36C10B18R2609-A0002001.pdf

VA Mobile Applications Cloud Migration (MACM)

Request for Proposal (RFP) 36C10B18R2609

Questions and Answers

August 14, 2018

Note: The answers provided below are for informational purposes, to assist potential offerors in preparing quotes, and such answers do not themselves constitute an amendment to the RFP. Where questions and answers necessitated such an amendment, such changes have been or will be incorporated into a formal amendment to the RFP. To the extent that any answers provided below conflict in any way with the RFP and any Amendments, the final RFP takes precedence and the terms and conditions contained in the final solicitation control.

# Question Section Answer

1. Please clarify what is meant by “mobile applications.” Is this referencing an application that is functional in a mobile browser, or specifically a mobile application that you would download from an App Store like iTunes?

General Mobile applications refers to both.

2. Would the VA remove B.4 GOVERNING

LAW? As a threshold matter, the clause is overly broad as it imposes restrictions that go beyond what is permitted by the law or regulation as it purports to eviscerate commercial license terms that are not inconsistent with federal law (e.g.., warranty etc.). In addition, the clause is inconsistent with

FAR 12.212 which mandates that the

Government act like a commercial entity to the maximum extent possible. Use of this clause contradicts this mandate as the VA is providing the platform to ignore well settled commercial software terms. Moreover, this clause is unnecessary as the solicitation contains FAR

52.227-19 and 52.212-4 which protect the VA

Solicitation Section B.2 Governing

Law

The Government has considered your recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is.

for commercial license terms that are inconsistent with Federal law or regulation.

Finally, the clause creates a disincentive for software providers to provide their product and solution to the VA as many are unwilling to bear the administrative burden of submitting their license agreements and wary that the VA will use the clause to ignore their standard terms and conditions which are designed to protect their products from unauthorized use.

This disincentive leads to less competition which can adversely impact pricing and the robustness and innovation of the offered solution.

3. B.3 states, “If the contractor is a reseller and not the Licensor, the contractor remains responsible for performance under this order.” Regarding this provision, what is the VA’s intent? The provision for reselling the licenses and maintenance are being procured on a T&M basis and as such does not allow the addition of profit/fee to account for risk of the software’s failure to operate as intended. Will the contractor be penalized as it relates to the SLAs for the performance of COTs software due to software defects?

Solicitation Section B.3 Software

License, Maintenance, and

Technical Support

The Contractor shall be held to SLAs for its VA MACM solution to include any third party software proposed for inclusion in the VA MACM solution.

4. Please provide the approximate number of anticipated end-users for applications in the production environment during this period of performance. Please provide the approximate number of developers accessing the DevOps platform during this period of performance.

Performance Work Statement 1.0

Background

The solution end users vary widely. Currently, the minimum baseline is 2,000 developers. This number is expected to grow over time. The solution shall be capable of scaling as needed.

5. PWS 4.1 states “The Period of Performance

(PoP) shall be a base of 12 months followed by four (4) 12-month option periods.” Please clarify the total overall PoP for this task order, inclusive of option periods and optional tasks.

For example, the Transition Out Services (PWS

5.6.2) which has a PoP of 6 months, must it be completed within the period exercised or could it extend beyond any period exercised (i.e., all task shall not exceed the total overall PoP of 66 months).

In accordance with 52.217-9, the total duration of this contract, including the exercise of any options under this clause, shall not exceed 66 months.

6. Reference PWS Section 4.3 (Travel): For pricing purposes, please clarify the number of days for each trip included in the base and option periods.

Performance Work Statement 4.3

Travel

See Amendment A0002.

7. The second sentence say “Bi-Weekly Status

Reports” which is in conflict with the first sentence and the associated deliverable which both state “Monthly Status Report”.

Can the government please correct the language and update the PWS accordingly?

Performance Work Statement

5.1.2 Reporting Requirements

See Amendment A0002.

