Question-Answers_final_82418.xlsx
XLSX spreadsheet 29 KB Posted
- Attached to
- Final Solicitation for 18-9138
- Solicitation number
- 18-9138
About this file
Questions from industry and Responses from Government
View the file
Other files
| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| Question-Answers_828_final_set.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| 180817_Grey_Wolf_Network_RFP_REV1.docx | DOCX document | |
| 180823_EDCN_Price_TemplateREV1.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| 180817_Grey_Wolf_Network_RFP_REV1.docx | DOCX document | |
| 180817_Grey_Wolf_Network_RFP.docx | DOCX document | |
| 180817_EDCN_Price_Template.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| J_&_A_Grey_Wolf_Final.docx | DOCX document | |
| SF1449_FBI_18-9138.pdf | ||
| Question-Answers_template.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| ARQ_FBI_18-9138.docx | DOCX document | |
| Question-Answers_.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| Question-Answers_template.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| 1808002_EDCN_Price_Template_DRAFT.xlsx | XLSX spreadsheet | |
| 180802_Grey_Wolf_Network_RFP_DRAFT.docx | DOCX document |
Show all 14
On GovTribe
Work with this file
- Download the original file
- Contacts named in this file
- Similar government files
- Ask GovTribe AI about this file
Text version
Sheet1
| Section | Industry Question | Government Answer | RFQ Revised | |
| 3.1 | The RFP in 3.1 states “As a result of this competition, there may be a single award or a multiple award. Offerors that meet the qualifications for CLIN A are free to bid on CLIN B as well.” While the RFP on pg 65 states: | |||
| "The Government will begin validating Proposals as they are received during Phase 1. The Proposals will be validated for acceptability and completeness. A Proposal failing any requirement associated with Phase 1 will be considered unresponsive and therefore will be ineligible for award and eliminated from competition." Question: Will the government please clarify if they would award to a vendor for Clin B that does not submit a solution for Clin A? | Yes, the government may award to a vendor for Clin B that does not submit a solution for Clin A. | No | ||
| RFP | We appreciate that the FBI desires to take consolidated approach to WAN and LAN in order to provide the FBI with the best options for both. However, combining the Sole Sourced Justified WAN and LAN portions in this bid together ultimately still limits the competition on both pieces since OEM’s traditionally price by the wholistic bid opportunity. Request: We respectfully request that you separate the WAN portion from the LAN as it was originally released in the RFI as we believe that the government will have a better chance of receiving the best value for both. | No. Seperation of the LAN/WAN RFQ is not being considered. | No | |
| B2. LAN (pg 9) | In B2 Lan Section, page9, the government requests the following: |
*Proposed Leaf devices shall each be capable of servicing 3.6Tbps of performance or greater *Proposed Leaf devices shall each provide a MAC table size of 250,000 or greater *Proposed Leaf devices shall each provide a minimum of 30MB of buffer space per device *Proposed Spine devices shall each provide 150Tbps of performance or greater *Proposed Spine devices shall each support a minimum of 450 100Gbps with at minimum half being reserved for future expansion. Request: We respectfully request that these be removed all metrics based on an individual device or chassis since a true spine leaf approach metrics should be based on the total fabric?
Request: We respectfully request that these hardware requirements be removed as:
1) The specific application performance data is unknown.
2) The metrics appear to be based on individual platforms or chassis systems rather than the overarching architecture.
| 3) they prohibit other innovative spine-leaf solutions to be bid. | To safeguard the spending of tax dollars, minimum technical specifications for the LAN components were required. These requirements were derived from market research responses and will not be removed. 1) correct, performance data is unknown, 2) correct, market research responses provided examples of solution components to use for minimum requirements for the specific use case of a multi-tenant data center, 3) market reseach has not shown that these requirements are prohibitive of spine-leaf solutions | No | ||
| RFP | We respectfully request that the FBI remove all Cisco management software and SDN software references from the bid to include ACI, Cisco ONE and NAC as these are vendor specific and will limit the competition to one solution. | The LAN portion is Cisco specific, the WAN portion is open to alternatives. | No | |
| Section 3.1 – P.6/ Section 3.1 – P.6 | Section 3.1 – P.6 |
States the following:
This contract/contracts will be a Hybrid with base plus four option years. The option years will consist of maintenance and on-site engineering services only with no expectation of additional system purchases.
