FBI seeks on-premise cloud for crime data division

WHAT: An infrastructure-as-a-service solution for the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

WHY: The Criminal Justice Information Services Division is a big part of the brain of the FBI. The CJIS includes databases for the National Crime Information Center, Uniform Crime Reporting, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is used for instant background checks on gun buyers. The CJIS systems are tasked by local, state and federal law enforcement officials for crime stats, info on suspects and other data.

The data centers at the CJIS headquarters in Clarksburg, W.Va., could be in line for an upgrade. The FBI put out a request for information about an on premise commercial cloud solution to provide application support and storage. The agency is looking for a system with a petabyte of usable storage, and with 76.8 terabytes of RAM with the ability to scale to 2.3 petabytes. The FBI is seeking all the flexibility associated with a commercial cloud product – scalability, multi-tenant options, rapid provisioning, and pay-as-you-go – but with hardware on-site and with the FBI having control over operating systems and security. The FBI is also interested in information from vendors on how an on-premise cloud could be expanded using existing CJIS hardware.

The FBI isn't on the hook to acquire a system, but it is seeking responses to its RFI by July 25. 

Click here to read the RFI