Question_and_Answers_for_Telephone_Solicitation.pdf

D. OTHER (Specify type of modification and authon'ty)

B. THE ABOVE NUMBERED CONTRACT/ORDER IS MODIFIED TO REFLECT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES (such as changes in paying office, appropriation date, etc.) SET FORTH IN ITEM 14, PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORITY OF FAR 43.103(b), C. THIS SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT IS ENTERED INTO PURSUANT TO AUTHORITY OF

AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION/MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT

11. CONTRACT ID CODE

IPA~E

OF PAGES

I 10 ,

2. AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION NO. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE 4. REQUISITION/PURCHASE REa, NO. --]5. PROJECT NO. (If applicable)

001 06/01/2015

6. ISSUED BY CODE 7. ADMINISTERED BY (/fother than Item 6) CODE I United States Tax Court 400 2nd Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20217

8. NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRACTOR (No., street, county, State and ZIP Code) ~ 9A. AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION

NO

0 050515-1

98. DATED (SEE ITEM 11)

050515-1

10A MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT/ORDER NO.

0 108. DATED (SEE ITEM 13)

CODE IFACILITY CODE

11. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO AMENDMENTS OF SOLICITATIONS

[8] The above numbered solicitation is amended as set forth in Item 14, The hour and date specified for receipt of Offers 0 is extended, [8] is not extended.

Offers must acknowledge receipt of this amendment prior to the hour and date specified in the solicitation or as amended, by one of the following methods:

(a) By completing items 8 and 15, and returning 1 copies of the amendment; (b) By acknowledging receipt of this amendment on each copy of the offer submitted:

or (c) By separate letter or telegram which includes a reference to the solicitation and amendment numbers. FAILURE OF YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO BE RECEIVED AT THE PLACE DESIGNATED FOR THE RECEIPT OF OFFERS PRIOR TO THE HOUR AND DATE SPECIFIED MAY RESULT IN REJECTION OF YOUR OFFER, If by virtue of this amendment your desire to change an offer already submitted, such change may be made by telegram or letter. provided each telegram or letter makes reference to the solicitation and this amendment, and is received prior to the opening hour and date specified.

12. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION DATA (If required)

13. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO MODIFICATION OF CONTRACTS/ORDERS.

IT MODIFIES THE CONTRACT/ORDER NO. AS DESCRIBED IN ITEM 14.

CHECK ONE A. THIS CHANGE ORDER IS ISSUED PURSUANT TO: (Specify authority) THE CHANGES SET FORTH IN ITEM 14 ARE MADE IN THE CONTRACT ORDER NO....:.:.===., IN iTEM iDA.

o o o o

E. IMPORTANT: Contractor 0 is not, 0 is required to sign this document and return _____ copies to the issuing office.

14. DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION (Organized by UCF section headings, including solicitation/contract subject matter where feasibie.)

Answers to questions received by the Court.

Except as provided herein all terms and conditions of the document referenced in Item 9A or iDA, as heretofore changed, remains unchanged and in full force and effect.

15A NAME AND TITLE OF SIGNER (Type or print) 16A. NAME AND TITLE OF CONTRACTING OFFICER (Type or print)

158. CONTRACTOR/OFFEROR 15C, DATE SIGNED 16B. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 16C, DATE SIGNED

(Signature of person authorized to sign) (Signature of Contracting Officer)

NSN 7540-01-152-8070

Previous edition unusable

STANDARD FORM 30 (REV. 10-83)

Prescribed by GSA FAR (48 CFR) 53,243

June 1, 2015

Amendment 001 to Solicitation No. 050515-1 Questions and Answers

QI. Is the Tax Court interested in solutions that can leverage the Cisco network infrastructure in place but would replace the Cisco Call Manager as a VoIP and Unified Communications solution?

Q2. 1 believe we can provide a significant cost savings and return on investment with our solution which is security tested through the Joint Information Test Command and available for use on DoD networks. If you can, please let me know so that we can plan for providing a non-proprietary, open standards Session-Initiated Protocol (SIP)-based solution response.

AI-2. The Court will consider all technically feasible solutions.

Q3. Will the Court consider paying for all fees, e.g. installation, maintenance, management, and on-going support as one combined monthly recurring charge?

A3. Yes. Such an offer would have a zero in the cost line for implementation and deployment at B.2.l at the top of page B-3 of the solicitation.

