GDIT NGEN-R Resource Center

2000	NMCI is initially awarded The primary purpose of the network was initially envisioned to serve as a single entity designed to support the Navy’s shore-based infrastructure and the “business of the Navy,” not necessarily the Navy’s direct warfighting mission. NMCI was revolutionary in its scope and complexity when it was introduced. Hundreds of individual enclaves, thousands of software applications, and little standardization were transformed over a period of just a few years into a single, comprehensive network with a common set of operating standards. The way the Navy procured NMCI was also revolutionary—the original NMCI contract was essentially Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The Navy's intent was to purchase IT as a service back before Infrastructure as a Service was really a thing. Their intention was to pay a price per user, not a price per device [...] That was NMCI. Scott Weller, CSRA Senior Director, Navy Programs
2000-2010	Years of Growth Over the 10 years of the original NMCI, the network has matured, grown, and become more complex. The Navy moved about 70 percent of its IT infrastructure and users onto NMCI. Data centers grew and were consolidated to meet demand. Cybersecurity was strengthened as the threat increased. All of this was accomplished without a significant change to the basic contract. Not everything was perfect of course: the user experience was less than ideal, often sacrificed to increase security. The ordering and change process on the contract was inelegant and administratively burdensome, and there was a strong perception that NMCI was not as economical as it should have been. Most significantly, the Navy felt that they didn’t have the control they needed over NMCI—that control had been ceded to the prime contractor.
2010	Contract is first recompeted These concerns were at the forefront of the Navy acquisition community when the NMCI contract was first recompeted in 2010. The recompete was designed to ensure that the NMCI network and services continued without interruption, that many of the design elements that needed to be modernized were addressed, and, perhaps most significantly, that the basic contract structure was changed to be more responsive to the Navy’s needs. Ironically, this changed NMCI away from IaaS and moved it to a more traditional IT procurement model. The IaaS model of NMCI, although in many ways it provided an excellent platform for the Navy’s IT needs, did not allow the level of control, transparency, or ability to recompete that the Navy desired.CSRA’s Weller says, “In order to recompete the contract, they needed to know what physically existed and how many of each item they had - services, switches, routers, racks. Under NMCI that was all owned by the contractor. So, part of CoSC [Continuity of Service Contract] was to assign all of that a value, as well as assign a value to all of the intellectual property. The Navy felt this gave them the ability to have better transparency when they went into the NGEN contracting process and to have a fair competition, since they could now tell a potential competitor what was out there.”
2018	CosC as a Solution The Navy’s requirement to avoid “vendor lock,” achieve agility and speed in making changes to the network (contracting agility), reduce cost, and maintain a modern infrastructure became more acute as NMCI matured into a vital Command and Control (C2) element within the Navy and Marine Corps. The Big Bang approach - achieving these requirements in one big contractual leap at recompete - was not achievable. CoSC was the solution. CoSC was much more than a bridge between NMCI and NGEN. It also allowed the Navy to change from a FAR Part 12 services contract to a more traditional FAR Part 15 contract, enabled accurate valuation of the intellectual property and contractor owned equipment, and introduced new ordering processes which provided more transparency into fulfillment timelines. CoSC achieved the Navy’s goals and enabled NGEN to be awarded, extending NMCI into the next decade. The United States Navy has released an updated timeline for the award of two parts of the Next Generation Enterprise Network contract recompete (NGEN-R). According to the updated timeline, the two parts of NGEN-R will be awarded in November and December of 2018. NGEN-R transforms the way the Navy procures and operates its Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI). The NMCI is the backbone of the Department’s IT infrastructure, responsible for delivering the IT services and capabilities that warfighters and Naval personnel rely upon.
2018	This Evolution Continues Now This follow-on contract ironically is expected to have many elements of a modern IaaS model. But with the foundation in place now from CoSC and NGEN, the Navy will be able to achieve its technical and contractual goals. That means a future network that is secure, reliable, and defendable—one that supports the Navy business and Command and Control requirements, has robust and transparent cost controls, is agile, and responds quickly to the demands of threats and mission needs. Today, NMCI “straddles the fence between an administration network and a warfighting tool. It’s an enabler for the Navy to complete its kinetic mission of supporting soldiers, sailors and marines afloat and ashore, deploying ordnance, and performing other essential missions and tasks.” Nick Trzcinski, CSRA’s Vice President of Navy and U.S. Marine Corps Business

The Department of the Navy has numerous networks to provide command and control for classified weapons systems, high-end satellite communications platforms, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets; accordingly, it’s tempting to characterize the Navy’s two major IT networks (NMCI and ONE-Net) as “administrative.” Email and other productivity services offered on these platforms are a ubiquitous part of bureaucratic life, but the ability to put ordnance on target isn’t affected when these systems go down - right?The reality, of course, is quite different - reflecting the immense importance of these networks and their productivity capabilities, as well as the imperative to ensure these networks’ evolution to support the technologies of tomorrow. To better understand how deeply embedded these networks are in our Navy’s tactical edge capability, let’s take a look at ONE-Net. The OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network (ONE-Net) is one of the Department of Defense’s highest-volume IT networks. ONE-Net supports over 30,000 users, but where our Sailors and Marines use the network is even more significant. ONE-Net operates exclusively across the proverbial “water’s edge.” ONE-Net is the network which supports our deployed staffs in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East – anywhere our Navy and Marine Corps are positioned, whether to simply project American power, to provide humanitarian assistance, or to go into harm’s way.The mission is the key distinction which makes ONE-Net such a vital part of the DoN’s tactical picture. In those forward-deployed areas around the globe, minutes count. No mission is too trivial, and security is constantly threatened. The logistics and planning for every operation and exercise, no matter how small or large, are dependent on the secure communications ONE-Net provides. It is the platform upon which our Naval leaders in theater rely to pass information, understand the status of their forces, and make strategic decision-making. Technologies are required to support networking with high bandwidth backbones to integrate larger C2 elements with the tactical edge and provide a multi-tiered networking architecture. We must have flexibility in contract to develop and assess technologies that enable the network services to be optimized for maximum performance while modernizing all along the way to NMCI can support ever greater distributed services.In this way, the NGEN recompete is every bit as vital for our Fleets as the next Tomahawk missile version might be for an individual combatant: it is a combat weapon, and it must be the best. We owe our Sailors and Marines nothing less.

