Attachment_13_-_ONE_OIT_Questions_and_Answers_AMD0010.pdf

Question Section Paragraph Page Questions Answers

EXECUTIVE

SUMMARY

2.1 CURRENT

INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY (IT)

ENVIRONMENT

What is the current‐state Cloud profile/ Cloud Strategy/ Cloud environment of SEC

OIT?

The SEC currently leverages multiple cloud‐based solutions for a variety of technology needs, including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. SEC cloud solutions include Amazon Web Services (AWS). The SEC expects to increase its use of cloud solutions to improve the delivery of IT services and reduce cost in key areas. The SEC’s strategic approach to cloud focuses on identifying opportunities across the agency, including, but not limited to, archival storage, application development, data management, data analytics, and other operational workloads.

EXECUTIVE

SUMMARY

How does Digital Services factor into the scope of work? [SOO mentions “Digital Government” and “Digital Trust & Identity Integration and Management”]

The SEC is focused on digital transformation to enhance the quality of engagement with external and internal stakeholders.

Specifics will be defined in the task orders as applicable.

EXECUTIVE

SUMMARY

11 How does DevOps factor into the scope of work?

During the next few years, the SEC is planning to integrate Agile and DevOps practices into technology delivery throughout the agency. Currently, these practices are championed within specific groups, and have not been scaled to incorporate governance or lifecycle management.

Depending on the task at hand, the specifics of the Project management and implementation framework ( Agile, devops) etc will be defined in the task orders.

5.6 5.6.6 17

Related to the requirement of SDLC (lifecycle management) will there be a requirement for any legacy hardware to be retired in an environmental compliant & certified (E‐Stewards) electronics recovery, & recycling post Data security requirements being met? Is there consideration for any legacy hardware recovery values can be used to offset contract costs with selected prime contractor?

There could be a requirement to retire legacy hardware.

Hardware is decommissioned in accordance with SEC Policy SECR 9‐2 and then sent to GSA for further use, donation, and/or sale. Certain IT assets are returned to the original vendor for e‐cycling.

5.7 5.7.4 17 same as above

There could be a requirement to retire legacy hardware.

Hardware is decommissioned in accordance with SEC Policy SECR 9‐2 and then sent to GSA for further use, donation, and/or sale. Certain IT assets are returned to the original vendor for e‐cycling.

SOO

In 5.1.2 for Service Channel 1, Operations and Maintenance Of Enterprise Platform Services ‐ please clarify if the services referenced in this section for (a) operations and maintenance of the applications/systems (such as enhancement, incremental O&M releases, fixes, etc.) that reside on the listed platforms or (b) is it the operations and maintenance of the technology platforms (such as patched, upgrades, configuration, administration) ?

Services include enhancements, incremental O&M releases, new development in the platform for migrating legacy applications to the new platform, upgrades, patching, disaster recovery support, and administration. Task orders will specify the details of work that need to be exectued under this Service channel.

7 SOO

10 & 11

Under SDLC ‐ Release, Change and Configuration management is listed as one of the line items. However within SEC Change and Configuration management is in a different organization and is not part of the SDLC. Therefore the scope of SDLC contract at SEC does not cover change and configuration management. We request the government to update this line item to only have Release Management under SDLC and delete change and configuration management.

The requirements for this acquisition are as stated in the SOO.

8 SOO

SOLR, Watson Explorer are a couple of specific search tools. Request the government to delete SOLR and Watson Explorer and update line item to "Search Indexing tool administration and optimization. This would make it broader and more inline with the capability being evaluated.

SOLR and Watson Explorer are tools which are currently in SEC, so it is specified for vendors to have specific knowledge of these tools along with other search indexing tool administration and optimization skills.

9 SOO 13

Does SEC have current implementation of Hadoop and Spark? Request the government to only include that is currently implemented at SEC.

Refer to the previously provided Technology Bricks – Platform Standards v 4.1a (under the EDW Platform)

10 SOO

5.1.2., 5.5.1, 5.5.2 10, 13

The platforms and technologies listed do not include all of the elements listed in Attachment 3, for example, .NET, Open Text, etc. The inclusion of a subset of platforms in Section C using the term 'such as': may lead offerors to conclude that those are the most important or the only ones that will be evaluated. It is not clear how important those in Attachment 3, that are not listed in Section C, are to the government or if they will be evaluated. Given that Attachment 3 contains many elements, Is the government looking for experience and past performance primarily with the platforms and technologies listed in Section C, and will conduct evaluations accordingly? Can the government please clarify.

Attachment 3 shows the standards/preferred tools/software for the major categories currently within SEC technology brick for vendors awareness. This will change as technology changes and new standards are added . Also this is not an all inclusive listing as not all applications are part of these categories and/or standards within the enterprise.

The evaluation team will evaluate and verify the support documentation for each and every evaluation evaluation element in the Offeror's Document Verification and Self Scoring Worksheet.

11 SOO

3 11 Concerning infrastructure and operations management, will the Contractor be expected to manage and monitor the SLAs for relevant service providers or will the Government retain that responsibility?

The contractor will be expected to partner with any/all associated vendors to meet contractual/organizational SLA's.

The SLA might be monitored by the government or by the contractor.

12 SOO

1 9 Within the “statement of objectives” file, Section 5.1.2 provides a list of “Platform Support Services”. Can the Government define “platform” in this context?

Platform is a software environment which can facilitate standardized, scalable business solutions for interdependent groups, and which an application or set applications reside.

13 SOO

1 9

Within the “statement of objectives” file, Section 5.1.2 provides a list of “Platform Support Services”. Is this list an exhaustive list that will need to be formally augmented to include “Other/Future Platforms”? Or will all platforms (current and future) that SEC requires IT support for be, in essence, included within this scope definition?

As technology changes so may our platforms. While this may not be an exhaustive list, it covers the platforms in use today.

Future platforms will depend on the needs of the agency, the Government standards, and government security requirements. The specifics of platforms requiring services will be defined in the task order.

14 SOO

Section 5.3.2 ('Work Category – Infrastructure Engineering Support Services') of the Statement of Objectives cites 'Emerging infrastructure technologies support services'.

Can you define 'Emerging infrastructure technologies support services' ?

The contractor will be expected to bring industries latestest and greatest technologies/practices to bare at the SEC in benefit of SEC'S mission. As new technologies emerge, SEC would use this Channel to take advantage of those emerging technologies and infrastructure. The details of the services required will be defined in the task order.

L.5.2 Table 70 Within Volume 2 Service Channel 5 ‐ Data Management, we request the line item "ETL Scripting and Administration in the current Environment Tivoli, DataStage, and Hadoop/Spark " be revised to state "ETL Scripting and Administration ".

The line item will remain as is.

L.5.2 Table 70 Within Volume 2 Service Channel 3 ‐ IT Infrastructure and Operations Management, we request the line item "SEC Cloud Initiatives and Project Support by Providing Cloud Services " to be revised to State "Providing Cloud Services ".

Updated to "Providing Cloud Services and Cloud Project Support".

L.5.2 Table 70 There is duplication of items between Volume 2 Service Channel 2 and Service Channel 6. The duplicated line items are Configuration Management, Release Management and Change Management. These 3 line items are already covered in Service Channel 2 and rightly belong in Solution Delivery. Request these line items to be deleted from Channel 6.

The line items will remain as is.