Q4. In section C.2.A, the solicitation states that the Court is considering whether to provide internal video conferencing, and requests that contractors "indicate whether there is any extra cost in providing this feature, or stated differently, whether any savings could be achieved from not providing this service". Will the Court please provide additional information on the extent of video conferencing desired? Point-to-Point internal only? Multiparty conferencing?

B2B video outside of the organization? Room based or desktop video?

Q5. Can the Court provide additional clarifYing information to help bound the requirements for internal video conferencing?

A4-5. The internal video conferencing referred to in the third paragraph of subpart A of section C.2, on page C-3, is desktop point-to-point internal conferencing only and does not include outside video conferencing, multiparty video conferencing, or room-based video conferencing.

Q6. Can the court provide clarifYing information on the "Extension Mobility" feature requirement listed as no. lIon page C-4, in order to specifY what aspects of voice mobility are required?

A6. The Court's current Extension Mobility feature allows users to temporarily access one system telephone and its related features from another system telephone.

Q7. Please define and provide more details regarding C.2.A #14-Emergency Video Intercom connection.

A7. At the Tax Courthouse, the Emergency Video Intercom connection is currently used to communicate with Court Security Officers (CSOs) in emergency situations. The system uses an ABP 2N Helios IP SIP end point. This device uses Power Over Ethernet and audio codecs G7.11 or G729. The system uses an internal-only phone number with auto-dialing to the on-site CSO central office.

At the Court's remote sites the intercom system is used to send images to a desk phone and to open doors with a four digit door-release combination.

Q8. Can the court amend paragraph C-I to provide additional clarifYing information regarding the level of management and monitoring it requires?

AS. The contractor must provide the level of management and monitoring necessary to meet the requirements set forth in Section C.2 of the solicitation.

Q9. Will the contractor manage Cisco UC and Unity Connection, and the Tax Court manage routers and switches? Ifnot, please clarifY the offeror's responsibility for system management.

A9. The solution must provide that the contractor will manage the Cisco UC and Unity Connection and that the routers and switches will be shared resources on which the Court will have full read/write privileges. In addition, the Court intends that all access rights to the routers and switches will be tied to established user-ids that will be maintained in an Identity Services Engine and that alliogins to these devices will be logged to a Kiwi log server, so that the Court and the contractor can track all changes to all routers and switches that are part of the Unified Communications Network (UCN).

QIO. How much monitoring and management control does the Court require; for example read only, some administrative capability, or a fully contractor-managed system?

AID. The Tax Court requires proactive monitoring of all routers and switches in our D.C.

location for QoS, up/down status, and variance from performance baselines. The contractor will be managing the Cisco UC and Unity Connection. All routers and switches will be shared resources on which the Court will have full read/write privileges.

Qll. What monitoring tools are required for use? May the contractor use its own monitoring tools?

A II. The contractor may use any appropriate monitoring tools. However, the contractor must use the current SNMP user ID and password.

Q12. Please clarifY the requirement for offerors to provide a "supplemental monitoring tool".

Ifrequired, please provide the minimum specifications.

A12. The Court seeks and will consider offerors' suggestions for specific "supplemental monitoring tools". The Court's baseline monitoring tool will be Cisco's Prime Infrastructure 2.2.

Q13. Can you clarifY how the voice traffic egresses the network today, at both HQ and remote sites?

Ai3. All voice traffic currently goes to Pingtone through one of three T-I lines - See diagram on page J-2 of the solicitation.

Q14. Will the Court provide a detailed configuration/BOM for all the services, routers, and software?

A 14. The Court will provide detailed examples of router, switch, and other UCN appliance configurations upon email request to procurement@ustaxcourt.gov. All of the sites that usc an ISR 3825 router with a 3560 switch have the same configuration, with the exception of the IP addresses. In addition, all of the sites that use an ISR 2951 router with a 2900 switch also have the same configuration, with the exception of the IP addresses. Any switches or routers with a unique configuration will be included with the examples. In addition, on request the Court will provide the results of "show inventory" and "show version" commands for switches and routers.

Q15. Will the Court provide additional technical documentation such as technical papers or spreadsheet records of the system assets to further improve bidders' understanding of the current system architecture and configuration?

A 15. Yes. The Court will provide appropriate information upon email request to procurement@ustaxcourt.gov. All requests for information must be submitted before 5:00 p.m.

EDT on Tuesday, June 9, 2015.

mailto:procurement@ustaxcourt.gov.

mailto:procurement@ustaxcourt.gov.

QI6. Will the Tax Court be able to obtain and provide data from the current incumbent system? If so, please describe what data can be provided.

A 16. The Court will be able to provide configurations for individual handsets that are in use.

