NASA Outlines Consolidation Plan For IT Services NASA plans to consolidate its IT infrastructure services into five large contracts as part of its strategic sourcing initiative. At a July 23 industry day in Washington, NASA officials said small business participation in the contracts has not been determined, but one or more might be set aside, according to the market research firm Fedxccel. The project website, http://i3p-acq.ksc.nasa.gov/i3p/, acknowledges that the consolidation will have an impact on small firms. “If any planned component is deemed to be bundled, NASA will follow the bundling procedures outlined in the FAR and NASA FAR Supplement, and specific action will be taken to maximize small business participation, including provisions that encourage small business teaming,” the website says. The contracts in the IT Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) are grouped in these areas of performance: *End User Services. Program management, provisioning, and support of desktops, laptops, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and office automation software. These requirements are currently provided by the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA (ODIN) contract. The lead agency for this contract is the NASA Shared Services Center. *Communications Services. Wide Area Network (WAN) services, Local Area Network (LAN) services, telecommunications Services, Video Services, and Data Services. These requirements are currently provided by the Unified NASA Information Technology Services (UNITeS) contract, Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA (ODIN) contract and NASA Center IT/Communications contracts. The lead agency is Marshall Space Flight Center. *Data Center Services Data Center Operations, Facility Management, Application housing and hosting services, Storage services, and license management. These requirements are currently provided by the Unified NASA Information Technology Services (UNITeS) contract and NASA Center IT/Communications contracts. The lead agency is undetermined. *Infrastructure Applications (Web) Services Public web-site hosting, web content management and integration, and messaging and calendaring services. These services are currently provided by the NASA Web Portal Services contract and the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA (ODIN) contract. The lead agency is Goddard Space Flight Center. *Business or Enterprise Applications Services. Applications services associated with the Enterprise Applications Competency Center. These requirements are currently provided by the Unified NASA Information Technology Services (UNITeS) contract. The lead agency is Marshall. Draft RFPs are due to be released in November, with awards in September 2009. “It is still unclear what parts of ODIN and UNITeS might be combined to support I3P,” analyst Vajira Ranaviraja of the market research firm Input wrote in a blog entry.