Then Section 3.2 – P.6 States the following:
| Throughout the life of the Contract, the Government anticipates that labor categories and products not originally proposed in the Contractor’s price catalogue may become necessary. In such event, the Government and the winning Offeror will enter into bilateral negotiation for pricing and any unique terms and conditions. Q. Please clarify what the actual scope of this contract. | It is intended that hardware and software will only be purchased in the base year, with mainteance and on-site services being available in the option years. If a product becomes end of support during the life of the contract, a replacement may be required under 3.2 - P.6. No other product purchases are planned in the option years. | No |
| Section 3.1 – P.6 | Section 3.1 – P.6 |
Analytics, Orchestration, and Assurance components for the Fabric must be provided and proven to integrate with the full proposed solution with the ability to incorporate third party products which may be brought in by tenants.
Q. FBI has stipulated that Cisco ONE, ISE and ACI all be incorporated on the WAN, this means they must also be used on the LAN or there will be separate/disparate management interfaces and Cisco imposed interoperability issues between WAN and LAN operations. Please advise how will FBI evaluate Analytics Orchestration and Assurance components that are non-Cisco?
| This is specifically a LAN requirement. There is no statement that Cisco ONE, ISE or ACI will be used on the LAN. A non Cisco proposed solution should address Cisco as a third party product as tenants may bring in any brand of devices. | No | ||
| Section 3.1 – P.6 | Given that the Cisco ONE/ ACI/ ISE only integrate with other Cisco products, what is the interoperability responsibilty for the prime that is working with a tenant that does not use cisco products today? | This is specifically a LAN requirement. There is no statement that Cisco ONE, ISE or ACI will be used on the LAN. A non Cisco proposed solution should address Cisco as a third party product as tenants may bring in any brand of devices. | No |
| Section 3.1 – P.6 | Section 3.1 – P.6 |
Given that Cisco ONE/ ACI/ ISE are proprietary products that only work with other Cisco solutions, by providing a sole source justification for the WAN for these products, it essentially provides a sole source justification for the LAN. Question: Will the government remove all reference to Cisco integration so that the government can consider other non Cisco solutions?
| This is specifically a LAN requirement. There is no statement that Cisco ONE, ISE or ACI will be used on the LAN. A non Cisco proposed solution should address Cisco as a third party product as tenants may bring in any brand of devices. | No |
| Section 3.1 – P.6 | Section 3.1 – P.6 |
Given that Cisco ONE/ ACI/ ISE are proprietary products that only work with other Cisco solutions, by providing a sole source justification for the WAN for these products, it essentially provides a sole source justification for the LAN. Question: Will the government separate the WAN from this bid entirely so that they FBI can evaluate the LAN portion based on its merits?
| This is specifically a LAN requirement. There is no statement that Cisco ONE, ISE or ACI will be used on the LAN. A non Cisco proposed solution should address Cisco as a third party product as tenants may bring in any brand of devices. | No | |||
| Section 4.1 - P.10 | With the understanding that it is best to perform many L2 functions as close to the workload as possible, is it the expectation that the micro-segmentation functionality will be done at the hypervisor/vSwitch level or at the top of rack switch? | This is not understood. Please provide a solution or solutions that address the stated requirements. | No | |
| Section 4.2 – P.12 | ||||
| Hardware Maintenance | Is there a current, site/FBI wide Cisco SmartNet contract in place that can/will be utilized to provide OEM maintenance of hardware/software or will all maintenance be covered in Option years? | Yes, for Cisco products only. Non-Cisco solutions maintenance must be provided in the option years. | No | |
| Section 4.2 – P.13 | When does the CEF expansion anticipate having a facility ready to actually accept workloads that are not lift-and-shift? What are the plans for the CEF expansion to accept lift and shift workloads that cannot or will not utilize the provided LAN environment? | Tenants have the option of lift and shift or new systems as soon as the CEF opens. It is planned that all tenants will use the provided LAN as a transport service. | No | |
| Can the government provide desired performance targets by application, especially around latency? Can you provide the desired end to end latency today? |
Can the government provide a list of all/any anticipated types of workloads and current performance metrics as well as performance shortcomings?
Can the government provide any insight in to potential new workloads and associated performance requirements? Especially for any unusual workloads like HPC, etc.?
Has the government considered all workloads that will be coming in here?
| Has the government considered that the workloads coming in may not require or work with the prescribed switches in this RFP? | No, tenants have not provided their current or future performance targets or types of worklaods. The proposals should address a multi-use high capacity data center design to address any and all possible requirements. | No |
| Section 4.2 – P.13 |
| General Project Scope | Does the government wish to include a requirement to ensure compatibility with UCOP, CTU, SCOP, TCOP, and UVDI since they are among the newest large program infrastructures purchased? | No, the proposed solution may replace the current network components of existing systems. | No |
| Section 4.2 – P.14 |
General Requirements Will the government allow for a second round of questions after answers are provided to ensure proper clarity on this important project?
