Persistent Cyber Training Environment Cyber Range Development Software Application Project

The Army Contracting Command Orlando, supporting the Program Executive Office Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), is seeking information from vendors and technology providers for the Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE) Cyber Range Development Software Application Project. This initiative focuses on the creation of a simulated internet capability (Cyber Range or Grey Space Network) to enhance cyber range training events with an emphasis on high realism, scalability, and platform control.

PCTE is architected with a hierarchical, two-plane design: a Control Plane that manages accredited services such as the training portal and dashboards, and an Event Plane that hosts virtual machines, containers, and software-defined networking for dynamic cyber training environments. The environment is deployed across regional and enterprise compute/storage sites, utilizing technologies like VMware Cloud Foundation, NSXT, F5 firewalls, and Red Hat SSO for authentication.

Vendors are invited to respond with details on their capabilities to generate realistic background traffic, specify platform throughput and session generation limits, and support advanced networking scenarios, including DNSSEC validation, BGP hijacking, and HTTPS inspection. Integration with existing PCTE on-premises and cloud security infrastructure, network environments, and automation tools is required. The overall goal is to enable a controlled, isolated network that mimics the complexity of the real internet for military cyber training, mission rehearsal, and cyber operations experimentation.