Army Poised to Recompete Vantage Data Analytics Program
The U.S. Army is preparing to recompete the Vantage data analytics program, possibly by year’s end, according to Gabe Camarillo, undersecretary of the Army.
Camarillo made the remarks during a discussion with reporters at the Army IT Day conference, hosted by AFCEA’s Northern Virginia Chapter on January 12.
The Army Vantage program under the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems is “described as a data-driven operations and decision-making platform” on the program’s website. “By joining and enriching millions of data points into artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML)-capable applications, Army Vantage improves and accelerates decisions on everything from personnel readiness to financial return on investment,” the website says.
It is an Amazon Web Services cloud capability that operates on both classified and unclassified networks.
The program went into production in 2020 and in 2021 was named a winner of the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council’s (ACT-IAC) 2021 Innovation Awards. The awards program recognizes and promotes innovation that improve services to citizens and government operations.
“There is the analytics layer. So, it is the part of the work that involves developing a data platform working with the specific Army users to ingest unstructured and structured data that’s in legacy systems into a new visualization platform and then developing it in a way that can work. That’s what Vantage does,” Camarillo said.
The program has resulted in “a lot of great use cases even in the last year,” he said. “They have helped us, for example, on logistics and supply chain issues through the Army Materiel Command.”
Still, the Army may decide to bring in multiple vendors. “That program is set for recompete at the end of this year, and we’re going to look at having a multivendor approach on that particular program moving forward so that we can … continue to make sure we have the best that industry can possibly offer in terms of our approaches to visualizing and analyzing that data,” he reported before adding that he needs to confirm the end-of-year timing.
... It is the part of the work that involves developing a data platform working with the specific Army users to ingest unstructured and structured data that’s in legacy systems into a new visualization platform and then developing it in a way that can work. That’s what Vantage does.
A request for information posted on Sam.gov indicates the Army hopes “to identify potential sources and strategies for continued hosting of the Army Vantage data analytics application.” Responses are due January 25.
Army Vantage is part of the Army Data and Analytics Platforms (ARDAP) program, which manages a portfolio of systems that enable warfighters through data and analytics. ARDAP modernizes aging, disjointed, and legacy systems through enterprise-scale digital transformation efforts, according to the request for information.
Camarillo told reporters the service is still in the process of finalizing next year’s budget but wants to provide a consistent and steady level of centralized resources for two things as it relates to cloud.
“First, it’s providing the common services that are needed to transition and rationalize applications that are going to the cloud. The Army has a whole host of legacy applications, and providing some more central funding for those migration activities, I think, is critical to our success,” he offered. “And then secondly, of course, it’s making sure that the Enterprise Cloud Management Agency continues to have the resources that it needs to bring on the cloud service providers, making sure that we’re working with them on security issues, etc.”