It’s a tough challenge, indeed. The Navy must choose a partner who can credibly support the current capability, while also demonstrating a business approach that gives the Navy access to technologies not yet conceived. Even tougher than finding an experienced partner with those credentials, the acquisition itself must score the right elements to ensure those same skills are weighed in the Navy’s best long-term interests. Fortunately, the Navy can rely on some elements to make that decision easier:

Double down on price transparency. It is the nature of information technology that today’s “special sauce” will become tomorrow’s commodity, while other new and exciting non-commodity, force-multiplying tools enter the market. By separating End User Hardware from the main body of procurement, the Navy took a major step in realizing price transparency and realism in a major cost center. The Navy can do even more. Wherever elements of the procurement are underpinned by commodity elements (cloud IaaS for example), the Navy should be wary of “freebies” that hide the real cost and lead to long vendor lock-in periods.
Score heavily the business plan and operating structure that get the Navy to the future state. Risk mitigation for today is important, but if the future state and the business model, which encourages continuous innovation, are not scored and weighed heavily, the Navy will miss a key opportunity. This is a pivotal moment where industry can lead the Navy to mutual benefit, and it must not be missed.
Ensure the contract structure is sufficiently flexible to provide for new things. The procurement process is already difficult, and NGEN-R doubly so due to its sheer magnitude. The Navy must not only ensure a well-drafted procurement for some $3 billion-plus of work over a long period, but also draft a contract which will allow the industry partner to implement technologies or business practices in year five which look nothing like year one. That’s tough – but it’s worth the work. As more and more services move to consumption-based pricing models, the Navy must reap those rewards. Those shifts will become the basis for reinvestment opportunities which will keep the Navy and Marine Corps on the cutting edge for decades to come.

The Navy, and the PMW-205 Navy Enterprise Networks Program Office in particular, has a tough job. But it’s an important job, and they’re off to a great start. I applaud the high level of industry interaction that has characterized the build-up to RFP, and that should continue. I would offer this one note of caution: Go slow to go fast. We’re at a critical time. Do this right the first time, and the Navy will be set up with an IT backbone contract that will be the model for the entire Department of Defense. Our Sailors and Marines are worthy of support like that, and together with industry partners like CSRA, we can do it.

GDIT recently brought together dozens of small businesses as part of its teaming effort in advance of its bid on the U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network-Recompete (NGEN-R). The event, held at GDIT’s offices in Chantilly, Va., allowed GDIT to scout for innovative subcontractors that can bring next-gen technologies and agility to its team.

NGEN-R, worth $3.5 billion and set to be awarded in late 2018, will provide secure, seamless and global computer connectivity for the Department of Navy (DON). NGEN-R represents the continuous evolution of the DON’s enterprise networks and will provide secure, net-centric data and services to Navy and Marine Corps personnel around the world.

“Through NGEN-R, the US Navy will be investing over $1B in small businesses,” said Scott Sloan, Director of Navy-Marine Corps Growth at CSRA. “We want to make sure we’re including the best partners possible. We’re casting a wide net, but it has a fine screen.”

Sloan noted that CSRA already has a “wonderful” small business office. As the company looked to put its team together, the NGEN-R capture team started there, combing through the information from small businesses that CSRA has already recruited or worked with in the past. Though CSRA’s small business team holds regular events to identify small business partners, this event was held specifically to engage prospects that enhance resource optimization based on capacity and capability.

Almost 70 people representing 52 companies attended CSRA’s event, according to Deirdre Cooke, CSRA capture manager. Of those, 31 companies got slots that day for one-on-one sessions dedicated to specific aspects of NGEN-R. When the sessions filled up quickly, the team arranged a second chance for another 10 companies later in the week.

“We really wanted an opportunity to speak to all the folks who attended the event,” Cooke said. “We’re arranging another session for those who missed the opportunity to speak with our solutions architect.”

Sloan said while no decisions were made during the event about which small businesses will be teaming with CSRA on this contract, they have a strong list of contenders and the site remains open for businesses to register their interest.

“The Navy wants innovation and this was an opportunity for us to discuss what these businesses can bring to augment CSRA’s core capabilities and technology foundations,” Sloan said. “Today’s event introduces us to such a wealth of organizations that we have a strong list of partners to collaborate with us on this and other contracts and projects.”

History of the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI):

The Backbone IT Network of the Department of the Navy (DON)

NMCI is initially awarded

Years of Growth

Contract is first recompeted

CosC as a Solution

This Evolution Continues Now

Doing more with Less via Managed Services:

We asked Nick Trzcinski, CSRA’s Vice President of the Navy and Marine Corps Business Area, to share his thoughts about the Navy’s opportunities offered by a new NGEN-R contract and the challenges faced in selecting a partner.

Driving Mission Performance

Why GDIT is the right fit to modernize antiquated systems.

GDIT Small Business Event Recap:

Delivering Innovative, Agile, and Effective Solutions for the U.S. Navy