USDA STRATUS Program Pre-Solicitation Notice
Title
USDA STRATUS Cloud BOA Sources Sought Notice for Pool 3 SaaS Providers/Resellers.
Background
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is contemplating issuing a department-wide Cloud Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) “STRATUS” to obtain rapid access to hyperscale cloud service providers, integration and development service providers, and SaaS providers/resellers.
The USDA Digital Infrastructure Services Center (DISC) https://www.usda.gov/disc is the program owner. DISC provides enterprise-wide IT services to USDA Mission Area (MA) (see https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas) customers as well as external Federal customers, and will provide governance and technical guidance on the use of the USDA Cloud BOA.
The USDA STRATUS BOA is envisioned as consisting of three pools of services and vendors:
Pool 1: Hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSP)
Pool 2: Integration and Development
Pool 3: SaaS providers/resellers
Where each pool will have multiple awardees.
Currently, the most-used SaaS by USDA include products from Salesforce, ServiceNow, Atlassian, Appian, Akamai, Anitian, Redhat, Puppet, Sonarqube, Cohesity, NetApp, and FEITH.
Pool 3 evaluation approach
An advisory down select source selection is being considered for Pool 3, with the following notional steps:
Offerors submit brief capability statements, where they respond to specific questions regarding how they:
Manage and provide data usage rights to USDA stakeholders and end-users.
Manage and make licenses and usage understandable, manageable, and agreeable to USDA stakeholders and end-users.
Commit to pricing at the BOA level to ensure best value pricing at the Task Order level.
Provide a breadth of SaaS products and are able to add new SaaS to their offerings.
Capability statements are evaluated against the four areas above.
An advisory notification is provided to let offerors know if they are considered highly competitive for award.
Highly competitive offerors are invited to participate in a demonstration of their ability to provide competitively priced SaaS in response to a specific scenario.
Pool 3 BOAs are awarded to a group of the most highly competitive offerors.
Requested Information
Interested parties are requested to respond to the following, regarding Pool 3 as described above:
What is your company information: company name, address, UEI, point of contact, website, business size by 5 year average revenue and headcount, and any other socioeconomic designations.
Provide feedback on what a successful evaluation would look like. Should USDA use one or multiple phases? Firm or advisory down-selects? Are the four evaluation areas above meaningful to differentiate between SaaS providers/resellers? What do you suggest in place of or in addition to these four?
What demonstration would you recommend as most helpful for USDA to select contractors for this requirement?
What contracting best practices (e.g. pricing structures, contract types, performance metrics, incentives, etc.) do you recommend for this requirement?
Describe your corporate experience in managing SaaS contracts, including identifying relevant contracts where you have been a prime contractor providing SaaS, including;
Name of Agency
Contract Name and number
Contract value
Period of performance
Description of SaaS available on contract
Description of SaaS actually provided – quantify dollar value, # of licenses, etc.
Submission Information
Please submit responses to this sources sought notice by email to:
Christine Wallace, Contracting Officer
christine.wallace@usda.gov
The deadline for submissions is Thursday, May 4, 2023, NLT 5:00 PM EDT.
Please limit your response to no more than 6 single sided pages, with a minimum 11 point font (10 point font in tables or exhibits), minimum single-spaced.
Notes
This is a sources sought notice and is not a request for proposals.
No awards will be made as a result of this notice.
Responses will be used to inform the USDA acquisition strategy.
Some respondents may be invited to one-on-one information exchanges with USDA.
Not all respondents, and possibly no respondents, will be invited to one-on-one information exchanges with USDA.
Not responding to this sources sought notice does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued.
This is a new contract vehicle. Similar services are currently obtained using a variety of contract vehicles, a listing of which will not be provided.
Industry feedback is greatly appreciated!
12314423R0012 Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Departmental Management
4/12/23, 5:05 PM USDA STRATUS Program Pre-Solicitation Notice
Title
USDA STRATUS Cloud BOA Sources Sought Notice for Pool 2 Integration and Development
Background
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is contemplating issuing a department-wide Cloud Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) “STRATUS” to obtain rapid access to hyperscale cloud service providers, integration & development service providers, and SaaS providers/resellers.
