U.S. Air Force Awards General Dynamics Cloud Services Contract

General Dynamics Pioneers Microsoft Office 365 Solutions for U.S. Department of Defense

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General Dynamics Information Technology

May 08, 2018, 03:30 ET

FAIRFAX, Va., May 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- General Dynamics Information Technology has been awarded a $9 million sole-source contract for Cloud Hosted Enterprise Services (CHES) by the U.S. Air Force. The CHES environment is being developed to support the delivery of Microsoft Office 365 services and provides the ability for the Air Force to consume additional cloud service offerings in the future, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle, SAP and others. The CHES contract was originally awarded to NES Associates LLC, a subsidiary of CSRA. CSRA was acquired by General Dynamics on April 3.

The contract directs General Dynamics to implement CHES at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and up to two additional Air Force locations. The contract also includes operations and maintenance support for 18 months. This will allow General Dynamics to continue its ongoing rollout of CHES in support of Microsoft Office 365 services.

"We are excited to continue the work under the leadership of Stone Baggiano, GDIT's Director of Logistics and Engineering, and expand our cloud offerings to the Department of Defense," said Senior Vice President Ken Deutsch, head of General Dynamics Information Technology's Defense Division. "This contract will serve as a springboard for hybrid cloud solutions and provide our DoD customers with more options as they navigate their journey to the cloud."

CSRA's legacy business has supported the design and implementation efforts for both the Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) cloud computing programs from the onset. Prior to CHES, the company supported the Air Force and DLA cloud engineering efforts for the Collaboration Pathfinder program. The company's engineers developed a unique global hybrid-cloud networking, computing and storage architecture capable of meeting all customer requirements.

The Air Force and DLA are the first Department of Defense (DoD) organizations to consume Microsoft's Office 365 and Azure, which were the first DoD FedRAMP Impact Level 5 cloud service offerings made available for DoD consumption. As a result, the company worked closely with Microsoft and DISA to design this environment from the ground up.

By leveraging these commercial cloud services, the Air Force can boost productivity, cut costs and increase collaboration. The new services will meet industry performance standards, offer redundancy and contingency features and provide state-of-the-art technology enhancements to improve user experience and minimize service disruption.

For more information about General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), please visit www.gdit.com.

SOURCE General Dynamics Information Technology