Omni Federal awarded $427M background check IT modernization contract

Omni Federal has been awarded a $427 million contract for cloud computing and software development services to the Defense Department agency responsible for background checks on DOD employees and contractors.

The General Services Administration ran this procurement on behalf of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which sought to hire a managed service provider for help modernize the IT system used in background investigations.

DCSA announced the award in a notice published Thursday, which also said it was not “possible at the time of placing the contract to accurately estimate” the duration or cost of the work.

Evolving security requirements for DOD and the National Background Investigation Services system are two main factors behind that detail, as are the “unknown degree of software code modernization requirements” to update NBIS.

In December, DCSA’s director David Cattler told reporters that approximately 4 million security clearance holders were fully enrolled in continuous vetting after years of work to make progress on that front.

Efforts to modernize NBIS have been fraught with delays and mounting costs over multiple years. But with national security-sensitive positions now in continuous vetting, DCSA is now focusing on enrolling federal employees in non-sensitive public trust positions into continuous vetting.

Under the contract, Omni Federal will be responsible for helping DCSA deploy and maintain a “secure cloud landing zone” that will be based in Amazon Web Services’ GovCloud infrastructure.

Omni will also work to develop and support DevSecOps tools and pipelines for integrating, testing and deploying software through automated steps. The idea behind those CI/CD pipelines is onboard and support users while ensuring compliance with security standards and DOD regulations, according to a sources sought notice issued in the fall.