The USDA Digital Infrastructure Services Center (DISC) https://www.usda.gov/disc is the program owner. DISC provides enterprise-wide IT services to USDA Mission Area (MA) (see https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas) customers as well as external Federal customers, and will provide governance and technical guidance on the use of the STRATUS BOAs.
The USDA STRATUS BOA is envisioned as consisting of three pools of services and vendors:
Pool 1: Hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSP)
Pool 2: Integration and Development
Pool 3: SaaS providers/resellers
Where each pool will have multiple awardees.
Pool 2 services are expected to include application and other cloud related development, application and infrastructure sustainment and maintenance, security management and managed services.
Pool 2 evaluation approach
An advisory down select source selection is being considered for Pool 2, with the following notional steps:
Offerors submit brief capability statements, consisting of prior experience information and abstracts of their approach to addressing a problem statement. There are anticipated to be 3 problem statement focus areas (application development, application sustainment, managed service) with a problem statement for each. Offerors can choose to respond to 1, 2, or 3 of the problem statements, and if responding to more than 1, must indicate their preferred response focus area.
Capability statements are evaluated on the proposed solutions and approaches and level of confidence of offeror capability to deliver the solution.
An assessment of the competitive field of offerors is completed for each problem statement focus area.
Offerors with credible responses in more than 1 focus area may be rated more highly competitive.
An advisory notification is provided to let offerors know if they are considered highly competitive for an award.
Highly competitive offerors are invited to submit pricing information, and participate in a demonstration of their ability to execute their proposed solution in one of the three focus areas. The focus area of the demonstration will be selected by USDA, based on the offeror submitted preference (if they responded to more than 1 focus area), and USDA’s assessment of the depth of highly rated offerors in each focus area.
Pool 2 BOAs are awarded to a group of the most highly competitive offerors.
Requested Information
Interested parties are requested to respond to the following, regarding Pool 2 as described above:
What is your company information: company name, address, UEI, point of contact, website, business size by 5 year average revenue and headcount, and any other socioeconomic designations.
What demonstration would you recommend as most helpful for USDA to select contractors for this requirement?
What contracting best practices (e.g. pricing structures, contract types, performance metrics, incentives, etc.) do you recommend for this requirement?
Describe your corporate experience in providing cloud-related Integration and Development, including identifying relevant contracts where you have been a prime contractor, including;
Name of Agency
Contract Name and number
Contract value
Period of performance
Description of services provided
Submission Information
Please submit responses to this sources sought notice by email to:
Emily Strunk, Contracting Officer
emily.strunk@usda.gov
The deadline for submissions is Thursday, May 4, 2023, NLT 5:00 PM EDT.
Please limit your response to no more than 6 single sided pages, with a minimum 11 point font (10 point font in tables or exhibits), minimum single-spaced.
Notes
This is a sources sought notice and is not a request for proposals.
No awards will be made as a result of this notice.
Responses will be used to inform the USDA acquisition strategy.
Some respondents may be invited to one-on-one information exchanges with USDA.
Not all respondents, and possibly no respondents, will be invited to one-on-one information exchanges with USDA.
Not responding to this sources sought notice does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued.
This is a new contract vehicle. Similar services are currently obtained using a variety of contract vehicles, a listing of which will not be provided.
Industry feedback is greatly appreciated!
12314423R0011 Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Departmental Management
4/12/23, 4:08 PM USDA STRATUS Cloud Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) Pool 2: Integration and Development
The United States Department of Agriculture seeks to establish approximately 25 Basic Ordering Agreements to provide integration and development support services under the USDA STRATUS Cloud program. Services will include cloud-related labor, managed services, development, integration, management, and operational support. Quotes will be evaluated in three phases assessing prior experience, technical approach, and oral presentation, with selections by January 2024. Quotes are due by October 16, 2023 with questions due by October 5, 2023.
The solicitation has no set-aside designations. The NAICS code is 541512 with a $34 million size standard. Agreements are expected to be awarded to a mix of large and small businesses, with approximately 5 unrestricted and 20 restricted awards. The period of performance is 10 years for ordering with a 5 year completion period. Work will primarily be performed at USDA locations.
