Industry Questions and NOAA Response.pdf

1. Industry Question 1

Who is the incumbent?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 1

Raytheon Company

2. Industry Question 2

What is the current contract number?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 2

The current contract number is EA133W17CQ0082.

3. Industry Question 3

What is the current award amount?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 3

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that the current award amount is not applicable to the anticipated scope/cost of the follow-on acquisition.

4. Industry Question 4

When will the RFQ or RFP expect to be released?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 4

Unknown. Answers to the Government’s questions will help inform the acquisition approach and timeline.

5. Industry Question 5

What is the current number of resources available?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 5

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that the number of resources currently available is not applicable to the anticipated scope of the follow-on acquisition.

6. Industry Question 6

Please describe the expected status of the AWIPS modernization at the time of this contract.

Does NOAA envision that the modernization and migration to the cloud will be completed prior to this contract?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 6

Unknown. The responses to this RFI will help inform the Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award.

7. Industry Question 7

Will NOAA consider RFI responses from software vendors for this AWIPS RFI?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 7

Yes. RFI responses for all of our industry partners are encouraged and welcomed.

8. Industry Question 8

How does AWIPS manage human and machine access to ensure that only authorized resources have access to critical systems and data?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 8 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about the various aspects of running an operational, mission critical system in a cloud environment.

9. Industry Question 9

How has AWIPS approached real-time threat detection and incident response in a hybrid or fully cloud-based environment?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 9 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

10. Industry Question 10

Does AWIPS utilize an infrastructure as code (IaC) or DevOps approach to provide consistency and automated infrastructure deployment?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 10 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

11. Industry Question 11

Will AWIPS require incorporating compliance and security checks into the IaC pipeline to enforce secure configurations in cloud deployments?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 11 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

12. Industry Question 12

In the event of deployment errors or security incidents, is AWIPS able to support quick rollbacks or disaster recovery failovers?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 12 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

13. Industry Question 13

Has AWIPS defined an approach for securely connecting on-premises infrastructure to cloud networks during the migration process, controlling for latency and bandwidth optimization?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 13 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

14. Industry Question 14

Will AWIPS require a network architecture that supports segmentation, access control, and traffic isolation within a cloud environment?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 14 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

15. Industry Question 15

Some additional information would be very helpful to provide useful and relevant suggestions and project examples to NOAA. Are there any materials that could be shared to provide further insight into:

1. The desired end-state cloud-based AWIPS architecture spans all four functional areas and details any desired technology platforms [e.g., AWS cloud-native apps, data platforms, AI models, etc.]

2. More detail regarding the breadth of systems and functionality, 3) the current state of modernization efforts [what has been modernized, what is remaining]

3. The current state of agile processes [modernization and operations]

4. A general sense of the size of the modernization and operations teams

5. Helpdesk details (number of users supported, tiers of support, tickets annually)

6. Current challenges and goals related to each of these items.

NOAA Response to Industry Question 15

The responses to this RFI will help inform the Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about the various aspects of running an operational, mission critical system in a cloud environment.

16. Industry Question 16

What is your public cloud preference?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 16 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

17. Industry Question 17

Will backup be an in-scope requirement of any resulting solicitation?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 17 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

18. Industry Question 18

Do you require FedRAMP certification?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 18 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

19. Industry Question 19

Do you plan on using AI as part of your application?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 19

Not initially. There will likely be AI based application development once the initial system is operational within a cloud environment.

20. Industry Question 20

Do you have a preference for AI technology?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 20

This is not a consideration at this time.

21. Industry Question 21

What security platform do you use today and do you have a preference for a security platform/SIEM?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 21

Currently the government uses tools mandated by DOC and NOAA. In addition, the AWIPS program supplements those tools in order to address the FISMA high security requirements. The government has not set preference for a security platform/SIEM other than the ability to meet or exceed all of the established requirements.

