The Defense Department has awarded Verizon with a contract worth up to $495 million over the next ten years to provide secure high-performance wide area network services to support a supercomputing network that links together 200 science and engineering labs with high-performance computing locations. The award was announced earlier this week by the Defense Department’s Information Technology Contracting Organization. Verizon allegedly beat out two other vendors for the contract, according to a spokesperson from the company.
Verizon had previously been awarded the earlier version of the contract, DRENII, from 2002 to 2012, according to a performance of work statement. CenturyLink currently holds DREN III. Verizon will seek to create a next-generation user experience for the research teams utilizing the DREN platform while enhancing security across the network, Verizon says. Verizon will operate DREN for up to 10 years, with a four-year base period of performance and three two-year options. DREN4 marks a significant shift from the previous version of the contract, according to the performance of work statement, due to this version seeing a shift from the network edge to the network core.
Read More: Verizon Awarded $495 Million Contract for DOD Supercomputing Network Modernization