QI7. Has Cisco Emergency Responder already been installed, configured, and tested on existing hardware, or will this be included within the scope of work of the RFP? What level of information is being sent to the public safety access point (PSAP) -floor level, closet, or down to individual port? Have the Direct Inward Dialing numbers (DIDs) needed for the alerting already been procured? Is there a diagram of the components of the voice network?

A17. The Court has purchased the software license for Cisco Emergency Responder, but it has not been installed, configured, or tested on any of the Court's existing hardware. The Court requires an operational Cisco Emergency Responder (ER) as part of the contractor's solution.

That ER must send information to the PSAP on street address, floor, and room levels at all locations. The ER application can be run either on the ER software already purchased by the Court but not yet deployed, or it can be run on the contractor's equipment. DIDs needed for the alerting have already been procured. Diagrams of the Court's UCN are included in the solicitation document at pages J-2 and J-3.

QI8. Can the Court specifY the number of 3825 gateways as well as their respective build-outs to include T-I cards, PVDM resources, etc.?

AIS. The Court currently uses a single CUBE gateway that uses three PVDM-64 modules and a single 100 Mb Ethernet line that is used to communicate with all remote sites.

QI9. The CUCM 9.x is currently installed on what type of hardware (Media Convergence ServerlUnified Computing System)?

Q20. The customer states that there is currently an HA UCM appliance as well as another SRST appliance. What is the hardware that this application is installed on? Is there additional VM space on the hardware for migration and upgrade purposes?

AI9-20. The Court's Cisco Call Manager is currently installed on three Cisco UCS 210m2 servers. There is additional space available for migration and upgrade purposes on each server.

Q2I. What verison of Exchange is currently installed? Are there restrictions placed on the voicemail size?

A21. The Court currently uses Microsoft Exchange 20 IO. The current maximum voicemail size is 10Mb.

Q22. Is all equipment for the current voice systemlUCN within two releases of the most current (mainline) OS version?

A22. Yes.

Q23. It is understood that some Tax Court locations are supported by methods such as 4G.

Do all remote sites have I SUms latency or lower from and to all sites?

A23. All Tax Court remote sites have less than a 150ms round-trip response to a ping command.

Q24. Are the Primary-Rate Interfaces (PRIs) located at the Tax Courthouse or at the provider's facility?

A24. The Court has reserved 4 Mbs of a 100 Mb Metro Ethernet line to be used for voice traffic.

Q2S. Who owns the block of DIDs? Is it the Government or the current provider?

A25. The current provider, Pingtone Communications, leases the block of Direct Inward Dialing numbers (OlDs) used by the Court. The Court plans to port the OlDs over to Verizon as part of the transition phase.

Q26. How many DID numbers are in use at the main location in Washington, D.C.?

A26. There are currently approximately 300 DID numbers in use at the Tax Courthouse in Washington, D.C.

Q27. Do the remote sites have DID numbers? Ifso, how many are there? Are the numbers local to each location?

A27. The remote sites currently have a total of approximately 115 DID numbers. The numbers are not local to each location.

Q28. Does the Court currently have a SIP trunk and is it under contract? Is the Court looking to centralize DID across the network or just for the remote sites?

A28. The Court has established a SIP trunk line with Verizon and it is under contract. The Court has reserved 4 Mb ofa 100 Mb Ethernet line to the Verizon Cloud. It was successfully tested in a proof-of-concept project. All of numbers are already centralized, in that all numbers begin with 202. The Court is open to any technically-feasible approach that meets the stated requirements.

Q29. Please give more details on the parameters o/the tested SIP circuit and where it was located (maximum calls allowed on the SIP trunk, allocated bandwidth, etc).

A29. The Court has reserved 4 Mbs of a 100Mb Metro Ethernet line to be used for voice traffic, which should allow for up to 100 simultaneous calls. All testing was performed at the Court's Washington, D.C. locations.

Q30. Does the Tax Court have a valid UCSS contract/or all o/the VolP software? I/so, when does the contract expire?

A30. The Tax Court has a valid UCSS contract for all of the VolP software. Those contracts expire on September 30,2015.

Q3J. Does the Tax Court own user licenses for all phones that may be reutilized? What type o/licensing do you have (ex. CUWL, Standard or Pro)?

A31. The Court has CUWL professional user licenses for its CP-9971 and CP-7975 handsets that have not been deployed. The Court's current provider, Pingtone Communications (Pingtone), holds licenses for the approximately 415 CP-7960 handsets that are currently deployed in the Tax Courthouse and the remote locations.

