Question___Responses_(FINAL).pdf

Question

Page Question

PAG/COR

Responses

1 RFP

Instruction for Proposal

Submission 68

Will the FDA consider extending the due date by two weeks?

No, offerors must respond in accordance with dates provided

2 RFP

Organization of Proposal

Will the government consider extending “Sub factor 2:

Technical Understanding and Approach to IDIQ” from 50 to 60 pages?

No

3 RFP

Factor III – Management

Approach

Regarding “Section 3

– Management Approach”, Will FDA consider excluding from the page count the PMP and QAP, and allowing these documents to be submitted as an Appendix to Volume 1 Technical?

No

RFP Organization of Proposal

For Volume II – Pricing, does the government want the Offeror to print an Excel document, a word document, or a PDF document?

Excel and PDF document

RFP Organization of Proposal

Will the FDA please specify the required font and font size for the submission?

10-point font size.

See amended RFP.

RFP For item VI under section 37 of the RFP, “Instruction for

Business Proposal 71

“Instruction for Business Proposal”, states that the Offeror is required to provide “Written confirmation of active registration in the System for Award Management”. What does this entail?

Please provide a copy of your active registration in the System for Award Management.

Attachment 3 Technical Scenario 2

Are boot disks maintained in memory or on a

LUN?

Images are on disk

Attachment 3 Technical

Scenario 2 Are any new HPC technologies being tested or piloted?

No

Attachment 4 Technical Scenario 3

What tools does the FDA have available to SOC alerting and notification, investigation, remediation, and reporting?

The FDA SOC uses NESSUS and other “undisclosed” tools.

Their means of communication to others is mostly by email.

Would the contractor communicate directly with FDA Security to discuss the Nessus scan reports and identify specific remediation?

The contractor would communicate directly after instruction to do so by the COR and include the COR on all communications.

What on-site, hands-on resources are available at Summit Argo site?

No scientific computing contractors or staff, only non-scientific computing help desk technician staff are available at

Summit-Argo, they do not have logical access to scientific assets.

What antivirus/antimalware tool is used?

Symantec Endpoint Antivirus and GFI Vipre Business Antimalware.

In item 5, the in house tool results are compared to COTS software results.

What COTS software is used?

WSUS, Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer, Secunia Corporate Inspector.

In item 6, what software is used to maintain and query the auditing records?

Records are generated by the auditing tools and saved as text files which are then linked or imported to MS Access and MS SQL databases.

Under the requirements for scientific workstations, there are conflicts between security requirements (the computer must be removed from the network or shut down) and the operational requirements (the computer cannot be rebooted or shutdown without the scientist’s approval and the computer must

The contractor needs to sort this out and suggest procedures.

remain in operation and on the FDA network.

Are there established procedures to addressing conflicts between these requirements or is the contractor being asked to suggest procedures?

IDIQ SOW

5.2

System Engineering for

Scientific Computing

Requirements

14 - 15

What are the typical scientific workstation configurations, such as OS, process, memory, data storage, and communications ports?

There is no “Typical” scientific Workstation. See

1.4.1 OS’s are

Windows 32 bit and 64 bit, Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Mac OS-X includes El Capitan and Yosemite. Linux includes Ubuntu LTS version, CentOS, Fedora, Scientific Linux, etc.

IDIQ SOW

5.2

System Engineering for

Scientific Computing

Requirements 14 - 15

Does FDA have configuration documentation for the existing scientific workstations which would allow the creation, configuration, and connection of replacement scientific workstations?

Software Backups of all workstations in FDA will be on the EMC Avamar Grids. Hardware documentation is provided by each lab instrument vendor.

IDIQ SOW

5.2

System Engineering for

Scientific Computing

Requirements 14 - 15

Does FDA have documentation for the existing high performance computing facilities, specifically:

a. For each compute cluster, what are the

Exact configuration specifications will be supplied to the winning RFP vendor.

Generically the three largest HPC systems in FDA are from IBM and configured with manufacturer , model, number of servers in operation?

b. The network infrastructure , specifically topology, port throughput and switch manufacturer

c. The storage infrastructure , specifically topology, port throughput, and SAN/NAS/s witch manufacturer

Infiniband connectivity.