22. Industry Question 22

What RPO/RTO’s are required?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 22 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

23. Industry Question 23

What are the storage capacity requirements and the expected annual growth rates for this program?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 23 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

24. Industry Question 24

What are NOAA’s data retention requirements?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 24 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

25. Industry Question 25

Are you planning to use a multi-vendor approach or would you like to consolidate infrastructure to a single provider?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 25 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

26. Industry Question 26

What backup platform do you use today? Are there any expectations on changing the backup platform to align with any of NOAA’s other agencies?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 26

Today’s system is an on-prim with an external hard drive as backup. For the future system, this is unknown. The responses to this RFI will help inform the

Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about the various aspects of running an operational, mission critical system in a cloud environment.

27. Industry Question 27

How do you plan to introduce AI as part of your data management strategy?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 27 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

28. Industry Question 28

Do you require immutable file storage?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 28 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

29. Industry Question 29

How do you plan to address data resilience with the new application?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 29 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

30. Industry Question 30

How do you plan to address cyber resilience if you are currently taking snapshots and want to prevent data poisoning? How do you plan to ensure the data and algorithms are not altered?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 30 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

31. Industry Question 31

What specific IT security policies, compliance standards and security levels, or certifications

(e.g., FISMA, FedRAMP, NIST SP 800-53) must the cloud-based system adhere to?

Additionally, how do these requirements change when integrating with on-premises components, and are there any agency-specific security considerations we should be aware of? Relevance: This will allow us to recommend a security strategy that meets all necessary compliance and integration requirements.

NOAA Response to Industry Question 31 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

32. Industry Question 32

Has AWIPS conducted a workforce organizational readiness review and skills gaps analysis review in preparation for continued cloud migration?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 32

Yes. Several of the government employees have taken various training courses in order to close this gap. The Government is also undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about the various aspects of running an operational, mission critical system in a cloud environment. In addition, the Government is planning on obtaining cloud-based training for the government team ahead of this acquisition.

33. Industry Question 33

As AWIPS looks to onboard more agile development practices, describe the current organizational structure in terms of team maturity. Are teams involved in the migration effort utilizing the same or disparate practices across the board?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 33

The AWIPS program has several software development teams proficient in Agile development practices. The government is planning on obtaining Agile based training for the government team ahead of this acquisition. Currently, software development practices are different based on the project and/or contractor. The responses to this RFI will help inform the Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about

34. Industry Question 34

How are you connecting applications across multiple environments (e.g., Cloud to

Ground, Ground to Cloud, or Cloud to Cloud scenarios)?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 34 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

35. Industry Question 35

What is the current ticket volume for AWIPS maintenance?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 35

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that the ticket volume currently available is not applicable to the anticipated scope of the follow-on acquisition since this ticket volume includes hardware, data flow, and other components that will be significantly changing or non-existent in the anticipated cloud architecture.

36. Industry Question 36

What are the types of tickets/issues? Can you please share AWIPS ticket categorization and the volume associated with each category?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 36

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that the ticket volume currently available is not applicable to the anticipated scope of the follow-on acquisition since this ticket volume includes hardware, data flow, and other components that will be significantly changing or non-existent in the anticipated cloud architecture.

37. Industry Question 37

What are the current SLA's for ticket resolution for various categories?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 37

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that new SLAs will be required. Those SLAs are unknown at this time. The responses to this RFI will help inform the Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about the various aspects of running an operational, mission critical system in a cloud environment.

38. Industry Question 38

Can you please share FISMA System Categorization for AWIPS?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 38

FISMA - HIGH & a HVA; Availability - High; Confidentiality - Medium; Integrity

- High.

39. Industry Question 39

Will the help desk support include support in languages other than English?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 39

No

40. Industry Question 40

Does the user base for support include just NOAA internal users or does it include external users?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 40

The main users for AWIPS are NOAA/NWS employees or contractors. The program has partners with other federal agencies and a few states. At this time, it has not been determined how these partners will use AWIPS once the system moves to a cloud environment.

41. Industry Question 41

What Trouble ticket system (ITSM) does AWIPS use currently?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 41

Remedy

42. Industry Question 42

How many calls or tickets does the Help Desk receive per day, week, or month?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 42

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that the number of calls/tickets received during an average week is not applicable to the anticipated scope of the follow-on acquisition since the current help desk support includes hardware, data flow, and other components that will be significantly changing or non-existent in the anticipated cloud architecture.

