Background

The SmartBUY program office has identified a bona fide need for a government-wide AV program based on a February 25, 2004 OMB budget data request (BDR) for AV software spending. The analysis revealed civilian agencies are spending an annual total of $30M or more for AV software. Government agencies routinely use commercial AV software to detect computer viruses and prevent damage to software and data. The primary reasons for this SmartBUY government-wide program are: Security, Standardization, Configuration management, Cost savings, and Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validation.

Objective

The stated objective of the SmartBUY Program Office is to support effective AV Enterprise Level Software Management for Federal civilian agencies for the following reasons: 1) Security - AV applications provide important functionality for cyber security. AV software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software (malware). AV software detects worms/viruses that affect system availability and unauthorized access. Responses may include blocking user access to infected files, cleaning infected files or systems, or informing the user that an infected program was detected. 2) Standardization - application solutions can be maintained as a uniform computing environment across a network, resulting in economies of scale and inter-operability of software. 3) Configuration Management - achieving government-wide enterprise software licensing agreements provides agencies with technology migration vehicles to upgrade from their current operating versions to the latest commercial release. 4). Cost savings - Leveraging the buying power of Federal civilian agencies to achieve volume discount agreements for commercial software. 5). FIPS 140-2 implementation to assist government agencies in their quest to meet the requirements of Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has directed civilian agency software buyers and requiring officials to consider SmartBUY products and pricing before using another method of acquisition.