Draft ASCEND BPA Pool 1

The Information Technology Category (ITC) continues the market research phase for the Ascend Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA). Ascend is a competitive, multiple-award, multi-agency BPA that addresses the governmentwide need for cloud solutions, including: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud solutions; Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud solutions; and, Cloud IT professional services.

Today, December 19, 2023, a Draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) was posted on GSA eBuy under RFQ1671198 and here on SAM.gov. The Draft PWS includes IaaS/PaaS (Pool 1) requirements and defines general scope for SaaS (Pool 2), and IT Professionals Services (Pool 3). This supplemental special notice is being issued to further engage and collaborate with industry and agencies to gather feedback on the proposed BPA.

A Draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) and associated documents can be found on eBuy under RFQ1671198. It remains GSA’s intent to award the Ascend BPA in a phased manner as a featured part of GSA's Cloud Marketplace.

We plan to make multiple awards in each pool, each with its specific scope that will allow all Federal Agencies and Other Eligible Activities to acquire and implement secure, integrated commercial cloud service solutions, including cloud-focused labor services, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS).

We encourage all parties who are interested in participating in the Ascend BPA acquisition (formerly known as the GSA Governmentwide Cloud BPA) to review the RFQ1671198 posted on eBuy which includes a draft PWS and other samples documents and provide questions, comments and recommended answer/solution rationale on the attached Table 1 - Ascend BPA Draft PWS Questions/Comments/Recommended Answer/Solution and Rationale Spreadsheet not later than 12:00 am EST on 03/06/2024.

Note: The Government will take all questions, comments, recommendation, solutions and rationale under advisement and consideration, however no direct answer or response will be provided. Respondents are also advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this notice. Anticipated award dates are yet to be determined. More information is to follow. Please continue to monitor eBuy and SAM.gov for additional information to be provided.

Please send all correspondence related to this procurement to the central email box at cloudenterprisewide@gsa.gov. Please utilize the attached Questions and Answers spreadsheet to send in all questions to the central email box identified above.

Industry/Government Day Announcement (CLOSED) GSA will host separate Government Day and Industry Day events for the Ascend Blanket Purchase Agreement Phase 1. Agenda: Briefing on the Ascend BPA Acquisition Strategy Briefing on the Ascend BPA Phase 1 Requirements Closed captioning and ASL services will be provided for both Government Day and Industry Day. If you require other accommodations, please contact itc.communications@gsa.gov.

The closing time of the RFI is being extended to allow us to post the slides and video from Industry Day. We anticipate having the links to the slides and the video presentation uploaded tomorrow February 28th which will allow adequate time for viewing. GSA has made the Ascend BPA Industry Day materials publicly available. The Industry Day slides and transcript have been posted to eBuy under RFQ1671198 and here on SAM.gov as attachments. The video recording has been posted to GSA's YouTube channel and can be accessed using this URL: https://youtu.be/6fzSskDwP1M. (Copy and paste url into web browser.)