The Defense Intelligence Agency has awarded a massive five-year outsourcing deal that will allow 11 companies to compete against one another for about $6.6 billion in projects. The work covers everything from unclassified to top secret intelligence-related information technology across the Department of Defense.

The contract, named Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise (SITE), is aimed at making IT acquisition and operations more efficient, improving program management, and enhancing innovation at the DIA, according to a DIA statement announcing the award.

Among the awardees are typical defense contractors BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Science Applications International Corporation, and SRA International as well as several smaller companies. The firms will begin competing for task orders for intelligence-related IT work this summer.

SITE replaces DIA's Department of Defense Intelligence Information System Integration and Engineering Support Contracts (DIESCON3) and the Air Force's Intelligence Information, Command and Control, Equipment and Enhancements (ICE2) contract and numerous other smaller contracts. The Air Force had earlier planned to create a successor to ICE2, but SITE canceled that plan.

Included in SITE is an array of IT work, including systems engineering, testing and evaluation, program and project management, IT operations support, storage and network services, Web services, acquisition services, diagnostics, cybersecurity and training. The work will take place worldwide, including in "locations considered high risk, crisis/danger areas" like Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a synopsis of the work on DIA's Website.

Though the contract carries a large dollar value, most military intelligence work is classified, and according to a document posted on DIA's Website, the "vast majority" of SITE work is top secret, so it's unclear what percentage of the Department of Defense's intelligence-related IT budget SITE represents. Overall, the DoD spends more than $30 billion annually on all of its IT needs.

DIA had initially expected to award SITE last year. A DIA spokesman did not respond to a question about the award delay in time for this story.