DREAM RFI SB 1 21 2020.docx

The purpose of this Sources Sought Notice is to accomplish market research pursuant to FAR Part 10, and to identify qualified and experienced small businesses capable of and interested in providing the services described in this notice. The Department of State welcomes the participation of qualified Joint Ventures and also encourages teaming to ensure an effective solution. Additionally, this notice seeks to determine if the services can be acquired using Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) or other Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWAC).

This notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a(n) Invitation for Bid (IFB), Request for Quotation (RFQ), or Request for Proposal (RFP). Additionally, there is no obligation or commitment on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services described within this notice now or in the future. The Government does not intend to award a contract(s) based solely on the responses to this notice. Respondents are advised that the Government will not pay for information submitted in response to this notice, nor will it compensate respondents for any costs incurred in the development/furnishing of a response. The Government will not entertain telephone calls or questions for this notice. Please note that a decision not to submit a response to this notice will not preclude a vendor from participating in any future solicitation.

1.0 Background

The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”, “State”, or “the Department”) leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is the public face of the Department of State for millions of United States citizens and foreign nationals around the world, a service-oriented global enterprise and policy partner. CA is responsible for the welfare and protection of U.S. citizens abroad, for the issuance of passports and other documentation to citizens and nationals, and for the protection of U.S. border security and the facilitation of legitimate travel to the United States. These far-reaching consular activities have broad foreign policy and domestic political implications and involve serious legal, humanitarian and management concerns. Responsibility for these functions is vested within the Department of State in the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs and for their implementation abroad in consular officers assigned to Foreign Service posts. CA is also the Department’s largest Bureau in terms of domestic personnel and is almost entirely funded through revenue generated by consular fees. In fiscal year 2017, CA adjudicated 12.4 million non-immigrant visas and issued 21 million U.S. passports contributing to $4.58 billion in revenue, making CA the equivalent of a Fortune 600 company.

To achieve this mission, CA actively pursues business, technology, and management enhancements and improvements. The Office of Consular Systems and Technology (CA/CST) is tasked with providing CA's mission critical information technology (IT) resources to support more than 300 Consular locations including approximately 276 overseas locations, 29 domestic passport agencies, 2 domestic visa processing centers, and an array of information, book/card print, passport centers, DOS annexes, and contractor sites.

Within CA/CST, the Service Integration & Innovation (SII) Division is responsible for crosscutting initiatives aimed at standardizing and improving CA/CST. SII identifies new technologies to support CA’s mission, ensures alignment of systems to business goals through enterprise architecture modernization, and identifies ways to improve CA/CST processes to ensure optimal delivery of services. SII’s Integrated Services (IS) Branch is the lead for CA information sharing with external agencies. IS defines solution architectures and information models, supports the transition to ConsularOne (one of CA/CST’s modernization efforts), and supports continued, sustainable capability delivery.

SII is responsible for the DREAM contract.

2.0 Scope

The scope for this effort includes:

· Supporting approximately 15,000 DOS and 30,000 other federal agency users located at more than 500 sites worldwide

· Building enterprise database solutions for big data, including more than 1,000 servers and 2,000 databases worldwide, that provide optimal IT data integrity and accessibility that ensure performance quality, reliability, and 24x7x365 IT systems availability that support border security and the facilitation of legitimate travel

· Supporting the consumption and provision of information services among internal bureaus and with external partner agencies - both synchronous and asynchronous request/response information exchange transactions

· Publishing/subscribing information disseminations, and in some cases, may require maintenance of transaction order and guaranteed one-and-only-one delivery

· Developing, orchestrating, and deploying open standards-based, interoperable, and transportable web services based on commercial-off-the-shelf service oriented architecture, micro services architecture, enterprise service bus (currently using COTS SOA ESB) development and deployment software suite (currently using Oracle SOA/ESB Suite Tool)

· Supporting a complex, 440 TB central remote database management system spanning 16 Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) databases, each deployed at multiple data centers

· Supporting massive data files in a system that supports millions of online transaction processing (OLTP) per day, including partitioning and archiving schemes The Contractor shall recommend approaches to the Government for meeting all contract requirements. These approaches shall maximize efficiency, streamline operations, improve results, strengthen security, and minimize operational costs.

The Contractor shall work collaboratively, professionally and proactively with other CA/CST Contractors and CA/CST entities to improve system performance and decrease incidents/tickets. The Contractor will provide database support that includes:

1. program management to include transition services

2. database operations and management

3. database engineering and architecture

4. enterprise service bus

5. data sharing operations and management

6. database application development and integration

7. security operations

The Contractor must hold and maintain for the duration of the contract the following certifications:

0. CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) v1.3 or v2.0 Maturity Level 4 or higher

0. CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) v1.3 or v2.0 Maturity Level 3 or higher

0. ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management

0. ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management

3.0 Period of Performance

The period of performance is anticipated to be for a one-year base period and four (4) one-year option periods.

