GTSI to Streamline Systems for Justice Dept.

Maintaining computers of varying ages, hardware specifications and software configurations can become a nightmare for government agencies with hundreds or even thousands of machines.

With offices in all 50 states, that's exactly what happened at the Justice Department over the years.

In an effort to remedy that, the department signed a three-year, $42 million contract with GTSI of Chantilly to pool the agencies' buying power and standardize the department's information technology equipment, said Tom Kennedy, GTSI's vice president of civilian sales.

"The Department of Justice, like most agencies, struggles with standardization," he said. "They have multiple bureaus that kind of do their own thing, and then they end up with mixed systems across the agency, and that affects communications and other things."

The concept is to unite the entire agency under one system that will help officials keep track of equipment and maintain it.

GTSI's contract is for about 18,000 workstations and laptops, Kennedy said.

"One of the major bureaus, for example, is the U.S. attorneys, and they have offices all over the U.S.," Kennedy said. "We're going to go on site, pull the old computers off and then integrate the new systems. We will asset tag them, manage them and then maintain the help desk."

The new systems will be easier to manage over the long run because the differences in technology will be vastly reduced, he said. The department's bureaus can choose from four system configurations. GTSI partner Hewlett-Packard will provide the computers.

The computers will be managed from a central site, and asset tags will show exactly when each system was purchased, what software is on it, where the system is and when it is updated.

Another GTSI partner, Prism Pointe Technologies, will provide the maintenance services that come with a three-year on-site warranty.

GTSI won a similar contract with the Federal Aviation Administration in December. That five-year, $63 million contract is for the FAA's Strategic Sourcing for the Acquisition of Various Equipment and Supplies program.

The program is part of the FAA's goal to control costs and standardize its technology. GTSI's contract with the FAA focuses on servers and networking.

Doug Beizer is a staff writer with Washington Technology. For news on this and other contracts, go towww.washingtontechnology.com.