| possibly | No | |||
| Section 4.2 – P.14 | ||||
| General Requirements | What % of the racks are you anticipating being used in the first year ? | 100% | No | |
| Section 4.2 – P.14 | ||||
| General Requirements | Does the government intend on setting a strict policy for incoming tenants to use the networking outlined in this RFP or will they be able to use their own network? | |||
| Tenants must use the network outlined in this RFP for transport at a minimum. | No | |||
| Section 4.2 – P.14 | ||||
| General Requirements | Since DOJ tenants have a mix of network environments, is the government expecting multiple automation and orchestration tools to address the disparate systems? | It is hoped that the toolsets provided by the CEF as part of this RFP will address all tenant needs | No | |
| Section 4.2 | Since ACI and ONE are required for the WAN, any single pane requirement dictates those same tools on the LAN. Those tools only support Cisco hardware. What about tenants and existing PITC workloads running on non-Cisco hardware that is not supported by ACI/ONE? | This is an innacurate statement, some tools that can interact with Cisco products as a third party product could provide a single pane of glass while still having Cisco tools in the CEF. The RFP does not limit the proposal to only one pane of glass solution. | No | |
| Scope 2.0, page 5 | Scope 2.0, page 5- “All components must be flexible and open to allow for integration with tenant systems from multiple vendors without requiring extensive tenant redesign or complex work arounds.” |
| Request: The proposed Cisco ACI solution does not integrate with legacy Cisco or other Third party solutions. We respectfully request the government to allow for an open solution that will allow the government to benefit from innovation as it is available from industry. | The LAN portion is Cisco specific at this time due to current WAN designs and timeframe limits to bring the new CEF online. | No |
| Standard Network Requirements, page 15 | Government requires " Provide information on how the proposed management tools are implemented for redundancy both within one data center and between multiple data centers." | |
| Question: What does the other data center use today: 1) From a network Tap perspective, 2) From a monitoring perspective? 3) From a packet Capture perspective? 4) from a performance management perspective? |
| Current data center configurations are not being provided in this RFP. The current CEF's do not have spine/leaf LAN's. The proposal selected may impact how other CEF's are upgraded in the future. | No | |
| Standard Network Requirements, page 15 | ||
| What systems are in the other data center? Is this a requirement to manage the other data center? | Current data center configurations are not being provided in this RFP. The current CEF's do not have spine/leaf LAN's. The proposal selected may impact how other CEF's are upgraded in the future. | No |
| A1 Engineering Services, page 7 | Power: |
How quickly does the government plan to populate the racks with compute and storage?
| What is the anticipated density for that footprint given the current power footprint? | As soon as the CEF is turned over to the Government after construction. 20kW per cabinet maximum. Density of the new CEF will be limited by cooling, not power. | No |
| B2Lan, page 11 | B2Lan, page 11 “ The current plan and BOM includes the plan for re-use of GFE optics from a legacy data center for leaf switches. If a non-Cisco switch is proposed, additional optics must be included in the Proposal. Quantity of 1,090 1Gbps multimode fiber, quantity of 284 1Gbps copper, and quantity of 1,745 10Gbps multimode fiber.” |
Question: Can the government guarantee that the current GFE optics are in working condition and will easily work with the proposed Cisco solution? If not, can this GFE request be removed from the bid to provide more equal playing field?
| Question: Given that these need to be incorporated into our project plan, what is the anticipated time to recieve this inventory? What is the remediation if they are not found in working condition? | All GFE Cicso optics are currently covered under an enterprise maintenance contract and will be replaced as necessary. | No | |
| 4.2 Network Services, Supply and Replenishment, page 12 | 4.2 Network Services, | Supply and Replenishment, page 12 |
“If parts depots are not located in four-hour proximity to the data center, the Contractor shall provide all on-site spares and replenish all spares used from the on-site spares at no additional cost to the Government. Note that non-volatile components (hard drives, flash memory) that cannot be sanitized according to FBI Security procedures will be retained by the FBI at no additional cost.”
Question: What % of sparing does the government expect?
| This should be determined based on the proposed solutions' redundancy design, typical failure rates and which components need critical, time sensitive replacement in a data center environment | No | |
| 4.2 Network Services, Supply and Replenishment, page 12 | 4.2 Network Services, | Supply and Replenishment, page 12 |
“If parts depots are not located in four-hour proximity to the data center, the Contractor shall provide all on-site spares and replenish all spares used from the on-site spares at no additional cost to the Government. Note that non-volatile components (hard drives, flash memory) that cannot be sanitized according to FBI Security procedures will be retained by the FBI at no additional cost.”
