Was given 24 hours to turn around a 3 page strategy paper for how EMC should approach the DISA Enterprise Storage Services Contract. Hired on the spot.

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DISA ESS II Page 1 29 Feb 2011
Memorandum To: Dan Dougherty, VP Federal and Jean Edwards, Director Business Development
Subject: DISA Enterprise Storage Services (ESS) II
The purpose of this white paper is to provide a high-level overview of the DISA contract environment
relative to enterprise storage, the existing DISA operational environment, capture strategies, and way
ahead for EMC.
The DISA Contract Environment
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has ongoing requirements for reliable, responsive,
and cost effective storage infrastructure services of on-demand Enterprise Storage Services for
specified operating environments including: Windows, RED HAT Linux, SUSE Linux, HP-UX,
Solaris, IBM AIX, IBM z/OS, IBM z/VM and VM, VM Ware ESX. On the existing DISA ESS
contract, VION was awarded a prime contract on Jan 2007 for $700M. Table 1 provides comparative
data for both the existing and recompete contracts. Current market intelligence indicates there will be
little difference between the structures of the two acquisitions.
The service provider will acquire, install, de-install, transport, configure, maintain all hardware and
provide software and software updates for all products associated with this acquisition. Storage will be
provided “as a utility or managed service” in DoD facilities, while the government will retain
operational control.
The initiative will include both the unclassified and classified environments of the 14 Defense
Enterprise Computing Centers, 11 of which are located in the Continental United States, with 3
overseas, including Hawaii, Germany, and Bahrain.
Table 1
ESS existing ESS II recompete (anticipated)
Period of Performance 5 year(s) base plus 3 x 1 year(s)
option(s)
5 year(s) base plus 3 x 1 year(s)
option(s) (anticipated)
Solicitation Number HC101306R2005 DISARFI07221101
RFP date 12/28/2005 07/01/2014 (Deltek estimate), although
government indicated Summer 2012.
Type of Contract Firm Fixed Price, Indefinite Delivery
Indefinite Quantity
Firm Fixed Price, Indefinite Delivery
Indefinite Quantity (anticipate Lowest
Price, Technically Acceptable)
Award Date 01/31/2007 01/01/2015 (Deltek estimate)
Contract Award Value $700,000 ($k) $700,000 ($k) (estimated)
Current spend $188,651 ($k)
Prime Contractor(s) VION Anticipated primes include: VION, HP,
Oracle, NGC, EMC, Dell, IBM.

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DISA ESS II Page 2 29 Feb 2011
VION, as the incumbent, is highly regarded within DISA and looked upon favorably by the current
DISA Program Manager, Kerry Miller. All known market intelligence among vendors, integrators, and
government personnel, indicate VION as the incumbent has well over 90% likelihood of winning the
recompete. DISA has hired a number of prominent DISA government program managers and
executives, including the former DISA CIO, John Garing.
The DISA Storage Environment
DISA has provided the below information about the existing environment at the DISA Customer
Conference in Aug 2011. The percent of usage by disk type was not released, but anticipated to be
primarily block (Hitachi), and also unknown is the percent of compute and storage that has been
virtualized, although the virtualization technology is VMWare.
Disk Arrays (67 total, with 600+ orders completed, 6.3 PB as of Aug 11, now estimated to be 18 PB).
• Enterprise Class - Hitachi USPV / VSP
• Mid-tier - Hitachi AMS 2500 (FC)
• Bulk - Hitachi AMS 2500 (SATA)
• NAS - NetApp FAS
Storage Networking
• Brocade
Data Protection
• Hardware – Oracle/Sun, Data Domain
• Software – Symantec NetBackup, CommVault
• Storage Resource Management – Symantec
The DISA Operational Environment
DISA, as a working capital agency, is expected to grow services and capabilities as services, agencies,
and Combatant Commands (COCOMs) feel the pressure to reduce costs and consolidate data centers,
in many cases outsourcing their IT to DISA. The project that has the most visibility right now is called
Army Enterprise Email. The Army plans to migrate all of its existing Microsoft Exchange messaging
to the DISA DECCs, with associated rapid growth in the block I/O storage. Several of the COCOMs
and DoD separate agencies have committed to the enterprise email project, and the DoD CIO, Teri
Takai, has forcefully stated the success of this program is of the highest priority, to both DoD and to
Microsoft. EMC Global Services is currently providing much of the Exchange mailbox migration
work. Assuming Enterprise Email is successful, DISA has also announced plans for an Enterprise
Sharepoint offering, although few details have been released. As Sharepoint consists primarily of
unstructured data, this offers TREMENDOUS growth opportunity in the Network Attached Storage
market.

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DISA ESS II Page 3 29 Feb 2011
The DISA ESS II Capture Opportunity and Way Ahead
EMC has three viable courses of action to provide storage services to DISA.
• COA1 (least desirable, but some revenue opportunity): Team with VION on the recompete,
primarily in the NAS space displacing Netapp, assuming EMC concedes the break/fix work to
VION.
• COA2 (less likelihood of win, but higher potential payoff): EMC primes the recompete, and
through the quality of proposal, migration services, and cost, displaces VION as the incumbent.
EMC would have to capitalize any equipment and migrate all existing storage payloads to the
new environment, unless EMC Global Services chose to operate the existing Hitachi
infrastructure, which they would have to acquire from VION
• COA3 (recommended, but higher upfront costs): EMC acquires VION, and provides migration
services from Hitachi and Netapp to EMC Storage solutions over time
I recommend EMC acquire VION not simply for the DISA Enterprise Storage contract, but for the
cloud computing model of providing “storage as a service”, indicated in EMC’s 10k released 24 Feb
11, which would give EMC greater opportunities to prime public sector engagements. VION is
estimated to have 3PB under management at Customs and Border Protection, and 2.8PB at the Internal
Revenue Service. VION is highly regarded in the Federal market, and have developed a proven
business model for capitalizing equipment and providing storage “as a service”, rapidly depreciating
equipment until fully amortized, then achieving higher profit margins while still obtaining useful life
from fully depreciated gear.
Ancillary Benefits and the Art of the Possible
EMC’s acquisition of VION would give greater reach and past performance credentials to EMC Global
Services for priming future public engagements, accelerating DoD’s journey to the cloud, and
achieving the vision of standing at the intersection of “Cloud and Big Data”, as Mr. Tucci articulated in
his 2011 letter to shareholders. Additionally, EMC Global Services’ knowledge of the DISA compute
and storage payloads will offer greater opportunities to have value discussions around Big Data, and
how to best monetize and capitalize on the existing storage installed base, while protecting VMWare is
the virtualization technology of choice.
Stephen.Bates@emc.com (Proposed new email address)
Stephen.Bates@gmail.com +1 202-730-9760