The General Services Administration (GSA) wants to simplify and standardize Governmentwide cloud acquisitions by establishing a Multiple Award Blanket Purchase Agreement. The agency’s latest effort, called Ascend, results from months of research and feedback from industry and Government agencies.

GSA has issued a draft performance works statement (PWS) for Ascend and is expected to revise the document based on industry feedback. GSA wants to establish minimum baseline requirements for “the acquisition, business, operations, reporting, and technology capabilities provided by commercial Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and cloud-focused labor service providers that are not currently accessible under other GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) or Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs),” according to the draft PWS.

The Ascend BPA aims to support both vertical (e.g., IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and horizontal capabilities and provide more effective system integration and managed support services to deliver flexible, diverse, and secure cloud solutions. Ascend will also establish minimum cybersecurity baselines, emphasizing cybersecurity supply chain risk management (C-SCRM), compliance with cybersecurity legislation (Cyber Executive Order 14028), and guidelines from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Bidders considering the Ascend opportunity should be prepared to show GSA “an ability to implement secure cloud service solutions utilizing zero trust architecture cybersecurity baselines that leverage Development, Security, and Operations (DevSecOps) and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) agile processes that achieve results through continuous capability enhancements, minimal downtime, prompt response to emerging needs, demonstrated reliability and availability, and optimized performance with minimized resource utilization.”

Ascend would create three separate pools of vendors to deliver three primary services:

• Pool 1 would include infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), for both unclassified and classified sub-pools
• Pool 2 would cover software-as-a-service (SaaS)
• Pool 3 would focus on cloud IT professional services.

Additional sub-pools will be defined based upon Government requirements.

GSA has not yet determined award dates but plans to release additional information via eBuy and SAM.gov.

OST Global Solutions is a professional business development consulting firm. We have experience supporting large, strategic bids like Ascend. We can provide capture and proposal teams to develop a complete, winning Ascend proposal, or we can provide consultants on a case-by-case basis to fill gaps on your business development team. Our services related to the Ascend proposal consist of capture management, proposal management, proposal writing, graphics support, editing, desktop publishing, and cost volume development.

Reach out to us to discuss your Ascend bid, so we can discuss how to develop a winning proposal.

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