| Question: Can you provide further clarification on the government’s policy for the retention of switches upon a failure? Does the government require to keep the switch as we received conflicting answers regarding the government policy? | Each device should be provided with a Letter of Volatiility so that user sensitive data can be sanitized. Each letter should specify which componets cannot be sanitized in the even of component failure. If a hard drive or flash memory fails, it typically cannot be sanitized and must be retained for destruction. | No |
| General Scope, Page 13 | General Scope, Page 13 | |
| • | “Warehousing of components until systems are ready to ship as complete, rather than components. | |
| • | Warehousing at the vendor’s secure site until CEF’s are able to accept deliveries for install. Estimated completion window of March 2019 through August 2019. “ |
| Question: Will the government accept inventory at vendor’s warehouse location to allow for invoicing or will invoicing be generated after the entire project is complete? If latter, please provide guidelines of invoice milestones for proper planning. | The Government will not accept inventory at the vendor's warehouse location to allow for invoicing. Upon award, a milesone shedule for services only will be established. Invoiceing for systems will only take place once installation in the CEF has taken place. | No |
| 10.0 Travel, page 20 | If applicable and assuming FBInet access, will the government allow some engineers to be staffed remotely part time? |
| Under General Requirments it is stated that all non-warehouse work must be performed on-site, with no expectation of remote work or access. | No | |
| B2Lan, Page 10 | B2 LAN , page 10 | |
| • | Out of band management components must also have zero touch provisioning capabilities and policy based automation controllers. |
| Question: How does the government define Zero touch provisioning? | Zero touch provisioning (ZTP) is a switch feature that allows the devices to be provisioned and configured automatically, eliminating most of the manual labor involved with adding them to a network. | No |
| 3.1 Contract Line item Clin Structure, page 6 | Given that services are FFP, what is the responsibility of the prime contractor to integrate tenants with third party vendors who do not use the awarded solution? |
| To provide technical options, attend meetings to provide details and configure the awarded solution in a manner approved by the Government to provide an agreed upon level of connectivity to the tenants | No | ||||
| 3.1 Contract Line item Clin Structure, page 6 | Given that services are FFP, would the government consider LAN management only for new tenants? | No | No | ||
| Section 4.2 – P.14-15 | |||||
| Standard Network Requirements | For tenant workloads requiring networking solutions that cater to High Performance Computing (HPC), Articial Intelligence (AI), etc., will there be a need for technologies such as InfiniBand? | ||||
| If InfiniBand is used by a tenant, the tenant must provide a conversion applience to interconnect their devices. | No | ||||
| Section 4.2 – P.14-15 | |||||
| Standard Network Requirements | · All networks must support a multi-tenant data center in the ability to allow tenants to both manage and monitor the standard infrastructure of the CEF and components they bring to the CEF. Question: How will the CEF accomplish this? Will tenants be required to maintain their own management tools for their environment and use the CEF ACI, ICE, ONE, etc tools? Or, will CEF be providing API integration between tenant tools and the CEF tools? Who is responsible for this cost? | Some tools that can interact with Cisco products as a third party product could provide a single pane of glass while still having Cisco tools in the CEF. The RFP does not limit the proposal to only one pane of glass solution. However, management and monitoring tools for the LAN must be included in the proposal and must support third party products. The integration during the first year may be part of the proposed solution. | No | ||
| Section 4.2 – P.14-15 | |||||
| Standard Network Requirements | • | All components must be able to utilize open northbound and southbound API’s. | |||
| Can the government please clarify this requirement. | A northbound interface is an interface that allows a particular component of a network to communicate with a higher-level component. Conversely, a southbound interface allows a particular network component to communicate with a lower-level component. https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/northbound-interface-southbound-interface | No | |||
| Section 4.1 - P.7,8 | Are any additional WAN circuits going to be provisioned for the CEF expansion? | yes | No | ||
| RFP | Given that the Government will be to serving as a CSP for both on premise and eventually off premise workloads, does the Government wish to have an integration into key public cloud providers? | That is outside the scope of this RFP | No | ||
| Section 1.0 and 2.0 Primary Objectives | 1. | This new CEF will serve as one of three primary data centers for all DOJ Agencies, consolidating applications from more than 100 legacy data centers. The new CEF will be multi-tenant and will provide networking transport as a service to all customers globally. | |||
| Question: Is it the intention and/or desire of the FBI and DOJ to be able to use a standard management tool(s) across all 3 data centers? The FBI currently has bids out sole source for Arista, Cloudforms and other networking products not supported by the Cisco ONE WAN required solution. What is the Primes role in integrating these solutions? | Other procurements withing the FBI and DOJ may eventually support tenants of the CEF's. The scope of this RFP covers the CEF in Pocatello, Idaho and it is unknown what tenants may bring to the CEF. The Prime's role for this RFP in this context is to provide the CEF's WAN and LAN solution with installation on ongoing engineering support. Support and on-site engineering services for the tenants are to be included in order to provide standardized network transport services to the tenants regardless of the systems they bring to the CEF. | No | |||
