Social Security Administration has planned to improvise their IT infrastructure as it feels outdated and the contract as seen in the FebBizOpps notice is rewarded to the Microsoft company for a maximum duration of 5.5 years.
Social Security Administration
Social Security Administration is an independent body of the United States Federal Government that solely manages and regulates social security of every citizen across the country.
If you’re not aware of what social security is, it is a social insurance program that monetizes benefits for retired, disabled and deceased survivors. Basically, every non-earning person benefits are administered by this body. Around 45 million people benefit as retired workers, spouses or children of retired workers and 6 million benefits as deceased workers including 3.7 million widows and widowers.
The Social Security Administration with its headquarters at Woodlawn, Maryland, US has decided to upgrade the IT services that form the nerves of the SSA to maintain records of the benefits and operate across the nation.
The 60,000 employees of Social Security Administration will get a refreshed and a better working environment as a result of upgrading the enterprise IT support services.
FedBizOpps notice
To give you a short intro on FedBizOpps, it is the website of the Federal Government of the United States that show all the contracts and job available for a 3rd party to take up valued greater than 25,000 USD.
Social Security Administration IT support service upgradation being a large project was also listed on the FedBizOpps website. Recently a notice was seen mentioning the contract was rewarded to Microsoft for IT development for extended 5.5 years duration. No other information of quote or value was not provided.
Microsoft IT service upgradation project
Microsoft, one of the leading software and IT company Globally, based out in the US seems to have won the contract which is no doubt the best choice for Social Security Administration to get the best hardware and software which will last for years even after the contract period of 5.5 years.
The aim of the project is to upgrade the Social Security Administration’s existing old and outdated systems with new and future-proof software and hardware. The software is said to come out of Microsoft’s line-up and more customized versions will also be developed especially. The agency wants the new technology to be fed into their clients and servers spread across the country and migrate them in installments so that the workflow is not affected.
The whole of the project is expected to happen not in Microsoft’s office but in the Woodland, Md, headquarters of Social Security Administration. This probably must be because of two reasons – one being security reasons for the confidential and money related data. Other reason must be the incremental updation that they have planned to keep the system running while the upgrade goes on.
The whole project duration is divided into 3 periods – first one year of base period within which the most of the software development and the testing is expected to happen, second is the optional four year period where the implementation is expected to spread to all the branch offices both in hardware and software level, third is the additional 6 month period for any amendments and appending functionalities to be added.