2023_01_20_RFI_Question_Responses.pdf

ITEM QUESTION / COMMENT GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Is it necessary to be a SEWP prime contractor to submit an RFI response?

No. All vendors are welcome to respond to this RFI.

Can vendors submit responses for the subject RFI via email?

Yes. Contractors are advised to follow the RFI instructions.

Has the Government finalized an acquisition strategy for this effort? There is a concern that great effort will be placed in developing a response to this RFI which will subsequently be issued to a Small Business set aside.

No. The Government has not made a final decision on the Acquisition Strategy. The Government is currently gathering market research that will assist in finalizing the

Acquisition Strategy. The Government has not made a determination as the whether it will be a small business set aside.

Whether companies from Outside USA can apply for this?

No. This is a SECRET // NOFORN effort.

Whether we need to come over there for meetings?

In general, most meetings will be conducted online, but it is the Government's discretion to host some meetings in person at Ft Belvoir VA.

Can we perform the tasks (related to RFP) outside USA?

No. This is a SECRET // NOFORN effort.

7 Can we submit the proposals via email?

When the RFP is released, instructructions will be provided on how to submit responses.

Can you elaborate on reference to “Inclusion of a mobile solution (all form 188 factors) is preferred.?

Mobile solultions are preferred but not currently required.

Mobile devices are defined as prescribed by the NIST

Computer Security Resource Center as "a mobile device is a small hand-held device that has a display screen with touch input and/or a QWERTY keyboard and may provide users with telephony capabilities. Mobile devices are used interchangeably (phones, tablets) throughout this document", NIST SP 800-101 Rev. 1.

In the reference: “Provide a Rough Order of

Magnitude (ROM), pricing Labor

Rates……….Please also provide evidence of these prices being used in the sales of your solution?....ie GSA Rate Schedule?

Respondents should provide examples and evidence of similar contracts or efforts awarded to the respondent with comparable price offerings and labor rates.

Examples may include negotiated rate sheets and prior invoicing.

ARMY DATA PLATFORM (ADP)

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (Q/A)

MARCH 2023

UNCLASSIFIED // FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

Can you elaborate on reference to “Provide the ability to prioritize computational and data exchange activities. In a DIL environment, network and computational abilities will be stressed. Based on operational need, data activities (e.g. ETLs, data export, data ingest) that task limited resources (e.g. compute and network throughput), need to be able to be prioritized by the user to enable priority missions.”

The Government is specifically interested in the ability for administrators to manage a solution's computational resources, to include prioritization of specific jobs and resources allocated to those jobs. For example, if a data exchange with System A is considered critical to the enterprise while a similar data exchange with System B is considered non-critical, the platform administrators should have the ability to appropriately allocate and maintain resources (e.g., CPU requests and limits, cores, containers, or RAM in a multi-tenancy model) to the data exchange and apps/job processes associated with

System A. Similarly, platform administrators should have the ability to de-prioritize or limit the similar resources applied to exchanges with System B.

“Support the current user and analytic workload.” What are these values? Is this the 45k users?

Last year over 10,000 active users created more than

20,000 independent analyses and 3,000+ reports, visualizations, and dashboards.

The current platform supports:

* 45K+ Account Holders

* 40K+ Unique number of datasets

* 40K+ New analytic products available for broader Army consumption

* 15+ Data centers where the Army Vantage Data

Connection Adapter (VDCA) has been deployed

* 170+ Distinct Data Systems

* Over 100 Terabytes of Army Data ingested within the

Army Vantage Platform

“In your response consider how your solution enables communities to create, publish, maintain, and subscribe to data products…” Can you give an example of data product subscriptions you’re looking for?