| Section 1.0 and 2.0 Primary Objectives | 1. | This new CEF will serve as one of three primary data centers for all DOJ Agencies, consolidating applications from more than 100 legacy data centers. The new CEF will be multi-tenant and will provide networking transport as a service to all customers globally. Question: Since Cisco One only supports Cisco UCS servers, is it the intention of the government to standardize on UCS servers going forward? | Tenants may bring multiple vendor products into the CEF. The proposed solutions must be flexible to meet all tenant's requirements. | No | |
| Section 1.0 and 2.0 Primary Objectives | 1. | This new CEF will serve as one of three primary data centers for all DOJ Agencies, consolidating applications from more than 100 legacy data centers. The new CEF will be multi-tenant and will provide networking transport as a service to all customers globally. Question: The government has invested significantly in products or solutions such as RiverBed. Since RiverBed is not supported by ACI or Cisco One, is it the intention of the government to eliminate all RiverBed from its environment. | There is no requirement for a single pane of glass in this RFP. The solution proposed must support all tennat requirements. | No | |
| Section 1.0 and 2.0 Primary Objectives | "During normal operations, the CEF expansion must be able to inter-operate with all other geographically separate DOJ data centers as one virtual data center. In the event of disaster, major event, or CEF outage, the CEF expansion must be able to operate as the sole data center for all DOJ entities worldwide. " | ||||
| Question: How does the Government intend the CEF expansion interoperate with CJIS and other DOJ datacenter not based on ACI, ISE and Cisco One? | There is no requirement for a single pane of glass in this RFP. The solution proposed must support all tennat requirements. | No | |||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please confirm the pricing-redacted copy of the EDCN Prime Template does not count against the page limit for Volume B. | confirmed | No | ||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please clarify why Volume B and Volume D is addressed in the instructions for Volume C. | Corrected | Yes | ||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please clarify the resume requirements in Volumes D and E. | Corrected | Yes | ||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please list certification requirements for Key Personnel by labor category. | The key personnel certifications could vary depending on the technology proposed. Their certifications should be commesurate with the duties being performed. | No | ||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please clarify which personnel are considered Key. By definition, it is uncommon for all personnel to be considered Key. | Only the on-site support service and engineering individuals provided under this contract shall be designated as key personnel. | No | ||
| Section 12.6 Personnel / Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions / EDCN Pricing Template CLINs A1 and B1 | Please clarify the progressively declining labor hour requirement in the EDCN pricing template as there are no instructions stating how to accommodate this. Section 12.6 includes requirements for notifying the government of planned absences for personnel that don't seem to be considered full time in future years. Are the labor hours supposed to be decremented by day (4 hours the first option year, 2 the second, etc.)? | No. As noted in the price template instructions, values populated in the green cells initially are for demonstration purposes only - please overwrite or delete any initial values. | No | ||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please clarify why past performance requirements are requested in Volume H for the Subcontracting Plan? | Corrected | Yes | ||
| Section 20.5 Proposal Volume Instructions | Please clarify the requirements in Volume H for the Subcontracting Plan. | Corrected | Yes | ||
| Section 21.0 Evaluation Factors | Regarding SECRET safeguarding, what type of classified material (documents, servers, tapes, blades, etc.) will the awarded contractor need to store at their facility? Is the material of a certain size that it will not fit in a GSA-approved 4 or 5 drawer container? | Documentation of network designs and configurations that are stored at the vendor's locaiton shall be protected as if classified at the SECRET level. | No | ||
| Section 21.0 Evaluation Factors | Does the facility with approved safeguarding need to be within a certain mileage of the customer performance/build site? | No | No | ||
| Section 21.0 Evaluation Factors | If the contractor is not required to safeguard any materials – i.e. any and all access to materials with be at the customer site - is the awarded contractor still required to have SECRET safeguarding authorized by a US government agency? | Documentation of network designs and configurations that are stored at the vendor's locaiton shall be protected as if classified at the SECRET level. | No | ||
| Section 20.1 page 58 | Given the extensive requirements and breadth of questions, will the government consider extending the proposal due date by 2 weeks to September 18th? | Not at this time | No | ||
| 12.6 Personnel | Please confirm that identified Key Personnel is per the Contractor’s proposed Staffing Plan for personnel that are to be onsite in Pocatello. | Yes | No | ||
| Price Volume A1 and B1 | Please confirm Contractor can modify (i.e. labor categories and hours) CLIN A1 and CLIN B1 to match the proposed Contractor Staffing Plan. | Confirmed. As noted in the price template instructions, values populated in the green cells initially are for demonstration purposes only - please overwrite or delete any initial values. | No | ||
| Price Volume A1 | For WV and VA locations, in which dedicated onsite labor is not required, are the labor hours and labor categories for these site installations to be added to the CLIN A1 pricing worksheet? |
| Can the Contractor add separate rows for these 2 locations in CLIN A1 as pricing may differ from the dedicated onsite Pocatello labor? | Onsite installations will only take place in Pocatelo, Idaho. | No |
| Price Volume A1 and B1; Factor 1 | Will the Contractor be required to provide Project Management of the project implementation? |
If yes, can Contractor modify CLIN A1 and CLIN B1 to include a Project Management labor category and labor rate?
