DISA awards nearly $1B deal to Hewlett Packard Enterprise for data center modernization

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has been tapped by the Defense Information Systems Agency to upgrade and streamline the organization’s data centers with a hybrid multi-cloud solution, according to the contractor and DISA.

Under the 10-year, $931 million other transaction agreement, HPE will deploy a secure private cloud environment to DISA’s data centers via GreenLake — the company’s hybrid cloud platform that will offer the agency next-generation capabilities for data management. The effort will streamline much of DISA’s IT infrastructure and allow the organization to leverage enhanced artificial intelligence and data analytics tools, according to the vendor.

“We’ve built GreenLake to deliver a secure, unified cloud experience, and we’re honored that DISA has selected HPE to extend those capabilities to create a sovereign cloud tailored to the agency’s mission-critical needs. With this secure hybrid, multi-cloud platform, DISA can deliver innovative, future-ready managed services to the agencies it supports that are operating across the globe,” Fidelma Russo, HPE’s chief technology officer and executive vice president and general manager of hybrid cloud, said in a statement Tuesday.

The award comes after the company received a contract from DISA last year to develop a prototype of a Distributed Hybrid Multi-Cloud. The successful prototype consolidated multiple stovepiped infrastructure environments operated by DISA’s J9 Hosting and Compute directorate into a single on-prem, hybrid-cloud environment, according to HPE.

Consolidation work will continue as part of the new agreement, allowing DISA to increase its IT efficiencies, reduce costs and manage complexity, the company said in a news release.

Although HPE will deploy a private cloud offering, the company’s GreenLake platform includes scalability and automation capabilities commonly featured in public clouds without sacrificing performance and security, according to the vendor. The environment is expected to support a variety of DISA workloads and allow the agency to more effectively use AI and data analytics capabilities.

“HPE Private Cloud Enterprise with on-premises and air-gapped management enables DISA to manage on-premises and commercial cloud services through a single hybrid cloud control plane capable of supporting multi-tenancy, virtual private clouds, and comprehensive data privacy and protection through a zero-trust architecture,” HPE said in a news release.

The award is part of the DISA Cloud Instance (DCI) initiative, which broadly aims to modernize the agency’s infrastructure and deliver hybrid and multi-cloud technologies to warfighters. Through the program, the organization aims to streamline command and control missions and give decision makers more sovereignty over their computing resources, especially in remote environments with minimal physical infrastructure.

“This DCI initiative is designed to complement, not interfere with, Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability efforts. It addresses specific use cases to ensure DISA can effectively deliver the full spectrum of capabilities required by the Department of War,” DISA Director of Hosting and Computer Jeff Marshall said in a statement, using a secondary name authorized by the Trump administration to refer to the Department of Defense.