8. “Submitted resumes are to be redacted to prevent disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII).”

“For those individuals proposed as Key

Personnel who are not current employees of your company, a signed letter of intent will be required.”

In order to achieve the government’s goal of not disclosing PII in offeror’s responses, will the

Performance Work Statement

5.1.4 Key Personnel

For the purposes of proposal submission, letter of intent signatures shall be redacted.

government please remove the requirement for signed Letters of Intent as a signed Letter of

Intent would disclose PII and would be impossible for offerors to meet this objective?

9. Please remove VAEC-AWS from the Chief

Cloud Architect requirement. This unduly limits competition. VAEC-AWS cloud is equivalent to AWS GovCloud, as such, we recommend that this be replace with AWS GovCloud in lieu of VAEC-AWS Cloud to ensure the government receives maximum competition.

Performance Work Statement

5.1.4 Key Personnel

See Amendment A00002.

10. The labor mix for VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration are different accordingly, we request all the CLINs associated with these two different scopes be separated into separate CLINs. This will provide cost savings for the government.

Performance Work Statement 5.2

VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration;

Section B.4 Price Schedule

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is.

11.

Both the Price Schedule (p. 10) and PWS

Section 5.2 (p. 50) identify that 100% payment is contingent upon successful delivery and

Government acceptance of the MVP within three months. As currently written a

Government delay in accepting the MVP could result in payments being withheld although the contractor delivered in the required timeframe.

a. What is the period in which the Government reviews the MVP and provides acceptance?

b. Confirm the delivery within the 90-day period meets the requirements and contractor will not be at risk of non-payment due to a

Government delay in providing acceptance

Performance Work Statement 5.2

VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration;

Section B.4 Price Schedule

Government delay in accepting the MVP will not result in payments being withheld.

12. Please clarify that the 90-day delivery of the

MACM Platform MVP initiates upon

Government approval of the initial Sprint Plan and not within 90 days of contract award due to time required to complete contract initiation activities.

Performance Work Statement 5.2

VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration

The Government believes that 90 day delivery from contract award is appropriate.

13. In PWS 5.2, para. 8, the government states “The

Contractor may be required to perform 1 – 4 sprints in parallel.”

Sprints are typically sequential in nature. Does the government mean “1-4 scrum teams in parallel” in lieu of sprints?

Is it the government’s intent that the contractor plan to staff up to 4 concurrent scrum teams to perform this work?

Performance Work Statement 5.2

VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration

See Amendment A0002.

14. Which environments are required to be completed for the MVP within 90 days?

Performance Work Statement 5.2

VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration

The Development, Staging/Testing, and Production environments are required to be completed for the MVP within 90 days.

15. Please clarify the manner in which the delivered

MVP will be accepted by the Government.

Performance Work Statement

5.2.1 VA MACM MVP

Requirements

The Contractor is responsible to deliver a stable and functional VA MACM MVP which meets each and every baseline requirement as set forth in Performance Work

Statement 5.2.1 in order to support all VA Mobile

Application engineering activities such as application operations, development, testing, and troubleshooting.

The Government will accept the VA MACM MVP when the Government determines that the MVP meets each and every baseline requirement as set forth in Performance

Work Statement 5.2.1

16. Will there be a development team to convert

Legacy Apps that are in Terremark to New

DevOps model or is government anticipating

MACM team to do conversion?

Is the scope associated with making the legacy applications cloud ready a requirement in this solicitation? If so, please update the PWS to include the architecture for each mobile application. The architectural details needed are: server information, operating system, database, middle-tier, presentation layer and

IDK with name and version that is in use.

Performance Work Statement

5.2.2 Mobile Application

Migration

The MACM team will not be responsible for legacy application conversion.

The scope associated with making the legacy applications cloud ready is not a requirement in this solicitation.