| If yes, is the PMO pricing FFP based on the level of effort submitted by the Contractor? | Yes. As noted in the price template instructions, values populated in the green cells initially are for demonstration purposes only - please overwrite or delete any initial values. It is expected that labor categories and rates will be customized to align with the proposal. Yes, the pricing FFP is based on the LOE information submitted by the Contractor. | No | ||
| Price Volume A1 | Is the engineering/installation labor pricing for the WV and VA locations FFP based on the level of effort (hours) provided by Contractor in Price Volume? | Onsite installations will only take place in Pocatelo, Idaho. | No | |
| 4.2 Hardware Maintenance | How does FBI like to see items in CLIN A2 and CLIN B2 delineated as proposed hardware “spares” – per Notes in Column Q? | Yes, annotate in Column Q. Include the word "spare." | No | |
| Price Volume A1 and B1 | Will the reduced labor hours for the Option Years ne purchased as a block of hours by the FBI? |
Are these hours and support used on an ad-hoc/scheduled request basis?
If a block of hours is to be used (and not an FTE), will travel be authorized for ID?
| Can the Contractor add/delete labor categories for these out years to be consistent with the labor categories used in the Contractor Staffing Plan? | As noted in the price template instructions, values populated in the green cells initially are for demonstration purposes only - please overwrite or delete any initial values. It is expected that labor categories and rates will be customized to align with the proposal. The pricing FFP is based on the LOE information submitted by the Contractor. | No | ||
| 180817_EDCN_Price_Template | Will the government please release an unprotected price table? We can’t resize the columns in the summary worksheets to see the numbers. | Yes. | Price Template revised. | |
| 180817_EDCN_Price_Template | Cisco maintenance is not applied as a simple line item by line uplift. Specific system level parts carry specific maintenance part numbers. Will the government please add columns in the price workbook so maintenance part numbers can be added as appropriate? | Added Maintenance Part Number column to CLIN A2 worksheet and Proposed Maintenance Part Number column to CLIN B2 worksheet. | No | |
| 3.2 | CLIN A requires Cisco Gold or Premier status but CLIN B does not mention the same status requirement since it is 'Brand Name or equal.' If the bidding partner bids Cisco for CLIN B LAN, can we assume the Government also requires Cisco Gold, Premier or a brand name equivalent status for that CLIN as well? | No, the LAN portion may be bid without the WAN portion | No | |
| 9 | For invoicing, the section states 'delivered and accepted services/HW and software.' From a financial perspective, a 'bill and hold' scenario is one where invoices are sent for gear purchased but sits in a warehouse for an extended period of time. Although the RFP states that all gear will be shipped out by March, what are the Government's thoughts in the event they are the ones requesting a later delivery date? | The Government will not accept inventory at the vendor's warehouse location to allow for invoicing. Upon award, a milesone shedule for services only will be established. Invoiceing for systems will only take place once installation in the CEF has taken place. | No | |
| Volume H, page 61 | Volume H – Phase 2: Subcontract Plan {if applicable} (PASS/FAIL) repeats the past performance instruction listed above. Request an update for the correct instruction. | Corrected | Yes | |
| 19.5 Small Business Program Representations (page 50), and 19.17 OEM Approved Reseller Certification (page 58), and 20.1 General Instructions g. Exceptions to Terms and Conditions (page 58) | Question: In which volume does the government wish the offeror to include the responses to these sections? | Listed on the Section 19.0 title (Volume A) | No | |
| 180817_EDCN_Price_Template.xlsx | In the EDCN Price Template, for both the WAN (CLIN A2) and the LAN (CLIN B2) the Bill of Materials listed has the exact same quote (quantities and model numbers) for the Base Year, OY1, OY2, OY3 and OY4. Is that the intent of the FBI or should the Option Years be maintenance line items only? | Yes. Retain the complete record set for all option years. For records with no cost in the option years, leave List Price and Discount blank. | No | |
| Section 4.2 Network Services - DOJ/FBI, Page 11 | Please confirm that when Base Configuration is referenced throughout section 4.2, the government’s desire is to have the awardee provide a fully integrated deployable solution, without customer specific data, prior to the gear leaving the warehouse? Or is base configuration only OS and Firmware without the integration of components? | Base configuration is OS/Firmware and minimal configuration to place on network and perform all other actions through solution management tools. | No | |
| Page 13 – General Requirements, Warehousing at the vendor’s secure site until CEF’s are able to accept deliveries for install. Estimated completion window of March 2019 through August 2019. | Please confirm that warehousing and integration space must be owned by the Prime vendor to demonstrate experience, knowledge, and security. | No, ownership could be through a sub contractor | No | |
