Amendment 1 - Solicitation Q and A.pdf

Questions and Answers (Q&A)

The following contract questions were received. Many of the questions were repeated, so many of the questions below are simplified versions for clarity.

1. Is this a new requirement? – No. This work has been ongoing for 5 years.

2. Is there an incumbent? – The requirement was included on a competitive IDIQ with three (3) contract holders; Prometheus Computing LLC, Electrosoft Services Inc, and Chakra Consulting Inc. A majority of the work completed for this particular requirement has been provided by Prometheus Computing LLC.

3. What is the current contract number? -There are three contracts included in the IDIQ requirement, SB1341-15-CQ-0010, SB1341-15-CQ-0011, SB1341-15-CQ-0012. The majority of the orders written for this requirement were issued from SB1341-15-CQ-0010.

4. What is the current contract value? – The value of the three IDIQ’s was NTE $40,000,000.00 and was for use of all of NIST, however the value of all issued task orders for this requirement was roughly $1,500,000.00 over a period of 5 years.

5. What is/was the duration of the current contract? – The Task Orders, issued off the IDIQ’s for this requirement, were active from 2016 through 2021.

6. Is the incumbent expected to submit a quote? – Yes

7. NanoFab Data Calls: This is a statistical report? – Yes, queries for users affiliated with specific tools, usage per division or cost center by users, etc.

8. What is the frequency? - roughly 20 per month.

9. Are the approximate number of requests known? - 20

10. What is the average number of maintenance requests per application per month over the last 12 months? - Collectively, All servers and software, about 15 per month, examples: NEMO on the large number of requests (majority), SPM and many others have a lower number or requests.

11. Method of delivery for source code at Project Plan Meeting - confirm is this just referring to GitHub? - Yes

12. Does equipment apply to remote employees? - NIST laptops are required to connect to NIST systems. Laptop(s) will be provided.

13. Is government issued equipment required? - yes

14. Is the Toolbox Application already capable of creating any input files for Blender and COSMOL or is this completely new development? - Completely new development

15. Is all NANOFab equipment serialized/contain barcodes? - no

16. Should the open source version of SPM be capable of connecting to the internal NIST INET? - Yes

17. Or must the user authenticate with the internal system as well? - Yes

18. Are they looking at subcontractor performance as acceptable or must it be the contractor? – Yes, we want past performance information for the sub-contractors.

19. Can you provide historical FTE numbers and skill level? If historical FTE numbers and skill levels are not available, can the Government provide its expected LOE? - The anticipated LOE is equivalent to one (1) FTE, at minimum.

20. In order to assess the size/scope/complexity of the effort, can the Government provide system design specifications for the subject capabilities (design drawings, number of servers, number of systems interconnections, supporting systems eg: GitHub environment, etc.)? - Not at this time.

21. Are the applications part of a FISMA-reportable system security boundary? - The applications are part of a FISMA-reportable system security boundary for NIST.

22. Please clarify requirements for maintaining system security documentation and the role of the IT Security Officer. - The contractor must be compliant with NIST security and interface with NIST security to determine the proper protocols. The contractor will not be responsible for maintaining IT security system documentation but will be responsible for providing information about the applications to the PML IT Security Officer, who is responsible for system documentation, or any member of the NIST IT Security team. Contractor must report planned changes to the applications to the PML IT Security Officer.

23. If the applications are part of a larger system, can the government provide additional information regarding inherited controls? - Overall, our systems are not part of a large system in that we don’t interface with many NIST computing systems. The applications listed directly support the NanoFab operations. The applications are covered under NIST PML system security plan and they use a hybrid control implementation approach. Control implementation is not the same for each application, but specific information on each cannot be provided at this time.

24. Because of the current vaccination rates and the Delta Variant, can contractors work remotely? - Yes, but they may have to come on site for some things.