17. According to this PWS section, the Government wants the contractor to decommission successfully migrated Applications from IBM

Terremark environment including the physical hardware associated with the application, however, this PWS does not specify that the winning contractor will continue to maintain the current Terremark infrastructure, nor could we find references associated with maintaining the current applications hosted in the current environment.

Will the government and/or the incumbent contractor continue to maintain the current infrastructure and applications prior to their migration, and if so, would those resources also be involved in the decommissioning of the current applications and/or hardware along with disposal and sanitization of the

Performance Work Statement

5.2.2 Mobile Application

Migration

See Amendment A00002.

decommissioned data and servers? If so, please update the PWS with the requirements.

18. Currently government has released

Attachement-001 providing current server information.

Please provide the similar list with server information by VA mobile application for all the current applications that will be part of migration to VA MACM for dev, test, demo, pre-prod, and prod environments.

Performance Work Statement

5.2.2 Mobile Application

Migration

The requested information is not available to provide, however, Attachment-001 Current Servers is shared across all mobile applications.

19. Will the MACM contractor be responsible for decommissioning IBM Terremark hardware and hosted mobile applications or is this the function of the MIS contractor?

Performance Work Statement

5.2.2 Mobile Application

Migration

See Amendment A00002.

20. Please update the solicitation to state that all availability and uptime SLA measures exclude scheduled maintenance windows.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is. There are no pre-defined scheduled maintenance windows in the

Performance Work Statement. Any maintenance windows shall be considered in the SLAs where applicable.

21. What is the difference between Service

Availability and Service Uptime SLAs? These two SLAs have the same definition but with more detail contained in the PWS description of

Service Availability. If they are the same, then we recommend removing the Service Uptime

SLA. If so, please update the PWS.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is. Service

Availability relates to internal and external service availability. Service Uptime relates to internal service availability hosted on the MACM platform.

22. Development (will not be connected to VA), is the Development environment expected to be an isolated environment within the VAEC, or is this an environment hosted outside the VA where this needs to be stood up? Does the

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support

Development will be connected to VA and will occur in the VAEC. See Amendment A00002.

MACM contractor need to procure a system outside the VA to stand this environment up?

23. There are times when outages are outside of the

MACM Contractor’s control. Please confirm that this SLA applies only to the portions of the environment that are the responsibility of the

MACM Platform Contractor, and does not apply to outages or performance issues caused by entities outside of the control of the MACM contractor. Entities responsible for other portions of the environment, include, but are not limited to Network, Mobile Applications, Common Services (IAM, etc.), Cloud Hosting

(Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure), and Interdependent VA Systems (MVI, CDW, etc.).

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support;

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 1 System Availability, SLA ID 2 Development

Environment Availability, SLA ID

3 Service Availability, SLA ID 4

Service Uptime, SLA ID 5 Service

Reachability

See Amendment A00002.

24. Services that are faulted due to an external entity shall have trouble tickets logged with the responsible party, with all outage time attributable to this team until the ticket is logged with the responsible entity. Please clarify the start of the outage shall begin when the external entity reports it via email to the

MACM Contractor.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support;

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 1 System Availability, SLA ID 3 Service Availability, SLA ID 5 Service Reachability

The start of the outage shall begin when the outage occurs not when the external entity reports it via email to the

MACM Contractor.

25. What metrics and events are covered under

System Availability, Development Environment

Availability, Service Uptime, and Service

Reachability that are not covered under Service

Availability? Recommend consolidating these all into one Metric.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support;

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 1 System Availability, SLA ID 2 Development

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is. The

Government’s position is that there is sufficient differentiation between the Deliverable Metrics/SLAs.

Environment Availability, SLA ID

3 Service Availability, SLA ID 4

Service Uptime, SLA ID 5 Service

Reachability

26. Deliverable Metrics/SLAs, at what point during the contract do SLAs begin being calculated?

Recommend having Deliverable Metrics/SLAs begin after MVP acceptance and a 30-day period to establish baseline metrics.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.1 VA MACM Operations and

System Maintenance Support;

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance

See Amendment A00002.