| Section 3.1 | "Offerors that meet the qualifications for CLIN A are free to bid on CLIN B as well. Question: Do you need to provide a response to CLIN A in order to bid on CLIN B? | No, you can provide a response only to CLIN B | No | |
| Section 3.2 | "Only OFFERORS with a valid, posted and verifiable CISCO Gold Partner or CISCO Premier Partner certificate will be eligible for consideration. Question: For the WAN CLIN will the government accept the Offeror’s response if they are teamed with a certified CISCO Gold Partner or certified CISCO Premier Partner? | Would require a copy of the teaming agreement and the Cisco Partner certifications being fully supported by the team. | No | |
| Section 21.0 | "The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by using the total price of all Contract Line Items (CLINs) in Section 3 for all contract periods to include options. Question: Since the WAN CLIN is Cisco Brand Name Only, would the government consider evaluating CLINs A and B separately? Offeror’s proposing a non-Cisco LAN will be at a disadvantage on CLIN B1 if not evaluated separately. | Given that Offerors may submit proposals for either or both CLINs, price submissions for CLINs A and B will be evaluated discretely. | No | |
| Section 4.0 – B LAN (Brand Name or Equal): Subsection B.2 | Makes reference to a “example/reference Bill of Material“. Is this BOM available within newest RFP file pack? CLIN B2 LAN HW SW is blank . Can this be clarified? | Contained in the EDCN Price Templace Spreadsheet | No | |
| 3.1 | “As a result of this competition, there may be a single award or a multiple award. Offerors that meet the qualifications for CLIN A are free to bid on CLIN B as well.” This language limits CLIN B offerors only to offerors eligible to compete for CLIN A. Please confirm an offeror can submit a proposal only for CLIN B LAN without meeting the qualifications for CLIN A (e.g., required to be a Cisco Gold or Cisco Premier Partner). | A response to CLIn B is allowed | No | |
| 3.2 | In the RFP, it is stated "CLIN A – WAN (Brand-Name Only CISCO) Only OFFERORS with a valid, posted and verifiable CISCO Gold Partner or CISCO Premier Partner certificate will be eligible for consideration." Please confirm that there is no requirement for offerors to be Cisco Gold or Cisco Premier for CLIN B only responses regardless of whether an offeror proposes a Cisco solution or an alternate OEM solution. | No CISCO requirement for CLIN B | No | |
| B2 | FBI specifies "Proposed Leaf devices shall each provide a MAC table size of 250,000 or greater". A typical leaf switch MAC table size would not require more than 100,000 MAC addresses. Recommend that the requirement be lowered to "a MAC table size of 100,000 or greater". | From market research, this is the largest LAN being built in North America in the past four years. 'Typical' devices may not meet the requirements of the CEF. If your product will meet the described environment's requiements, submit a proposal and document any variances to the minimum specifications documented in the RFP and why the proposed solution would be acceptable. | No | |
| B2 | FBI specifies "Proposed Leaf devices shall each be capable of servicing 3.6Tbps of performance or greater" Is the 3.6Tbps number a full duplex or half duplex performance requirement? | Full Duplex | No | |
| B2 | FBI specifies "Proposed Leaf devices shall each provide a minimum of 30MB of buffer space per device". This is not typical for a leaf switch. Is 20MB of buffer space per device acceptable? | From market research, this is the largest LAN being built in North America in the past four years. 'Typical' devices may not meet the requirements of the CEF. If your product will meet the described environment's requiements, submit a proposal and document any variances to the minimum specifications documented in the RFP and why the proposed solution would be acceptable. | No | |
| 21 | The RFP states in Section 21 that "There will be two phases for the Evaluation Factors: |
Phase 1 – Validation Phase for WAN and LAN
| Verification process for each Offeror to provide documentation showing CISCO Gold Partner or CISCO Premier Partner and a Top Secret Facility Clearance based upon which portion they are responding to". As this language refers to both the WAN and LAN, please clarify that CLIN B LAN Bidders are not required to be a Cisco Gold or Cisco Premier partner as part of the validation phase. | These are listed separatly in Phast 1 -- Validation phase for WAN only and Phase 1 -- Validation phase for LAN only. Page 65 | No | ||
| 21 pg. 67 | Under Factor 1 - Technical Solutions, CLIN A is listed as LAN in the title, but Wan in the opening paragraph. Please confirm CLIN A should be WAN, not LAN, as listed in the table on page 6. | Corrected | Yes | |
| 21 pg. 67 | Under Factor 2 - Technical Solutions, CLIN B is listed as WAN in the title but LAN in the opening paragraph. Please confirm CLIN B should be LAN, not WAN, as listed in the table on page 6. | Corrected | Yes | |
