On your mark, get set — it’s go time for the most sought after part of the Homeland Security Department’s EAGLE II technology services contract.

DHS quietly has been telling the 60-plus vendors that functional category one is open for business. Industry and government sources say DHS wanted to do a soft launch since EAGLE II faced a host of delays and protests over the last three years.

Functional category-1 is the biggest of the four EAGLE focus areas. It includes system design, development, implementation and integration, software design and development, operations and maintenance, such as help desk, collaboration services and network and security operations.

DHS has struggled to get the $22 billion EAGLE II contract in place. They still face protests from small businesses under functional category 2 — IT program support services.

Vendors have long seen EAGLE as one of the largest avenues into DHS. As of fiscal 2011 — the last year DHS provides data — Homeland Security components spent more than $11.4 billion on 606 task orders over the five-year period.

The winning contractors should expect little change in how DHS buys IT over the next five years, which is why EAGLE II took nearly three years to award.

DHS already lists 23 potential procurements scheduled to go through EAGLE II on its procurement forecast website. These range from the Citizen and Immigration Service’s joint engineering teams-sustainment (JETS) program that could be worth $100 million to $10 billion, to FEMA’s $10 million to $20 million program under the Disaster Management e-government initiative.

Of course, most vendors are watching what DHS does with its Next Generation Enterprise Computing Services (ECS) program. Basically, it’s the follow-on contract to running one of two DHS data centers.

Sources say DHS is sifting through RFI responses to develop its solicitation strategy.

Two other big opportunities that are coming from DHS are FEMA’s Enterprise Applications Development Integration and Sustainment (EADIS) that could be worth about $1 billion, and follow-on to its Centralized Operations, Maintenance and Management Information Technology (COMMIT) acquisition.

Sources say both could go through EAGLE II, so the fact that FC-1 is open for business, let the fun begin.

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