27. Will the government be providing the following security tools as GFE? Nessus, McAfee, Fortify, & Splunk? If so, please update the

PWS.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.2.1 Security Operations and

Monitoring and Management

Yes the Government will make available the VAEC tools per Attachment 003 to the VA MACM Contractor.

28. Please clarify Sub Item c) “Create 24x7x365 automated monitoring and alerting” Does the government expect the contractor to provide and configure the licensing/tools to provide monitoring and alerting or is it expected that the contractor will configure the environment, using GFE, to enable monitoring and alerting?

If so, please update the PWS.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.2.1 Security Operations and

Monitoring and Management

The Government cannot advise on an Offeror’s technical approach.

29. Sub Item g) Will the government be providing the scanning/penetration tools to perform scanning/penetration testing? If so, please update the PWS.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.2.1 Security Operations and

Monitoring and Management

The VAEC tools per Attachment 003 will be available to the VA MACM Contractor.

30. Will the government please deconflict/clarify the following requirements: Sub Item b)

“Provide 24x7x365 on call staffing for response to alerts from Network Operations Center

(NOC) and/or Security Operations Center

(SOC)” and Sub Item d) “Continuously monitor

Performance Work Statement

5.3.2.1 Security Operations and

Monitoring and Management

Security events can be alerted at the NOC/SOC level, VAEC level, VA MACM level, or from any VA

Information Security Officer (ISO). The VA MACM

Contractor shall alert the MACM PM, COR, ISO and

Program Office when such events occur. The VA MACM

Contractor shall continuously monitor and report the and report the security status of the system on a regular and adhoc basis”

Does the government expect the contractor to provide security monitoring for the environment - or is this service provided by the government NOC/SOC? If so, can the government please incorporate into the PWS?

security status of the system on a regular and adhoc basis for MACM solution.

31. The PWS description of Data RTO and Data

Restoration METRICS/SLAs are the same. If they are the same, then we recommend removing the Data Restoration SLA. If so, please update the PWS.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.3 Disaster Recovery and

Continuity of Operations

The Government’s position is that there is sufficient differentiation between the Deliverable Metrics/SLAs.

Data RTO is about restoring raw data to database systems

Data Restoration is about making data available to users and applications.

32. DR test/exercises should be conducted to validate the recovery capability and to keep key personnel ready to execute the plan in a disaster. Can the government identify how many DR test/exercises we are responsible for, what is the frequency, and is the requirement for a partial or full DR test / exercise and update the PWS?

Please also adjust CLINs 0005AC and x004AC to reflect the same frequency and make them separately priced CLINs if the frequency is greater than 30 days.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.3 Disaster Recovery and

Continuity of Operations

The Government cannot advise on an Offeror’s technical approach.

33. The PWS states the Contractor shall support

DR of all MACM environments and apps hosted in the MACM environments. Can the client confirm all the servers/apps in each of the

VA MACM environments, to include

Development, Staging and Production, require recovery in a disaster event? If not all

Performance Work Statement

5.3.3 Disaster Recovery and

Continuity of Operations

The Government cannot advise on an Offeror’s technical approach.

applications require restoration, please provide a list of the critical applications/servers that require DR protection within the scope of this contract and update the PWS.

34. The verb is missing at the beginning of the text, for points d and e, please amend.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.3 Disaster Recovery and

Continuity of Operations

See Amendment A00002.

35. This is a function of the cloud service provider managed by the VAEC and we recommend removing this metric as a MACM contractor responsibility.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.3 Disaster Recovery and

Continuity of Operations;

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 6 Data Recoverability

Point Objective (Data RPO), SLA

ID 7 Data Recoverability Time

Objective (Data RTO), SLA ID 8

Data Restoration

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is. It the

Government’s position that certain data will reside within the VA MACM.

