Following the rejection last month by the Government Accountability Office of a protest by the losing bidder, Peraton has begun work on a potential $2.7 billion contract to manage and operate the Department of Homeland Security’s enterprise data center and cloud services.

Peraton on Wednesday issued its press release announcing the contract award, which was made on Oct. 4, 2021, but work was held up after General Dynamics [GD] protested the outcome. The GAO on Jan. 19 ruled in favor of DHS, freeing the department to lift the stop work order.

“Peraton is proud to continue our support of DHS and help advance their national security priorities,” Stu Shea, Peraton’s chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement. “This award further demonstrates our ability to deliver adaptable, managed enterprise IT services and support DHS’ goal to create scalable, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that support and drive mission success across the department.”

Under the Data Center and Cloud Optimization (DCCO) contract, Peraton will provide computer and operations services for the DHS Hybrid Computing Environment, which consists of enterprise computing resources including a data center, colocation sites, private cloud services, and DHS furnished commercial cloud services.

The contract has a five-year base period, a three-year option and a two-year option.

The data center that will remain with the HCE is Data Center 1 and is managed by GD’s Information Technology segment. The company’s work will be phased out as Peraton transitions in. A second data center, managed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise [HPE], is being eliminated.