Communications technology is essential to military forces and perhaps, for that reason, military-decision-makers have contracted with one of the leaders in high-speed network communications, Cisco Systems, Inc. The digital communications company, based in San Jose, CA, was given a single-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) with a ceiling exceeding $1 billion for hardware support with next-day replacement to ensure that communications among the various branches of the armed forces remains steady and reliable. The contract covers brand-name Cisco Smart Net Total Care and Software Support Services for users across the DoD for a one-year base performance period and two one-year option periods, or total contract life of three years.
The contract comes from among three proposals received for solicitations from the System for Award Management website. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (Scott Air Force Base, IL) is the contracting activity with contract HC1084-21-D-0003 to manage the networking communications. As a result of the contract, the DoD can lean on Cisco’s Technical Assistance Center (see the figure) for help in managing security, service coverage, and installed equipment, including Internet of Things (IoT) sensors on the network as part of the “connected battlefield." Cisco has developed its form of software-defined networking (SDN) and uses it to provide secure communications for the military.