Q32. Who will be responsible/or the SMARTnet cost/or renewals? Voice equipment and UCN equipment? Will SMARTnet be active through all option years?

A32. The Court will be responsible for the cost of SMARTnet renewals for Court-owned voice equipment and UCN equipment, and for keeping the renewals active throughout the option years.

For information about how the Court will analyze the cost of the alternatives, see the third paragraph of section B.I on page B-1.

A33. Is the current Cisco SMARTnet coverage based on a 12-month term or some other term?

A33. The current Cisco SMARTnet coverage is based on a term ending September 30,2015.

The Court will then renew Cisco SMARTnet coverage for a 12-month term.

Q34. Is the Court's Cisco SMARTnet coverage based on afour hour or next business day parts/repairs/replacement service level?

A34. The Court's default level of Cisco SMARTnet coverage is next business day, but the Court's SMARTnet coverage requires four hour response for critical routers and switches.

Q35. Is there a requirement to provide onsite proactive support?

A35. There is no requirement to provide onsite proactive support.

Q36. The solicitation states in section C.2 on page C-5 that "once begun, work must continue until the problem is resolved." Does the Court require that work to solve a problem must continue past the 8 a.m. to 8p.m. Monday-Saturday normal support hours ifneeded? Ifso, will the Court require, or consider, a price submission that includes pricing for support that is provided outside of the normal support hours?

Q37. In the event that an incident cannot be resolved remotely, must onsite support be provided within a certain time frame?

A36-37. The contractor must acknowledge receipt and initiate corrective action within one hour of being informed of an incident during normal support hours, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, except Federal holidays. If at any time the contractor is informed of a problem that affects several users and is so severe that it threatens the accomplishment of the Court's core mission, then the contractor must acknowledge receipt and initiate corrective action within one hour, the contractor must provide on-site support within four hours if the problem cannot be resolved remotely, and work must continue until the problem is resolved. The Court will consider a price submission that includes pricing for support that is provided outside of the normal support hours.

Q38. The solicitation states in section C.2 on page C-5 that the contractor will be responsible for "change control related to moves, adds, and deletions". Will the Court allow offerors to add cost, if needed, to support moves, adds, and deletions that may be outside the scope of support timeframe?

A38. The Court will not require the contractor to provide change control related to moves, adds and deletions outside normal support hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday, except Federal holidays.

Q39. Could the Court please clarifY how price will be evaluated? For example, will the transition cost be added to the monthly fee for the base year of the contract and all option years?

A39. Price will be evaluated as stated in the third paragraph of section B.I on page B-1.

Q40. Will the cost of circuits be included for evaluation purposes?

A40. The Court has in place T-lor 4G "circuits" to all remote sites. They are connected to the Verizon PIP network and then to the Tax Courthouse by a 100 Mb Metro Ethernet. The Court is currently paying for these circuits and expects to continue to do so after a solution is deployed, whether that solution involves remote hosting, utilization of the Court's Call Manager, or some other technically feasible solution.

Q41. Does the Tax Court require the offeror's pricing in a separate file from the technical proposal?

A41. Bidders' technical proposals and pricing do not need to be in separate files.

Q42. Should the offeror include responses to Part 1, G.3, Part IV, Section K and the completed SF1449 as a separate attachment?

A42. An offeror should complete Section A of Part I (the Form SF-33), Section B.2 on page B-3, Section G.3 on page G-I, and Section K on pages K-I to K-8, and submit the entire solicitation, along with additional materials described at Section L.2(a) on page L-1. If a contract is awarded, the Court will complete Section A of Part I (the Form SF-33), and Sections A through K will become the contract.

Q43. Will the Court provide the solicitation in Word format?

A43. The Court will provide the solicitation in Word format upon email request to procurement@ustaxcourt.gov, except that the Word document to be provided will not include Section A of Part I (the Form SF-33) or the two diagrams in section 1.

Q44. Will the Court delete or amend the Clause 7-220, Termination for Convenience, which is incorporated by reference on page 1-3?

A44. The Court will not delete or amend Clause 7-220, Termination for Convenience.

mailto:procurement@ustaxcourt.gov, Q45. Has a contractor performed similar work to this for the Government in the past? If available please provide the contract number. If you are unable to provide a contract number, is it safe to assume this is a new requirement for the Government?

A45. The Tax Court UCN is currently managed and supported in-house by Court employees, and through a standard commercial agreement under which Pingtone Communications provides off-site support for Pingtone's Call Manager.