The United States Air Force (USAF) Foreign Military Sales is searching for the “most effective way to modernize [its] current foreign military sales (FMS) legacy systems.”
On Jan. 7, USAF updated a Beta.Sam.gov posting where it said the USAF was looking to garner industry best business practices, most promising methodologies, cloud migration strategies for modernized FMS systems, and proven implementation successes. Specifically, the proposed system must be compliant with Department of Defense (DoD) cybersecurity regulations and relevant NIST guidance. “Systems must be modernized and migrated to an affordable open system and hosting environment, no down-time, and no loss of data, functionality, or performance loss, and with minimal mission risk,” the request for information (RFI) said.
The two legacy FMS systems in question are the Case Management Control System, which dates back to 1990. It provides centralized financial and logistical tracking for FMS cases. The system has more than 580 active government users. The Security Assistance Management Information System – which dates back to 1985 – is the Air Force FMS procurement system which supports the partner countries’ sustainment needs. The system has more than 880 active users both foreign national and U.S. government.
In the RFI update, USAF clarified that interested parties should submit their questions in advance of the Jan. 29, 2021 deadline for final responses. It also noted that all of the applications in question are on Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network and so contractors will not need security clearances of any kind. When asked whether the intent is to migrate the apps into full cloud-native or cloud-enabled, USAF said that “the answer is unknown at this time and part of the solution will be to determine which is the best alternative.”
Interested parties are asked to provide an array of information, including their ability to convert existing coding languages and data structure to new coding languages and platforms, previous experience with cloud migrations (especially migrating modernized FMS systems into the DoD cloud environment), the architecture of the proposed end product; experience with previous projects with the DoD environment; how the code base will be maintained after implementation; the proposed contractor’s cybersecurity approach; and the contractor’s ability to comply with financial audit and security control requirements.