IDIQ SOW

5.4

Scientific Computing

Security Services

17-18

What is the location of Data (i.e., Vendors & how many storage installations require protection)?

Petabyte repositories for Scientific Data are at White Oak Data Center (WODC) and Wiley Scientific Data Center (SDC).

IDIQ SOW

5.4

Scientific Computing

Security Services

17-18 What is the State of Anti-virus (Product used, Percent of workstations protected)?

Symantec End Point Protection is run on all Scientific Workstations.

Versions are available for each different OS. We essentially have ~100% coverage.

IDIQ SOW

5.4

Scientific Computing

Security Services

17-18 Regarding patching infrastructure what are the products used and percent of workstations &

WSUS, Secunia, and scripts cover Microsoft and Middleware updates with servers successfully patched?

workstations patching at greater than 98% success.

We Never force a reboot of a Scientists workstation.

Servers are essentially at 100% patching success rate.

IDIQ SOW

5.4

Scientific Computing

Security Services

17-18 Will the FDA describe Workstation Audits (i.e., Products used currently, effectiveness of current solution)

WSUS, Secunia, MS Base Line Security Analyzer are used for monitoring and audits.

IDIQ SOW

5.4

Scientific Computing

Security Services

17-18 HSPD-12

Authentication (Percent of Scientific W/S using PIV Auth, verification of PIV exemption status)

Greater than 96% comliance.

Exemption requires written application to FDA Security.

IDIQ SOW

5.6

Technical Support for Scientific

Computing Environments and Systems

19-20

Who provides Tier 1 Support?

ERIC Help Desk Contractor.

IDIQ SOW

5.6

Technical Support for Scientific

Computing Environments and Systems

19-20 What ticketing system is being used for the Tier 1 Support staff?

Currently HP Service Manager (HPSM), future Service Now.

IDIQ SOW

5.6

Technical Support for Scientific

Computing Environments

19-20 How are waivers verified on existing workstations?

Center Information Systems Security Officers and Systems

IDIQ SOW

5.6

Technical Support for Scientific

Computing Environments and Systems

19-20 Do remote users (without local support personnel) ship workstations for repairs/reimaging?

Sometimes. On-site Full Time Remote support may be requested by the Task Order.

28 RFP

General Technical

Please provide the list of non-standard equipment to be supported (make, model, software version and vendor details)

See 1.4.1 We have a multi-vendor Scientific Lab Equipment operation, and it is not feasible to list the entire Scientific Equipment Inventory for the Agency. It is in a database which can be made available to the winning RFP vendor.

29 RFP

General Technical

Please provide the locations where the nonstandard lab equipment is currently placed, also is FDA expecting to staff a specific level of on-site resources at each location.

See Q28, and yes FDA is expecting the contractor to staff specific on site Labor Categories as resources per task order at each required location.

RFP General Technical

Please provide the details of current support service metrics (number of resource currently staffed, volume of tickets related to workstations and volume of support requests related to

See 1.4.1 for the Scientific Environment that must be supported.

Some Centers do not keep or use Eric Tickets, so the number of Scientific Workstations should be used as a

HPC systems). guide for the level of support needed, including the annual growth in workstations per year.

RFP General Technical

Please provide the details of current collaboration tools used. How many http and ftp sites are currently in operation and how they are utilized (type of users internal or external, number of hits and utilization metrics)

WebEx is one of the primary collaboration tools used in FDA.

Maintenance of Web sites and FTP Sites is not a primary consideration for support.

RFP General Technical

Please provide the detail of GIS tools / 3rd party packages that FDA currently users (software.

vendor and versions)

ARCGIS, Google maps. Current Version.

33 RFP

General Technical

How many isolated scientific enclaves are currently in operation? What type of systems are currently present in each enclave? Please provide current configuration designs of the scientific enclaves?

Scientific Enclave Support is not a primary consideration for Scientific Computing Support. The Enclaves are supported by a different vendor.