36. “The Contractor shall support VA requirements for monitoring VA MACM, using the VAEC supported monitoring tools and processes as they exist and evolve over time. Monitoring tools will include native CSP monitoring tools

(See Attachment 003 for additional details).

Attachment 003 “VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC)

Technical Reference Guide for Acquisition

Support” Section 2.3 States; “The VAEC will be managed by a set of VA Enterprise Cloud

Operational Tools (VAECOT) (ETA Q3

FY2018), Cloud Service Provider (CSP)-native tools and other VA tools.” Section 4 States

“Each VAEC CSP environment provides general support services (GSS) to be leveraged

Performance Work Statement

5.3.4 Monitoring and Alerting

The VAEC tools per Attachment 003 will be available to the VA MACM Contractor.

by application/solutions hosted within the environment.”

Can the contractor expect that the services

(tools) listed in Section 4 will be provided by the government as GFE? If so, please update the PWS.

37. There are multiple methods to implement this

SLA. The method and wording should align with desired performance and the additional details need to be included in the PWS. Please review the following examples and update the

PWS accordingly. Below are two examples:

1. Average time for data collection of any individual source over 24-hour period cannot be more than 300 seconds greater than threshold.

2. Average aggregated time for data collection of all sources over 24-hour period cannot be more than 300 seconds greater than threshold

Performance Work Statement

5.3.4 Monitoring and Alerting

See Amendment A0002.

38. Is this just referring to aggregate platform log data?

Performance Work Statement

5.3.4 Monitoring and Alerting;

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 9 Data Collection and

Monitoring

It is referring to all instrumented sources. See

Amendment A0002.

39. Paragraph 1, line item j: Is it the Government’s intent to retain the 10 Mac Mini devices for the purpose of supporting “…continuous integration as well as development of code compatible with iOS mobile devices” within the

Performance Work Statement

5.3.5 Software License

Management (T&M)

VA MACM scope of work? If so, then in which

VA MACM environment does the Government intend to host the 10 Mac Mini devices?

40. The wording of Ticket Response is identical to

Ticket Time to Close (except the # of days being one vs three).

Please update the PWS to state what performance is intended to be measured by these two metrics.

It is not recommended to have a metric for time to close help desk tickets. Doing this incents behavior that is antithetical to a quality customer experience. We recommend changing the metric to specify that 99% of help desk tickets are closed only after receiving verbal or electronic written communication of satisfaction by the ticket submitter.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.6 Engineering Technical

Support

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is.

41. When does the timer start for the one-day acceptable limit?

Performance Work Statement

5.3.6 Engineering Technical

Support; Performance Work

Statement 6.4.1 Deliverable

Metrics/Service Level Agreements

Performance – SLA ID 10 Ticket

Response, SLA ID 12 Change

Control Ticket Response

Timer starts from time of ticket submission.

42. When does the timer start for the three-day acceptable limit?

Performance Work Statement

5.3.6 Engineering Technical

Support; Performance Work

Statement 6.4.1 Deliverable

Metrics/Service Level Agreements

Timer starts from time of ticket submission.

Performance – SLA ID 11 Ticket

Time to Close

43. Recommend SLAs based on ticket priority unless a first-in, first-out system is expected.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.6 Engineering Technical

Support; Performance Work

Statement 6.4.1 Deliverable

Metrics/Service Level Agreements

Performance – SLA ID 11 Ticket

Time to Close, SLA ID 13 Change

Control Ticket Resolution

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is. The

Contractor is expected to effectively manage tickets in order to meet the SLAs. This does not necessarily attribute to a first-in, first-out system.

44. Recommend an upper bound of 300 monthly tickets as an FFP staff will not be able to scale above a certain ticket threshold and continue to meet the SLA.

Performance Work Statement

5.3.6 Engineering Technical

Support; Performance Work

Statement 6.4.1 Deliverable

Metrics/Service Level Agreements

Performance – SLA ID 11 Ticket

Time to Close, SLA ID 13 Change

Control Ticket Resolution

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is.

