Questions and answers.docx
DOCX document 17 KB Posted
- Solicitation number
- 36C10B24Q0590
About this file
This document is a Questions and Answers matrix related to a federal contract opportunity for a VA Enterprise Level Cisco License and Service Contract.
The key details are:
- The contract is for Cisco collaboration software licenses and services, with a period of performance from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025 and four option years.
- The VA is open to revising the contract language to allow for annual upfront payments for the Cisco licensing subscriptions rather than monthly invoicing.
- The VA agreed to revise the language regarding the availability of additional calling entitlements under the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan.
- The VA declined to revise the price schedule for optional tasks related to Intersight and CML products.
- The VA agreed to revise the service level agreement metrics related to service restoration to account for circumstances beyond the contractor's control.
- The VA made revisions to the NTE quantities associated with the optional task CLINs to align with expected usage.
- The VA agreed to remove the "Meeting Center Webinars" CLIN as it is redundant to the "Active Meeting Hosts" CLIN.
- The VA declined to adjust the base and option period pricing to an annual upfront model.
View the file
Other files
| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| CONTINUATION PAGE.docx | DOCX document | |
| 36C10B24Q0590_4.docx | DOCX document | |
| JA CECLSA Redacted.pdf | ||
| 36C10B24Q0590_3.docx | DOCX document | |
| Cisco CECLSA RFQ.docx | DOCX document |
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Text version
Questions & Answer Matrix
| Question |
| PD Section |
| Question / Action |
| Response |
| 1 |
| B.4 Price Schedule |
| Base and Option Periods are currently scoped as monthly invoicing for Cisco licensing subscriptions. Can VA please adjust to annual upfront payments for CLIN's 0002AA through 0002AK, and all of the associated CLIN's in subsequent Option Periods? There will be possible financing price increases if the invoicing remains monthly. |
| Pricing will remain on a monthly basis |
| 2 |
| CLIN 0002AA and Subsequent Option Period CLIN's |
| The Cisco Entitlements for Knowledge Workers in Flex includes the ability to grow calling entitlements an additional 20% beyond the purchased quantity with no additional cost or action required by VA. Therefore, it is recommended that VA revise the language in the description to read "As indicated at PD Table 1, Knowledge Workers shall be set initially at 340,000, which will result in 408,000 Calling Entitlements being made available with no additional action needed from VA COR." This allows for immediate access to growth without having additional steps required to consume the entitlements. |
| VA is agreeable to suggested language and will revise accordingly. |
"As indicated at PD Table 1, Knowledge Workers shall be set initially at 340,000, which will result in 408,000 Calling Entitlements being made available with no additional action needed from VA COR."
| 3 |
| Section 5.2 Table 1 Base Year Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan |
| It is recommended that VA revise the language in the first asterisk under Table 1 to align with that of the CLIN 0002AA language, such as: "*The 340,000 KWs at Item 1 in Table 1 must result in 408,000 Calling Entitlements being made available with no additional action needed from VA COR." This allows for immediate access to growth without having additional steps required to consume the entitlements. |
| VA is agreeable to suggested language and will revise accordingly. |
"*The 340,000 KWs at Item 1 in Table 1 must result in 408,000 Calling Entitlements being made available with no additional action needed from VA COR."