4.0 Place of Performance

Performance will be primarily at the Contractor's facility, which shall include meeting space, and be within 30 miles of State Annex (SA-17) at 600 19th St, NW, Washington DC.

5.0 Security Requirements

The Prime Contractor must be a U.S. company based in the U.S. with a TOP SECRET facility clearance. Personnel clearance requirements will primarily be SECRET, however, some may require TOP SECRET.

6.0 Instructions

6.1 Responses

Responses should be limited to 12 pages or less and be submitted as a Microsoft Word Document (.doc or .docx) or Portable Document Format (.pdf) to the Contracting Officer at mejiakj@state.gov. To the maximum extent possible, submit Non-Proprietary Information. All information received in response to this notice that is appropriately marked "Proprietary" will be handled accordingly. Submissions should include responses to the following categories: Company Profile, Recent/Relevant Experience, and Questions for Industry.

6.1.1. Company Profile:

A. Please complete the table below:

Company Name:

Company Point of Contact:

Email:

Phone:

Prime Contractor Address

DUNS Number:

CAGE Code, if applicable:

Socioeconomic Status under any of the following NAICS Codes: 541511, 541512, 541513, 541519

Example: Small Business, Small Disadvantaged Business; HUBZone; Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned; Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned; 8(a)

Applicable GSA Schedule Contracts or other GWAC (e.g., NASA SEWP V, CIO-CS, etc.):

Current CMMI Level, ISO certifications, or any other industry certifications relevant to the DREAM scope:

B. Indicate whether the company intends to bid alone or arrange a team. If knowledge, skills, or other expertise is obtained from a teaming arrangement, vendors shall describe the goals and efficiencies gained through teaming. If a Joint Venture or teaming arrangement already exists, please identify the name, point of contact, and DUNS number for each team member.

6.1.2 Recent/Relevant Experience.

A viable interested party shall demonstrate, in any capability statement submitted, the company’s capabilities to meet the performance objectives and the customer’s requirements. Examples of previous work or solution implementations provided in response to the subject areas below shall describe how they are relevant and applicable to the DREAM requirement.

A. Summarize your company’s experience as it relates to the services areas outlined in the Draft Performance Work Statement. For these efforts please identify the number of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE), dollar value, and any relevant accolades/other demonstration of successfully providing high quality services (i.e., CPARS ratings). Identify whether you were a prime contractor or a subcontractor in this role. Where appropriate, provide specific examples of the tools and or services that your company has implemented.

B. Identify your experience as a prime contractor managing subcontractors. Provide examples of contracts with summarized scope, number of FTEs, dollar value, number of subcontractors and division of labor information.

C. Identify your experience with data sharing with external entities (outside firewall), to include the volumes and magnitude of data exchanged, number of external entities, and methods for data sharing. Identify whether you were a prime contractor or a subcontractor in this role. Provide the technologies leveraged and provide the client reference (with name, title, email and phone information) for the contracts mentioned in your response.

D. Identify your experience with micro services and/or APIs based architecture service development. Identify how many mission-critical interfacing services you worked on. Provide the technologies leveraged and provide the client reference (with name, title, email and phone information) for the contracts mentioned in your response.

E. Identify your experience with concurrent and large volume database management, design, development and replication from numerous distributed databases spread across the globe. Please include number of databases and the volume and magnitude of the replication. Please include your experience in both on-prem, cloud and hybrid deployment architectures. Provide the technologies leveraged and provide the client reference (with name, title, email and phone information) for the contracts mentioned in your response.

F. Identify your experience as a prime contractor managing cost-plus-award fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee or any of the other cost-reimbursable contract types. Please provide the client reference (with name, title, email and phone information) for the contracts mentioned in your response.

G. State whether or not your company has the infrastructure in place to support contracting, reporting, security, and invoicing requirements under the contract.

6.0 Questions for Industry (Optional)

In order to foster the maximum amount of competition, the Government would like to solicit industry feedback on how to better develop its requirements as well as any specific feedback on the Performance Work Statement. To do so, the Government welcomes responses to the following questions (responses to this optional section can be outside the 12-page limit. Response should be limited to three (3) pages or less):

· What additional information would your company find most helpful in order to develop and submit a technical and price proposal for this requirement for a best value award?

· What additional areas of technical investigation does your company believe may be relevant requirement areas for the Government to consider for database engineering and service development activities?

· What types of performance standards and acceptable quality levels would potentially be appropriate for this type of requirement?

· Any other questions or concerns that might help the Government refine the PWS or RFP.

· Companies are welcome to provide any brief concluding remarks, as deemed appropriate.

At this time, the Government will not entertain telephone calls or questions regarding this notice. The Government may choose to reach out directly to vendors after reviewing and evaluating the submissions.

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED