questions on why the change was necessary to the company, which did not return requests for comment.

Users with strong security measures that restrict access to only a handful of known websites—a practice known as whitelisting—might not be able to get to the site until the new IP address is added to the approved list.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/05/dont-panic-fedbizopps-working-it-just-has-new-ip/147980/

October 12, 2017 By AMK

GSA decision to debar contractor is overruled after judge calls it ‘arbitrary and capricious’

The former government contractor who was busted for hacking into a non-federal competitor’s network is back.

Ariel Friedler, the founder and former CEO of Symplicity Corp. — a government contractor who had run FedBizOpps.gov and other contracting platforms for much of the 2000s — won a significant suspension and debarment decision in the Washington D.C. District Court.

The court ruled that the General Services Administration (GSA) unfairly debarred Friedler in 2015 because GSA did not give him notice of all of the grounds for his debarment and an opportunity to respond to each of them prior to the agency’s final debarment determination.

The court ruled that GSA “relied on Friedler’s alleged post-conviction conduct in reaching the conclusion that he should be debarred but failed to notify him of these purported violations — a failure that is unquestionably improper under the applicable provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. And because this court cannot reasonably find that [GSA] would have debarred Friedler on the basis of his criminal conviction alone, the court cannot conclude that the agency’s error in relying on the two additional grounds without providing notice was harmless.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2017/10/gsa-decision-to-debar-contractor-is-overruled-after-judge-calls-it-arbitrary-and-capricious/

March 6, 2017 By AMK

Federal agencies sometimes struggle with creating postings on FedBizOpps

The Ides of March came early — at least for one employee of the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command contracting office.

While March 15 is known as a rather notorious day in history, March 1, 2017 may now take on special significance as well (at least among federal employees) as the day that a contracting official in Seattle apparently couldn’t figure out how to delete a posting from FedBizOpps (FBO), the website where virtually all federal contracts valued at $25,000 or more are posted daily.

Unable to delete a contract posting, the contracting official simply titled it, in all caps: “DON’T KNOW HOW TO DELETE THESE.”

**This is a screenshot of the FedBizOpps posting created on Mar. 1, 2017 by the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command.**

The words “DON’T KNOW HOW TO DELETE THESE” appear in the place where the title of a solicitation or contract award normally appears. In this case, the posting indicates that the contract was awarded on December 2, 2013, and it was a sole source award.

The FBO notice also indicates that the contract was for architectural and engineering services, and that the contract number is HSCG50-14-R-PKUGH1.

In fairness, the contracting office at the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command isn’t the only contracting office that sometimes struggles with FBO postings. Last August, the Denver-based National Park Service contracts office of the U.S. Department of Interior advertised a contract opportunity for “ASSES & DEVELOP LEADERSHIP TRAINING RDI.”

***Presumably, the National Park Service wanted an assessment of their leadership training program performed when they created this FedBizOpps posting on Aug, 29, 2016.***

The Coast Guard’s FBO posting can be seen at: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=97fab27175e8c6b4216141611cbfce48&tab=core&_cview=0.

The National Park Service’s FBO posting is at: https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5fbc373ae5c98756189e3c2277541fbb&tab=core&_cview=1.

The single contract will likely have multiple awardees, each capable of managing the entirety of operations at each of the department’s 17 security centers.

IBM will operate and maintain two online contracting data repositories under the purview of the General Services Administration (GSA) as part of a $24.5M contract from the agency.

Federal employees, vendors, researchers and reporters, alike, rely on the FedBizOpps website as a repository of all things federal contracting. But some more security-minded users might have trouble accessing the site lately.

The former government contractor who was busted for hacking into a non-federal competitor’s network is back.

The Ides of March came early — at least for one employee of the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command contracting office.

Search this Website