| 21 pg. 67 | Evaluation Factor 1 references "Known risks and mitigations such as: interoperability between WAN and LAN, multiple management tools that have a need to work together, security configurations that may limit features". The RFP does not provide the details necessary for an offeror to address how its proposed solution mitigates these known risks. In particular, the RFP does not provide the government's requirements for network management interoperability between CLIN A WAN and CLIN B LAN nor does it provide the network management solution currently accepted by the government for the WAN. Without this information, we cannot adequately provide a comprehensive response. Please update the RFP accordingly with this needed information or remove it as an evaluation factor. | This will not be removed. If no risk are known, please document this in your proposal. | No | |
| 21 pg. 67 | Evaluation Factor 2 references "Known risks and mitigations such as: interoperability between WAN and LAN, multiple management tools that have a need to work together, security configurations that may limit features". The RFP does not provide the details necessary for an offeror to address how its proposed solution mitigates these known risks. In particular, the RFP does not provide the government's requirements for network management interoperability between CLIN A WAN and CLIN B LAN nor does it provide the network management solution currently accepted by the government for the WAN. Without this information, we cannot adequately provide a comprehensive response. Please update the RFP accordingly with this needed information or remove it as an evaluation factor. | This will not be removed. If no risk are known, please document this in your proposal. | No | |
| J&A Sect 3 | The "JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION" stipulates the following hardware as required to work with DMVPN. The only Cisco equipment required to support the DMVPN protocol are the Cisco ASR-9906 routers and Cisco ASR-1002-HX routers. These routers would directly terminate the DMVPN connections in the Datacenter at the WAN Edge. The remainder of the equipment used for Aggregation layer and Services layer in the Datacenter could be provided by alternate vendors since DMVPN is not used in those layers in the Datacenter. We therefore request that the government designate only the ASR edge routers within the Brand Name Only specification. All other hardware specified should be listed as Brand Name or Equal. This is the only way to ensure a fair and open competition for the WAN components are not related to the DMVPN routers. | Working on response, will provide as soon as possible | No | |
| J&A Sect 5 | The "JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION" states that the FBI already has invested five years in the evaluation, testing, configuration, and accreditation of the brand name components and that it would require an additional two years to re-train, configure, test, and accredit substitute components. Please explain whether within the last five years alternate OEMs were provided an opportunity to test and accredit its components to the stated security and performance requirements. If not, please provide the rationale for why the government chose to enable a brand name limitation and avoid an opportunity to promote competition. Additionally, as the security requirements would be the same/similar between the WAN and LAN, please provide an explanation for why this stated justification applies only to the WAN components. | Working on response, will provide as soon as possible | No | |
| J&A Sect 7 | The "JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION" states the FBI conducted market research with commercial sources that have experience with Cisco pricing. Market research should not be limited to the resellers of an OEM. Please explain when this research was performed by the government. Additionally, please provide additional explanation for what efforts the government undertook to explore alternate OEM solutions. The current description suggests the government presumed the competition would be limited to Cisco and did not approach the market with fair competition in mind. | Working on response, will provide as soon as possible | No | |
| J&A Sect 10 | The "JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION" states in section 10 that "No other companies have expressed an interest either orally or in writing." We disagree with this statement and question the validity of utilizing this as a basis for limited competition. We expressed interest both orally and in writing in our response to the FBI's Market Study on SEWP # 87854. Additionally, we are concerned with the stated reference to encouraging responses from Cisco resellers. Again, this evidences the government's narrow approach to market research and calls into questions the justification utilized by the government in the J&A. | Working on response, will provide as soon as possible | No | |
| General | We recommend that the FBI Separate the RFP into two separate and distinct RFP’s (separating CLIN A & CLIN B) or open competition for both CLIN A and B with a Brand Name or Equal designation. | Not at this time | No | |
| General | Please allow for additional Requests for Clarification addressing the Answers and time for FBI/DOJ to respond. | possibly | No | |
| General | In order to better allow Industry time to provide competitive and compelling proposal responses in the interest of FBI/DOJ, we respectfully request a three (3) week extension to the current due date. | Not at this time | No |
File details come from the government source that posted it.