45. It is not recommended to have a metric for the time required to close help desk tickets. Doing this incents behavior that is antithetical to a quality customer experience. We recommend changing the metric to specify that 99% of help desk tickets are closed only after receiving verbal or electronic written communication of satisfaction by the ticket submitter.

Performance Work Statement 5.5

Tier 4 Help Desk Support

(Optional Task) Labor-Hour

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is.

46. The PWS description of the Change Control

Ticket Response and Change Control Ticket

Resolution are the same.

We recommend removing the Change Control

Ticket Resolution SLA because resolution time

Performance Work Statement

5.4.2 Change Management

will vary widely across different change control tickets and update the PWS.

Alternatively, we recommend working together to define types of standard changes with service levels defined for each type that will help drive quality improvement. If this is the preference, please update the PWS to state that this will be mutually defined post award.

47. Please provide, by CLIN, the formulas used to calculate the SLA measurements.

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance

SLAs are associated with PWS tasks which are associated with Contract Line Item Numbers in Section B.4 Price

Schedule. For any PWS task in which there are multiple

SLAs, payment will be calculated for the lowest service level provided. Furthermore, each metric stands alone, therefore, if a single event impacts multiple SLAs across

PWS Tasks, the Contractor shall be paid for lower service provided for all tasks impacted.

48. Please consider including incentives for contractor’s who meet or exceed SLA requirements.

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance

The Government has reviewed the recommendation and determined that the solicitation shall remain as is.

Contractors are required to meet the SLA requirements, however, if the Contractor’s performance falls below the requirement then the Contractor will be paid for the lower service level of performance provided.

49. The third party software products that to be procured by the contractor for this effort are procured under a T&M type order and accordingly are not allowed to include profit/fee, which would be necessary if the contractor is liable for SLA penalties caused by the third party product. Question: Are third party software products that are procured for license and/or maintenance by the contractor for

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 1 System Availability

Contractor shall be held to SLAs for all software proposed as part of their VA MACM solution, including third party software.

this effort considered external entities for purposes of calculating this SLA? Given that no profit/fee is allowed, please amend the SLA metric to clarify that the third party software products would be considered "external entity" for purposes of calculating the SLA.

50. Please amend the solicitation to define working hours in the SLA for non-production environments.

Performance Work Statement

6.4.1 Deliverable Metrics/Service

Level Agreements Performance –

SLA ID 2 Development

Environment Availably

See Amendment A00002

51. Please confirm whether or not Service Contract

Act (SCA) is applicable to this solicitation.

Solicitation Section C It is the Government’s determination that the Service

Contract Act (SCA) is not applicable. If the Offeror believes that the SCA applies, the Offeror shall notify the

Government of its determination.

52. MACM involves refactoring, development, enhancement and/or remediation of applications for migration into the VAEC. Please confirm whether organizations that participate in the VA

Cloud Operations and Migration Services

(COMS) task order have an organizational conflict of interest and would prevent them from bidding MACM?

Solicitation Section C.12

Organizational Conflict of Interest

The VA MACM Contractor is not refactoring, developing, enhancing, and/or remediating mobile applications for migration into the VAEC. The VA MACM Contractor is implementing, operating, and maintaining the VA MACM including all cloud services required to support VA

MACM operations. Additionally, the VA MACM

Contractor is migrating mobile apps and supporting services into an operational VA MACM.

In the event that any of the organizations that participate in the COMS task order seek a determination as to whether an OCI exists, an analysis will be performed by the Government in order to make such an OCI determination. .

53. Could you provide how the user count of the

CloudBees Jenkins subscriptions was determined?

Attachment 002 – Current

Software Inventory

The user count is based on the number of current registered developers.

54. As part of this solicitation you included a

Spreadsheet called "Current Software

Inventory" on which you have included

CloudBees.