12314423Q0143 Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Departmental Management
9/29/23, 5:32 PM USDA STRATUS Cloud Agreement (BOA) Pool 3: SaaS Providers
The United States Department of Agriculture seeks to establish multiple Blanket Ordering Agreements with Software as a Service providers through Solicitation Number 12314423Q0144 to obtain a variety of cloud-based software solutions on an as-needed basis over a ten-year ordering period. Quotes are due by October 27, 2023 and will be evaluated based on the offeror's experience providing solutions such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Redhat as well as the confidence in the offeror's ability to successfully perform the requirements.
The solicitation anticipates awarding up to twenty-five agreements including ten unrestricted awards for large businesses and fifteen restricted awards for small businesses under NAICS codes 513210 and 541519. Individual task orders will determine pricing and delivery terms for software offerings from potential incumbents like Akamai, Anthropic, Appian, and Atlassian. The period of performance for orders placed against the Blanket Ordering Agreements is five years from completion of the ten-year ordering period. Place of performance will be at locations throughout the United States to support the requirements of the United States Department of Agriculture.
12314423Q0144 Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Departmental Management
9/29/23, 5:37 PM USDA STRATUS Program Pre-Solicitation Notice
Title
USDA STRATUS Program Pre-Solicitation Notice
Pre-Solicitation Notice
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is contemplating issuing a suite of department-wide Cloud Basic Ordering Agreements (BOA) to obtain rapid access to hyperscale cloud service providers, cloud integration and development providers, and SaaS providers/resellers. This collection of BOAs, formally known as USDA STRATUS, will provide rapid access to cloud capabilities.
STRATUS is envisioned as consisting of three multi-award pools of services and vendors:
Pool 1: Hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSP)
Pool 2: Cloud Integration and Development
Pool 3: SaaS providers/resellers
The Office of Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) of USDA OCIO’s Digital Infrastructure Services Center (DISC) https://www.usda.gov/disc is the program owner. DISC provides enterprise-wide IT services to USDA Mission Area (MA) (see https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas) customers as well as external Federal Government customers.
One of DISC’s current offerings that is included under STRATUS is serving as a consolidated point of entry for cloud (Hyperscale / Infrastructure as a Service [IaaS] / Platform as a Service [PaaS]) procurements. This has historically been viewed as the “easy button for access to the cloud”, providing shared USDA Authority to Operate (ATO) inheritance beyond the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) controls, consistent billing and approved services, and the ability to access cloud integrator services to support USDA Mission Areas and Federal Government customers.
As the DISC organization meets the demands of its customers, it will increasingly incorporate commercial cloud capabilities and further extend them with mature platforms and DevSecOps capabilities that improve:
Flexibility
Data Transparency
Cost Optimization
Responsiveness to Mission Area Needs
The intent is to create efficiencies across USDA IT operations, allowing customer Associate and Assistant Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to focus on mission business application deployments and sustainment, while using DISC services supported by the STRATUS BOAs to reduce costs, better allocate resources, and continuously improve and evolve USDA’s IT enterprise to keep pace with technology and business model advancements.
The USDA vision for how STRATUS will enhance their ability to provide services includes:
Expanding the portfolio of providing complex solutions from design/architecture to implementation and support.
Increasing DISC ability to quickly respond to Mission Areas and external agencies who already have a design/architecture and are looking for competitive pricing and rapid implementation.
Continue providing cloud brokering services for customers who want to own their own task orders but with more data transparency and shared services.
Identify approved sources of supply for commercial cloud landing zones, enterprise SaaS and data, geospatial, and security management services.
Achieving this vision is enabled by having:
A contract solution that will serve the next ten years and beyond.
Established contract guardrails.
Malleable contracts that can evolve with maturation of governance, evolution of technology, and vendor dynamics.
Vision for the future captured uniformly across support contracts.
An ecosystem of contractors aligned to the DISC vision for information transparency and integrated efforts across contracted services regardless of contractor selection for specific tasks/requirements
Accessible contracts with intuitive, streamlined business processes
STRATUS includes a combination of new work and the potential to shift some work from existing contract vehicles.
Industry Engagement
There is no formal request for information or solicitation at this time. This notice is intended to publicize USDA’s upcoming intent and prepare industry for the USDA STRATUS program and acquisition. Additional requests for information, sources sought, or other notices may be issued soon.
12314423R0010 Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Departmental Management
4/11/23, 3:56 PM