43. Industry Question 43

AWIPS Program seeks to provide an integrated training environment that replicates the operational environment, allowing the NWS to train users in the manner in which they operate, utilizing historical and live datasets.

NOAA Response to Industry Question 43

Agreed. The responses to this RFI will help inform the Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The

Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about the various aspects of running an operational, mission critical system in a cloud environment.

44. Industry Question 44

How many training environments does NOAA AWIPS have today and how much time does it take to refresh the data for each one? How frequently?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 44

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such that the current training environment is not applicable to the anticipated training solution for the follow-on contract. The NWS is in the process of moving the training capabilities into a cloud environment.

45. Industry Question 45

Is there an AWIPS road map that NOAA could share with interested parties?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 45

Answers to the Government’s questions will help inform the acquisition approach and timeline.

46. Industry Question 46

How many data sources are currently integrated with AWIPS?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 46

AWIPS integrates model and observational data. The current system is bandwidth limited such that not all available data sources are able to be integrated with the interactive applications.

47. Industry Question 47

What is the volume of data currently ingested by AWIPS?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 47

AWIPS integrates model and observational data. The current system is bandwidth limited such that not all available data sources are able to be integrated with the interactive applications.

48. Industry Question 48

What is the current level of effort dedicated to software development?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 48

The AWIPS program partners with multiple contractors and government laboratories (e.g., NOAA/OAR/GSD) software developers. The LOE is based on the number of new requirements/changes required within the system.

49. Industry Question 49

What cloud platform has NOAA selected for AWIPS?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 49 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

50. Industry Question 50

How do you envision cloud migration affecting on-premise resources at the 170 locations?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 50

Anticipated that AWIPS on-premise solution at the 170 locations will be removed/not used. The personnel will still be located in these areas and more given the overall goal of this NWS transformation is to be more nimble, flexible, and eye-to-eye with decision makers.

51. Industry Question 51

What is the required operational availability of AWIPS?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 51

The responses to this RFI will help inform the Government’s requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts to educate ourselves about

52. Industry Question 52

To what level does AWIPS information needs to be protected?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 52

AWIPS is a FISMA High/HVA system. Data integrity and availability are important to the NWS operations.

53. Industry Question 53

Would NOAA be able to provide current Operational View (OV) and System View (SV) diagrams for AWIPS

NOAA Response to Industry Question 53

The fundamental IT approach for this acquisition is changing such AWIPS system diagrams are not applicable to the follow-on acquisition.

54. Industry Question 54

Would NOAA be able to provide AWIPS deployment diagrams?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 54 requirements for the follow-on acquisition and the state of the IT system upon award. The Government is undertaking multiple prototype/demonstration efforts

55. Industry Question 55

How many active users (user accounts) does AWIPS support over the 170 locations?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 55

Typical range is approximately 450 forecasters (daytime) and 300 forecasters

(nighttime) with a surge force during high impact weather conditions. Additional users are on the system performance support, software installations, etc. as needed.

There are 3500 active accounts on the system currently.

56. Industry Question 56

In [RFI] section 2.0, the government explains that there is work in the process to migrate

AWIPS to a cloud-based platform and that this contract will use (not build) that system. But in section 6.1.3, the government asks for advice related to a multi -award approach to transition to an open architecture (assume this is the modernized cloud-based platform). Is the government requesting options and advice as to models that would allow other contractors to assist the government in accelerating the cloud-based modernization effort prior to the 2027 AWIPS recompete? If not, please clarify.

NOAA Response to Industry Question 56

The government is looking for approaches to take an already functional system and implement and operationalize that system in order to meet operational requirements and SLAs

57. Industry Question 57

The current AWIPS contract expiration date is stated to be 09/01/27? Is that still the planned expiration date?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 57

The current expiration date is August 31, 2027.

58. Industry Question 58

Recently posted dates included a solicitation date of 02/2025, is that accurate? If so, is there a chance of the dates sliding to the right?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 58

Unsure about the recently posted dates for a solicitation date of 02/2025 as answers to the Government’s questions will help inform the acquisition approach and timeline.

59. Industry Question 59

Do you anticipate an Industry Day before the procurement date?

NOAA Response to Industry Question 59

Yes - Likely concurring with a release of a draft RFP