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August 2021 Welcome

Letter from Sagar Samant to the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS)

When FAS IT created the COMET BPA in partnership with FAS, we always considered it more than an acquisition vehicle. From the beginning, our vision for FAS digital transformation included an IT Architecture Strategy that encompasses a Secure, Cloud Smart and Data Centric approach, a solid acquisition strategy in our COMET BPA, and the FAS IT Playbook all centered around a Product and Human Centered Design perspective. Digital transformation leads to better data insights, better delivery models, and a better customer experience; it provides the opportunity to reimagine the business and reengineer the business processes. From an IT perspective, that means we need to rethink solutions in terms of Services, API's, and Data Products. The FAS IT Playbook informs how we can do that in a cohesive manner and the FAS Cloud Services (FCS) enables our implementation.

From Day 1, there are two mantras I have continued to repeat, One - "FAS IT is not building a 'cloud'. That's already been done." and Two - "Every systems' modernization has its own unique cloud journey." To elaborate, we have leveraged existing Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and created developer tools to implement repeatable processes for establishing a secure and managed EcoSystem. Additionally, architecting the FCS to be flexible enough to evolve with our best practices has been a significant focus. That evolution ensures FAS IT can maintain a modern, relevant ecosystem that allows us to deliver high-quality, secure, and intuitive business solutions for FAS.

Our COMET vendors develop and modernize the FAS business systems in FCS, taking advantage of the guardrails and common tools and shared services within the ecosystem. FCS and the FAS IT Playbook provide the tools/technologies along with the purposeful structure to the systems in the form of sound design patterns, standard practices, re-use frameworks, and a tried-and-true set of common capabilities which ultimately improves the speed to market and the interoperability between the systems developed by our multiple vendors.

While FCS provides excellent value through its secure and flexible architecture, the most important aspect comes in the form of professional services - developing and maintaining the shared services and business systems. The Cloud Integration Shared Services (CISS) Division established processes for assisting the applications with creating their application strategy. It requires a strategic partnership between CISS, FCS, and the application development teams to determine which playbooks and patterns would be the best architecture for that particular application's cloud journey. That integrated team also works together to implement that strategy to build and deliver mission-focused IT solutions within the FCS.

That is also where the majority of the effort lies which is why we developed COMET as a multi-award BPA and are re-opening the BPA to onboard additional Small Business vendors. These vendors are key to bringing innovative ideas not just for the business systems but also for how we can continue to keep FCS relevant using our contribution model. As cloud continues to expand, all of our vendors have the opportunity to bring requests and/or ideas for new services, recommendations for updating/modernizing existing services, and suggestions for Plays to be incorporated into the FAS IT Playbook.

These are exciting times for FAS IT as we make significant headway in our digital transformations with our business partners across the entire FAS organization. It is inspiring to partner with them as they reimagine the way FAS provides services to their customers. The journey can be very dynamic as business priorities change, so we need a technology ecosystem that is equally dynamic in nature. In order for us to continue the momentum we must maintain a laser focus on providing that flexible FAS ecosystem of CSPs and tools/technologies along with the processes that allow people to access those tools and technologies in a controlled environment. This can only be done through the strong partnerships with our COMET vendors.

I'm grateful to have such a diverse, innovative and cooperative COMET community to support continuous improvements to FCS and across our modernizations and cloud journeys. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Best Regards,

Sagar Samant

Associate Chief Information Officer, FAS-IT