In this context, consider a "data product" as a data asset such as a curated dataset or model that a community

(such as an Army business domain) constructs for the purpose of use across the enterprise. The data product is intended to be manageable, discoverable, securable, and made available for consumption to platform users and external users or systems. The proposed solution should describe (1) how a user or user community can create these data products, (2) how a user or user community can establish access controls or rules for their data products, (3) how to make their data products discoverable to users across the enterprise, (4) how the data product can be easily understood by potential enterprise users (e.g. descriptive metadata), and (5) describe how users may request access to and establish pulls of the desired data product(s) based on a time schedule or conditional basis.

Will the government please provide a 2-week extension, Until 8 FEB 2023? We need to coordinate with multiple partners and solutions to provide the government thorough answers to the questions within the RFI.

No, the Government's RFI response period will remain unchanged.

Although the CRD discusses current structured and unstructured data sets, the provider needs to know if they must create new queries and

Vantage data points from scratch or subsume them into new systems. Can the government provide clear indication as to what is liked about the current expiring program – what/how many are good queries and what must be changed?

The Government cannot offer a response at this time.

If providers are required to move datasets out of the current Vantage database, or pay licensing fees for that database/structure, then providers need to know the size to move. Understanding that the Army is moving towards a Mesh configuration, the Vantage data structure is not currently positioned for that and is set up more as a data Lake which would increase storage and access costs to move data. Can the government provide more information about the size of the datasets to move?

The Government's estimates on the size of the dataset is roughly 100 terabytes of data.

Without knowing what dashboard or views are required, or can be moved over from the current

Vantage program to the new provider, and what reports are produced, then the provider will need to add customer engagement and development costs to any ROM estimate. Can the government clarify their assumptions: would the new provider be taking over the current

Vantage system and be expected to create a roadmap to the cloud?

No, the new provider is not required to take over the current

Vantage system.

Accreditation can be very complex. With

Project Sentinel, cloud-based systems can inherit some of the security functions of hosting sites (i.e., ECMA cARMY), but assuming we do not take in any Vantage systems and use our own agnostic capabilities, reciprocity is a concern. Accreditation is typically the long pole and can cost more than the development itself when it turns into a paper drill. Can the government provide more information about which systems are good and gain reciprocity so we can provide RO

If a SaaS solution is proposed the CSP would at best already have obtained a DISA Provisional Authorization (PA) that can provide inheritance. Currently SaaS in not supported by cArmy therefore inheritance of cArmy provided security functions would not apply. If the solution proposed does not have any assess and authorize validation, then the CSP and the Army would need to complete the required A&A packages to provide the required IATT/ATO results. If a PaaS solution is proposed, then cArmy resources would be available. Note

Sentinel effort currently is focused on non-cloud systems. For

Azure and AWS systems in IL5 there is a common cloud package that provides inheritance to many common controls.

This inheritance does not yet exist for IL6 yet. A CSP with a

DISA PA would be ideal whether a PaaS or SaaS solution as inheritance can be obtained from the DISA PA cloud package.

Therefore, the Army Vantage ATO package would comply with the remaining controls as required and proceed through the RMF process. While reciprocity does streamline the ATO process either way there is a good deal of effort to perform the assess and authorize activities.

Can the government provide an estimate for the numbers of users per category so providers can determine licensing costs (SBOM and DBOM style costing, and do not know how much development and integration will be needed and to define the enterprise licensing costs)?

The current system has 45,000+ users, of which 10,000 are active content creators. While in the current system, all users can create content, the remaining 35,000+ users are passive data or content viewers.

Would the gov’t please consider either providing more information or eliminating the requirement for a ROM for this RFI response?

We believe that there is not enough information provided for us to submit valid ROM pricing as requested under Number 11.

In place of a ROM, the Government will accept costs estimates based on possible scenarios the solution will provide/prices similar solutions of this scale are sold to other customers for.

Does the government as part of this solicitation intend to comply with the published Unified Data

Reference Architecture (UDRA)?

As of DEC 2020, the UDRA policy is not finalized, so the

Government cannot provide clarification at this time. The goal for completion is the end of FY23.

https://executivegov.com/2022/12/jennifer-swanson-offers-update-on-armys-unified-data-reference-architecture/