Does this indicate the VA will be providing existing licenses of CloudBees or that the respondents need to provide pricing for the purchase of licenses of CloudBees?

Also, CloudBees is not licensed via "instance" as is stated on the Current Software Inventory spreadsheet:

“Licenses for 26 instances of a continuous integration tool in the MAE enclave.”

Can you please clarify your definition of an

"Instance?"

Attachment 002 – Current

Software Inventory

The Government cannot advise on an Offeror’s technical approach.

55. Row 16 of the Instructions tab bullet (2) states offerors are to provide “screen shots of the proposed prices out of the AWS estimating tool”.

Where shall the offerors insert these screen shots?

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Spreadsheet

See Amendment A00002.

56. Please provide labor category descriptions, required education level and relevant years of experience for the labor categories used in the

T&M labor and labor hours tab. In addition, please provide education and years of experience equivalency that may be used for substitution. This information will assist in

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Spreadsheet understanding the qualification requirements for each position.

57. The Spreadsheet and Schedule B only includes

PWS 5.2 for pricing in the base period. Please confirm that VA MACM Platform

Development and App Migration IAW PWS

5.2 (CLIN 0002) support should only be priced in the base period?

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Spreadsheet

Development and App Migration are not only priced in the Base Period. Additional VA MACM platform development and app migration support are included as

Optional Tasks in the Option Periods.

58. On the Labor Hour tab, the government proposes the use of a Security Analyst to assist with addressing security issues related to

MACM platform and app deployment. Due to complexity of the environment, a more experienced security analyst may be required.

Would the government consider replacing the

Security Analyst labor category with the

Security Analyst Senior labor category?

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Spreadsheet

See Amendment A00002.

59. Requested Web location does not supply information required to satisfy bullet 2 "price verification screen shoots". Which calculator would the government prefer we use?

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Spreadsheet – VA MACM

Platform Price Tab Instructions

The calculator used is dependent upon the Offeror’s proposed solution.

60. Recommend removing the VA MACM

Platform Price Tab Instructions from the first tab of the cost proposal and potentially adding this as a non-evaluated bill of materials to the tech volume with the price redacted. This prevents services that are not acquired by the

MACM contractor or part of the MACM contract from being considered in the cost evaluation.

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Spreadsheet – VA MACM

Platform Price Tab Instructions

61. Will all the technical features proposed and priced be made available to the MACM

Attachment 006 - VA MACM

Excel Price Evaluation

Yes, provided that these technical features are available in

VAEC-AWS.

contractor during performance despite being purchased under a different vehicle?

Spreadsheet – VA MACM

Platform Price Tab Instructions

62. For the MACM MVP Prototype Demo, please confirm the following details: duration of demo, location, number of government attendees

(anticipated), artifacts provided (e.g., application source code, documentation), AWS resources/environments provided, evaluation criteria.

Solicitation Section E.11 Basis for

Award

Upon receipt of the Offeror’s proposal, the Government will provide the same specific written instructions to each

Offeror regarding the MACM MVP Prototype Demo.

63. RFP E.14.2(v)(d) states “Large Businesses shall submit a Small Business Subcontracting Plan

(SBSP) IAW FAR 52.219-9 and VAAR

852.219-9” however, the percentage goals defined later in the paragraph are of total contract value. Will the Government please confirm that the percentage goals are of subcontracted total value, consistent with a

Small Business Subcontracting Plan?

Solicitation Section E.14(2)(v)(d)

Proposal Submission Instruction, Volume V – Solicitation, Offer and Award Documents and

Certifications/Representations

In accordance with 52.219-9(d)(1), the Offeror’s subcontracting plan shall include “Separate goals, expressed in terms of total dollars subcontracted, and as a percentage of total planned subcontracting dollars…For individual subcontracting plans, and if required by the

Contracting Officer, goals shall also be expressed in terms of percentage of total contract dollars, in addition to the goals expressed as a percentage of total subcontract dollars.”