SBA hires Unisys for variety of loan systems support services
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The Small Business Administration recently awarded a contract worth $51.9 million to Unisys Corp. to consolidate and operate systems that support the agency's loan programs. SBA awarded the seven-year contract under the General Service Administration Virtual Data Center contracts. The agency estimates the contract at $44 million, but if the agency exercises all its options over the life of the contract, it will edge toward $52 million, said Dan Vellucci, SBA's director of planning
The Small Business Administration recently awarded a contract worth $51.9 million to
Unisys Corp. to consolidate and operate systems that support the agencys loan
programs.
SBA awarded the seven-year contract under the General Service Administration Virtual
Data Center contracts.
The agency estimates the contract at $44 million, but if the agency exercises all its
options over the life of the contract, it will edge toward $52 million, said Dan Vellucci,
SBAs director of planning and technology assistance.
Unisys technical services under the contract include systems migration, data
processing, technical management, year 2000 testing and help desk support. Electronic Data
Systems Corp. previously handled the services for SBA from the companys Herndon,
Va., office.
The EDS contract reached the end of its life, Vellucci said. We were
quite satisfied with EDS performance, but we wanted to look at other options.
Unisys began work under the contract in October and expected to finish systems
migration from EDS this year, Vellucci said.
Unisys will take over management of SBAs Unisys 2200-600 mainframe, which will
run financial applications at the companys data center in Eagan, Minn. The agency
will refer to Eagan as the SBA Enterprise Information Center.
SBA in February will upgrade the mainframe to a Unisys ClearPath 5600 server, said Rick
Klein, SBAs director of information systems support.
SBA has completed year 2000 renovation of all of its mainframe hardware and software.
Unisys year 2000 testing will involve integration testing of all the agencys
mainframe loan systems, Klein said.
SBA may also ask Unisys to run its client-server systems, such as the Surety Bond
Guarantee System that extends guarantees to contractors. Sun Microsystems Sparc 1000 and
2000 servers run the surety application and other SBA client-server programs now, Vellucci
said.
Outsourcing their data centers allows SBA to focus on its core mission, which is
promoting the economic expansion of small businesses in the United States, said
Joseph Santamaria, vice president and general manager of Unisys federal systems. SBA
anticipates it will save approximately $2.1 million over the life of the contract, he
said.