Acquisition Strategies and Contract Vehicles in the Public Sector

AWS Government, Education, and Nonprofit Symposium Washington, DC I June 25-26, 2015


David DeBrandt

Business Development/Capture

AWS Worldwide Public Sector

Acquisition Strategies and Contract Vehicles in the Public Sector

©2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.


Characteristics of cloudOld world IT New world of cloud computing

Price lock Low variable costs

Vendor lock-in No required minimum commitments

Rigid structure Rapid innovation

CapEx OpEx

Budget for tech refresh Cloud providers continuously upgrading

Months to plan and order Rapid deployments

Design lock-in Agile architecture


Successful public sector adoption has several steps

security and compliance

procurement

culture

broad adoption

business uses/definition

policy


Understand different cloud models

Networking

Storage

Servers

Virtualization

Operating System

Middleware

Runtime

Data

Applications

Infrastructure(as a Service)

Networking

Storage

Servers

Virtualization

Data

Applications

Platform(as a Service)

Operating System

Middleware

Runtime

Networking

Storage

Servers

Virtualization

Software(as a Service)

Operating System

Middleware

Runtime

Data

Applications

Provider Responsible Consumer Responsible


Government Sponsor (CIO,

etc.)

gov cust 1

gov cust 2

gov cust 3

gov cust n

AWS

Training

Strategy & Roadm

ap

Solution Arch & D

esign

Tech Review &

Audit

Req Analysis

App Devlp Supt

Professional Services

Service Desk

Program M

gmt

Billing & Account M

gt

Program Support

Implem

ent/Migration

Config Mgt/ CO

OP

IT O&M

Governance

Security

Controls

infrastructure directproviders

reselling

cloud migration and service providers

all-inclusive system integrators

cloud brokers

Packaging/bundling of cloud IaaS/PaaS

typical project packages

vendor/owner types

cloud service provider governmentcustomer

array of cloud project/program services


Cloud procurement best practices

April 9, 2015

• CSPs provide foundational services to build solutions/house workloads. • Accept different vendor approaches – CSP offerings are not apples to apples.• Understand different ways to buy SaaS v. IaaS/PaaS.

• Focus on application-level and performance-based requirements – not dictating specific methods, infrastructure or hardware. Ultimately, you are not buying a physical asset.

• Embrace on-demand, utility-like, OpEx model cloud pricing. Traditional IT pricing approaches can reduce or eliminate benefits of cloud.

• Accept different vendor pricing models – do not create single pricing model.

• Shared security/compliance model between the CSP and end user. • Leverage industry best practices on security and audit.

• View cloud as a commercial item and consider appropriate terms and conditions• A mechanism to incorporate CSP’s unique terms and conditions.• Leverage CSP’s commercial SLAs (uptime, durability, reliability, etc.)

• A model to obtain cloud services directly from CSP and/or an indirect model in which cloud services are procured through partners or reseller.

• Do not consider or treat CSPs as system integrators (SIs).

Cloud models

Performance-based requirements

Pricing

Security/assurance/audit

Terms and conditions and SLAs

Vendor types and partner ecosystem

• Separate purchase of cloud infrastructure from the purchase of services and labor for planning, developing, and executing migrations and workloads. Services vs. infrastructure


Separate infrastructure from services/labor

• Separate the purchase of infrastructure from services (planning, development, implementation, and maintenance)

• Results in maximum pricing efficiencies


Government organizations should plan early

• Involve all key stakeholders at an early stage:– Procurement– Legal– Budget/finance– Security– IT– Business leadership

• Get comfortable with the cloud model


Cloud procurement next steps• Understand the cloud model, security, and

how it is different from traditional IT• Understand working with partners/resellers • Understand cloud pricing and SLA constructs• Focus on requirements that are cloud-

specific – not traditional IT



Acquisition Strategies and Contract Vehicles in the Public Sector

David Blankenhorn

DLT Solutions


Not all SERVICES

are created equal


Micro design

Macro purchase


Pre-negotiated

contracts



NASA Cloud Acquisition Approach

Karen Petraska

NASA Office of the CIO

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov


NASA Cloud Acquisition Approach 15

A Single Vehicle for Agency-wide Access to AWS Services

• AWS ONLY, no integration services included in the procurement• AWS does not sell directly to government, only through resellers, integrators and partners• Using NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) contract• SOW required a high level of Agency control in the reseller relationship – reseller is a pass through with

no credentialed access to NASA AWS accounts (NASA owns all IP in account)• Contract supports “non specific ordering” and includes entire range of services that exist today and all

those that will exist in the future• NASA pays published prices• Reseller passes through all AWS price reductions• Clear provisions for end-of-contact administrative transfer of AWS account back to new reseller or NASA


Non-Specific Ordering: From the RFQ



Non-Specific Ordering: From the PR



The Process


• Cloud business office handles the incoming funds from customers, placement of funds on the contract and tracks the AWS consumption and customer billing

• Think of it as a rechargeable Starbucks card• Customer sends money (charges up their card!)• The resources they consume in AWS are tagged to them• When the monthly AWS bill arrives, customer “Starbucks card” is debited

and customer gets detailed documentation• When card balance gets low, customers “recharge” by sending more

money• Today processing manually; in process of evaluating tools to automate the

business management process and controls


Lessons Learned


• DO A PILOT!• Do iterations of small acquisitions through desired vehicles, mechanisms and

processes• You will find out quickly what works and doesn’t work and you can fix it in the next

iteration and try again• Might take several attempts; pilot technical integration, business processes, and

security approach in parallel• Use the Cloud Best Practices document issued by the Federal Procurement Officers

• Proper handling of the items addressed in this document help protect your Agency and your data in the event of compromises, at the relationship and/or contract end, and also in general operations

• Auditors will specifically be looking for MANY of the items that are addressed in that document


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Thank You.This presentation will be loaded to SlideShare the week following the Symposium.

http://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices


Technology

Acquisition Strategies and Contract Vehicles in the Public Sector