The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has awarded $592 million to three software companies for chipsets to improve its processor capacity services.
The new deal includes $277 million for Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s [HPE] Itanium chipset, $144 million for AECOM’s [ACM] URS Federal Services’ Z-series chipset and $171 million for ViON Corp.’s System P chipset.
DISA’s original processor capacity contract was first detailed in November 2015, but the award was delayed until the final contracts were announced on April 13.
Agency officials did not respond to Defense Daily requests for comment before deadline.
Rob Davies, ViON’s executive vice president of operations, told Defense Daily their contract with DISA was a follow-on award to continue providing chip services for five years, with five one-year options also included.
ViON will deliver their System P chipset with IBM Power Processor Capacity capabilities.
“The IBM Power Processor Capacity award enables DISA to provide enterprise class compute infrastructure to its mission and coalition partners. Power provides enterprise class security, availability, and reliability for mission critical workloads at DoD,” Davies said. “The new contract gives DISA the ability to leverage the latest Power technology in support of their customer base, with the newest and most flexible Power systems developed, the Power 9’s. The Latest Power 9’s have various configurations that include enhanced virtualization, cloud support, and AI. It’s also processing on demand.”
The DISA contract is intended to increase computer processing capacity for the offices tasked with providing IT support and services for DoD.
“Power Systems are designed for big data—from operational to computational to business and cognitive solutions— and are optimized for performance and can scale to support demanding and growing workloads,” Davies said.