34 RFP

19.2 General

Public Trust Positions - Security

Requirements For Access

Page 15 Paragraph 19.2 states:

“The personnel security access level for this contract is

FDA-OCI

SENSITIVE, U.S.

citizenship, by birth

Contractor staff are not required to have a “Secret” clearance. They are required to have a minimum clearance at the

To Sensitive Information/U.S.

Citizenship Required.

or naturalized, and at minimum a security clearance background level of Secret is required.

Is FDA asking that everyone on the contact have a Secret clearance?

Sensitive Level including a fingerprint check, and general background check, etc. to get a PIV id and access to FDA computer equipment.

Could you please advise if there is an incumbent for this opportunity and if so the name of the incumbent and/or incumbents?

Engility

Would it be possible to receive the document in Word format?

The RFP will only be provided in PDF format.

37 Attach 5

Can Contractors add labor categories to the Pricing Worksheet?

No

38 RFP

1.5

Reimbursement for material handling fee shall not be in excess of 3% on any subcontractor and material expenses on task orders under this contract. Any material handling fee proposed must be exclusive of any profit and of any costs that would normally be covered

Yes and Yes by the indirect rates applied to the direct labor rate.

If a Contractor’s disclosed accounting practice is to apply other adders to the material handling fee (i.e. G&A), is that allowable under the Contract? Is the 3% material handling fee limit specific to only the material handling fee portion of a Contractors burdens?

39 RFP

IV. 33

Would the government extend the proposal due date to June 28 to allow the contractor adequate time to prepare a compressive response to this solicitation?

No

40 RFP

IV. 34

Should the offeror include the responses to the technical scenarios in the hard and electronic submission of the Technical Proposal and a separate compact disc for each technical scenario?

Or

Should the offeror include the responses to the technical scenarios in the hard

Technical scenarios shall be included in the hard and electronic submission as an attachment in Volume I. Separate compact discs for each technical scenarios are not required.

See amended version of RFP, page 67.

and electronic submission of the Technical Proposal and a separate compact disc for each technical scenario?

Attachment 1- SC Support

IDIQ-SOW

Section 1.4.6: States “FDA is currently implementing enclaves into its infrastructure to enable and foster collaboration and research replication, two lynchpins of scientific discovery.”

Please describe current cybersecurity approaches or methods being applied to these enclaves.

Support of the Enclaves is performed by a different vendor than this RFP.

Section 3.1, Paragraph 3: States “For further information see:

FDA Security Authorization Toolkit (see attachment entitled Security Authorization Toolkit)…. “Please provide the referenced attachment.

FDA follows

HHSAR 352.239-

72 – "Security requirements for federal information technology resources”

Section 3.1, Paragraph 7 and 8 lists FDA 3250 , HHS security policies, and FDA Security Program Oversight Guide.

See question 42.

Are these publications available for contractor review? If so where?

Attach 4 Technical

Scenario #3, Scientific

Workstation Scenario

How many incident response events, incidents, or breaches have occurred during the last reporting cycle that required contractor support in the SCS environment? Also, what were the type categories of the events, incidents, or breaches?

None

Attach 2, Scenario # 1 paragraph

The last sentence of paragraph 3 reads "One government subject matter expert is available (1 FTE) to provide clarification on terminology and……."The sentence appears incomplete. Please provide the missing information for this sentence.

“Scientific interpretation” – See amended Attachment 2.

Attach 2, Scenario #1

Please confirm this scenario requires only the preparation of data for later downstream analysis by SAS, R and other statistical and graphic packages. Please confirm no statistical analysis of the data is required beyond

The response should not include the actual statistical analysis, only description of the data curation approach and processes to prepare for analyses.

formatting of the data for use in appropriate statistical and analytic packages. If statistical analyses of the "resulting analytical datasets" is required in this scenario, please provide specific details of the analyses needed.

Attach 5, Pricing Sheet

It is customary to allow experience to substitute for education and vice versa. Unless otherwise stated in the “Experience” column, would the government approve 2 years’ of experience be allowed to substitute for an AA, 4 years’ of relevant experience be allowed to substitute for a BA/BS (or 2 years with an AA), 6 years of relevant experience be allowed to substitute for MS (or 2 years with a BA/BS), and 8 years of experience to allowed to substitute for a PhD (or 2 years with an MS, or 4 years with a BA/BS)?