| 4 |
| Optional Task 4 (Intersight) and Optional Task 5 (CML) |
| It is recommended that similar to the "Cisco Collaboration Flex License and Service", VA revises the Price Schedule to include a committed quantity in the Option Periods for both Intersight and CML. Any potential growth would then be exercised with NTE Optional Tasks. This will lock in a set price for the full term of the contract for both the Base/Option Periods on those products. If the CLIN structure is not changed, there will be price increases built into the future years of the Optional Task Option Periods because of the potential variance in quantities exercised. |
| VA will not revise the Price Schedule for these referenced items. |
| 5 |
| Section 5.4.2 |
| Regarding TAC Case Restoration of Service metrics, it is impractical to hold Cisco or the contractor accountable for service availability of licenses deployed within the VA network, as the deployed service(s) rely upon operational VA systems. Numerous dependencies beyond the control of Cisco and the contractor could cause delays, require additional troubleshooting, and or depend on VA staff to restore supporting service(s). Therefore, it is recommended that the penalties in this section be either refined to specifically address licensing availability of an operational VA network or removed altogether. |
| Paragraph 3 of Section 5.4.2 will be revised to state the following: |
“The Contractors failure to meet the Deliverable Metrics/Service Level Agreements as set forth in this PD shall be considered a condition endangering contract performance and may provide grounds for default termination. The Contractor will not be faulted for lower service levels that occur due to external circumstances beyond the Contractor’s control. Restoration metrics that cannot be met due to lack of VA responsiveness or VA owned Network issues preventing restoration will not impact this metric negatively. Any conditions that the Contractor considers relevant to this calculation shall be included in the SLA Monitoring Plan.”
| 6 |
| Section 5.10 |
| The Optional Task NTE Quantities seem to be higher than required (double the quantities starting Option Period 1), which could cause the Total Evaluated Contract Value to be much higher than the true ceiling of what will be executed on the contract. It is our belief that VA mistakenly included both what would be executed in the Base / Option Periods AND the potential growth in the Optional Task CLIN's, rather than ONLY the NTE growth. Can VA review the NTE quantities associated in the Optional Task Option Periods for accuracy? |
| PD Section 5.10 Table 7 and corresponding Price Schedule CLINS will be revised as follows: |
Item 1 “Knowledge Workers” will be changed to 100,000 NTE from 360,000 NTE
Item 3 “Active Meeting Hosts” will be changed to 6,000 NTE from 13,000 NTE
Item 4 “Total Webex, Webex Teams authorized registration accounts” will be changed to 100,000 NTE from 360,000 NTE
Item 9 “FedRAMP Extended Security Pack” will be changed to 6,000 NTE from 13,000 NTE
| 7 |
| Table 1: Base Year Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan and Table 7: Cisco Collaboration Flex Service |
| An Active Meeting Host (Item #3) is capable of hosting Webex Meetings with up to 1,000 attendees in addition to Webex Webinars (Item #5) with up to 1,000 attendees, which therefore would make Item #5 as either NSP or redundant to the Price Schedule. Can VA please remove Item 5 (Meeting Center Webinars with 1,000 attendees) from the Tables and the associated CLIN's in the Base, Option Periods, and Optional Tasks Option Periods? |
| VA agrees with the suggestion. Item 5 will be removed from PD Table 1 & 7 and corresponding Price Schedule CLINs. |
Item 3 description will be revised as follows: “Active Meeting Hosts (Inclusive of Meeting Center Webinars with 1,000 attendees) (Section 5.2.1)”
| 8 |
| B.4 Price Schedule |
| Base and Option Periods are currently scoped as monthly invoicing, but all optional tasks reflect an annual billing model, for Cisco licensing subscriptions. For consistency, can VA please adjust the base and option periods to annual upfront payments for CLIN's 0002AA through 0002AK, and all of the associated CLIN's in subsequent Option Periods? All growth allowance and knowledge worker reconciliation are done on an annual basis, and precedent between Cisco and VA has been set for annual billing (i.e., CSELA). For clarity, this is pure licensing and would be a non-severable expense. |
VA will not adjust the price schedule. It will remain on a monthly basis.
| 9 |
| B.4 Price Schedule |
| We believe there was an error in the quantity adjustment of CLIN 4002AC as it does not match the base nor the preceding three option periods: Option Year 4 states a reduction in Active Meeting Hosts from 13,000 to 6,000. Can VA please adjust the quantity back to 13,000, which is the original quantity in the Draft RFQ? |
| VA acknowledges this typographical error. Price schedule is corrected in the attached. |
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