Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Implementation Support Phase II

This action as not awarded competitively and/or was not fixed-price. The requirement was awarded as a Sole Source Time & Material type contract off of Sterling Computer's NASA SEWP Group A contract.

Sole Source Justification:

Per OMB M-21-07 mandate, FirstNet is required to comply with the following milestones:

Identify opportunities for IPv6 pilots and complete at least one pilot of an IPv6-only operational system by the end of FY 2021 and report the results of the pilot to 0MB upon request;
NOTE: FirstNet missed deadline; however, we have an active engagement with a vendor (Sterling Computers) to implement IPv6-only Pilot and is on track to complete this implementation by the end of this fiscal year.
a) At least 20% of IP-enabled assets on Federal networks are operating in IPv6-only environments by the end of FY 2023;
b) At least 50% of IP-enabled assets on Federal networks are operating in IPv6-only environments by the end of FY 2024;
c) At least 80% of IP-enabled assets on Federal networks are operating in IPv6-only environments by the end of FY 2025

In order to meet this mandate, we have broken the IPv6 Implementation Project into two phases.

Phase 1 This is the current engagement with Sterling Computers. Sterling Computers is conducting an assessment/discovery of FirstNet IT environment and validating that the IT assets are IPv6 compatible. Sterling Computers is tasked to design an IPv6 addressing schema for the enterprise (on-premises as well as resources that reside in the Cloud). Additionally, Sterling Computers is tasked to deploy an IPv6 only Pilot and ensure that internal and external network traffic flows successfully.

Phase 2 is deployment of the IPv6 project to the FirstNet IT production environment based on the design that was developed in phase1 as well as the lessons learned from the pilot that was conducted in phase 1. If we award the follow-on work to the Sterling Computers, we can leverage the knowledge of the current resources involved in the Phase 1 engagement (Assessment/Discovery, IPv6 Addressing Design). We will also be able to leverage the lessons learned from deploying the IPv6 Pilot.

This approach will save FirstNet time and money by not having to recomplete this requirement with potentially awarding to a different vendor. If Government did award to a different vendor for Phase 2 of this work, FirstNet would have to use resources which would cost a significant amount of time and money getting the new vendor up to speed with all the work that has already been performed. FirstNet would have to fund a significant amount again so that the new vendor understands our environment and comes up to speed with work that has been completed in Phase1.Sterling Computers currently has knowledge of the FirstNet environment that was gained during the Phase 1 procurement.