No, the FDA will not substitute experience for degrees.

Attach 5, Pricing

Sheet

BIO14,

Bioimformatics Data MS plus 5 years or PhD plus 3 years.

Manager II: States MS plus 5 years is required, and MS plus 3 years. Please confirm that it’s meant to state BS plus 5 or MS plus 3.

See amended Attachment 5

Attachment 5 BIO15, Bioimformatics Data Manager III: States MS plus 10 years is required, and MS plus 6 years. Please confirm that it’s meant to state BS plus 10 or MS plus 6.

MS plus 10 years or PhD plus 6 years.

See amended Attachment 5

Attachment 5, Pricing

Spreadsheet

BIO16

Bioimformatics IV:

MS plus 20 years is required, and MS plus 10 years. Please confirm that it’s meant to state BS plus 20 or MS plus 10.

MS plus 20 years or PhD plus 10 years.

Attachment 5

Attachment 5:Pricing

Spreadsheet

Disaster Recovery Engineer 1 and 2 have the exact same description and requirements (15+ Years’ Experience).

Please verify the experience required for these two labor categories.

Disaster Recovery Engineer 1 should be 10+ years.

Disaster Recovery Engineer 2 should be 15+ years.

See amended Attachment 5

RFP For pricing purposes, what start date should Offerors use?

Estimated Start date is 08/01/2016

53 Attach 5, Pricing SE4 Data Standardization

Sheet Specialist has 7,680 hours in Year 2. All other entries are 1, 1920. Please confirm that 1,920 hours is correct?

Attachment 5

*Please note that that the annual hours for certain labor categories have changed to 19,200.

Attach 5, Pricing Sheet

IDIQ Government Site Rates: Please confirm that rows 335-338 should refer to IDIQ Year 3 (not 4).

See amended Attachment 5

RFP, Section 25.1, Subcontracting Goals

27 Numbered items 5 and 6 repeat themselves. Is the intent to have 3% set aside for SDVOSB and to have 3% set aside for VOSB?

Item 6 has been deleted. See amended RFP.

56 Attachment 2, Scenario 1

1 Third paragraph, last sentence. This sentence ends as if incomplete – please provide entire last sentence.

See response to Q:45.

SOW, Section 6 Deliverables

2nd paragraph, last sentence: “Also to be submitted with the proposal, a sample monthly progress report with examples of the type of risks and status updates expected to be reported under this contract”.

Will the Government please confirm that this is to be provided

Please provide as an appendix to the management approach. The pages will not be included in the page count.

as an Appendix to the Management Approach, excluded from page count?

58 Section 37

Please confirm that offerors do not need to address the items listed in FAR 44.202- 2 if the offeror has an approved Purchasing System.

Confirmed. See amended RFP

59 Section 25.3

Within the solicitation it references 25.3 Mentor Protégé “the contractor shall participate in DHHS Mentor-Protégé Program in accordance with the DHHS Small Business Program Manual, Chapter 14.

The contractor shall submit its application by the next available submission deadline, October 15 and will remain in the program within the performance period of the contract”.

Please confirm if the DHHS Mentor Protégé Program is currently active and if the clauses of 352.219-70 Mentor- Protégé Program and 352.219-71 Mentor- Protégé Program Reporting

The DHHS Mentor- Protégé references are applicable to the solicitation as they are required to be incorporated by the HHSAR. Any requirements of the clause will be discussed with the presumptive awardee.

Requirements are applicable to the solicitation?

60 Section 37

Under the first bullet marked “summary” on page 72 the RFP states that offerors are “required to propose a ceiling on Material Handling on Other Direct Costs (ODCs) and Subcontracts”.

However, on page 5 of the RFP it states that the material handling fee “shall not be in excess of 3%...”.

Please clarify whether offerors are to propose their own Material Handling Fee percentage or if all offerors are to include the 3% stated on page 5.

See amended RFP, page 73.

…”offerors are required to propose a ceiling rate of 3% on Material Handling…”