Clarification Questions and Answers.xlsx
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- Attached to
- Cloud Hosting, System Administration, and Website Support and Development for the Institute of Education Sciences Federal contract opportunity
- Solicitation number
- 91990021R0010
- Issued by
- Department of Education
About this file
This document contains clarification questions and answers regarding a solicitation for cloud hosting, system administration, and website support and development services for the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. The solicitation seeks a single prime contractor to provide services under a hybrid firm-fixed-price and cost reimbursement contract. Key details include that the solicitation is set aside for women-owned small businesses, with subcontracting opportunities open to all types of small businesses. The work encompasses four tasks: Amazon Web Services/IaaS solutions, system operations support, website administration and development, and software license management. Quality Information Partners and Sanametrix are the incumbent contractors for various tasks. The period of performance is one base year with four optional one-year periods. Pricing should be in accordance with the solicitation line items, with cost reimbursement tasks requiring fully burdened labor rates and firm-fixed-price tasks based on total proposed costs.
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| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| Performance Information Form.pdf | ||
| Solicitation 91990021R0010.pdf |
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Text version
Sheet1
| Question # | Business or Technical Question | Reference RFP Section (i.e., Evaluation Criteria, SOW, Instructions to Offerors, etc.) | Reference RFP Page # | Question | Answers | |
| 1 | Business | Business Proposal Contents: Socio Economic Status Certification | Page 104 | We have an EDWOSB certication from VDOT SBSD valid until 10/17/2023, is this sufficent to bid? | ||
| NOTE - we are at the tail-end of getting our SBA approved EDWOSB certification through their new process. | You must be registerd as a WOSB in SAM in order to be eligible for an award under the appriopriate NAICS code. | |||||
| 2 | Business | K.6 52.230-1 COST ACCOUNTING STANDARDS NOTICES AND CERTIFICATION | Page 87 | We are a Small Business, does this mean that the Notice (I,II,III) under K.6 does not apply to us….in other words, we do not need to have a DCAA approved or FAR Complied Accounting system to bid on this? | IAW 52.230-1 COST ACCOUNTING STANDARDS NOTICES AND CERTIFICATION: This notice does not apply to small businesses. | |
| 3 | Business | - | - | Who is the incumbent currently performing the work at EDU IES? | The incubment for Tasks 1, 2, and 4 is Quality Information Partners and the incumbent for Task 3 is Sanametrix. | |
| 4 | Business | - | - | Is there a possibility of extending the due date of our proposal? | This is not an option due to time constraints. | |
| 5 | Business | - | - | Will all the staff/resources assigned to perform on all 4 Tasks be working from off-site (from the Contractor site and not the Government site)? | Yes, all work will be performed off-site. | |
| 6 | Business | Software Licenses | Page 49 | Are the Licenses and AWS IaaS be priced as ODCs? Should they all be government rates/prices? | All pricing should be in accordance with the solicitation line items. | |
| 6 | Technical | - | - | If any, please provide a list of all your current tools that the Contractor should be using (including the Ticketing system) to perform all 4 Tasks. | The request ticketing system is a proprietary legacy system developed by IES, and not a COTS product. All other software tools are listed in the SOW in Task 2, section n. | |
| 7 | Technical | SOW | - | To offer the best solution and talent, we have partners who specialize in each of the four Contract Types to offer the best team. The Past Performance indicates only one past performance may be from the subcontractor. Will you allow a minimum of two subcontractors to provide a past performance? | Yes. One past performance from each subcontractor is permissible. | |
| 8 | Technical | SOW, Task 3. Website Administration and Development. | Page 48 (h) | Are the content updates submitted through an existing content management system? If so, what is that system. If not, is this a manual process? | It is a manual process to update the web content. There is currently no content management system. | |
| 9 | Technical | SOW, Task 3. Website Administration and Development. | Pages 46,47,48 | What data visualization tools are used to gather the data for the statistical data requirements as identified in the childstats.gov website? | Task 3, section K states that the content will provided by NCES and other Forum participants to the Childstats.gov. The work in this task will be to develop the web pages from that provided content. | |
| 10 | Technical | SOW, Appendix I. Historic Level of Effort and Staff Roles | Page 109 | Labor Categories identified within the tables identify two titles and 2080 hours, are these titles for one person or do they represent one labor category for the full year? | In cases with multiple titles, those represent one labor category and one person serving in that role for 2080 hours per year. | |
| 11 | Technical | III Requirements | ||||
| Task 1 Amazon Web Services (AWS)/IaaS Solution | Page 44 (a) | Is the 4-week account transition timeframe negotiable? 4 weeks is typically the minimum. | 4 weeks is the maximum as there is a current contract ending soon after the new contract is awarded. | |||
| 12 | Technical | III Requirements | ||||
| Task 2 System Operations Support | Page 45 | If a vendor uses BigFix rather than WSUS for system patch management as part of our FedRAMP package, is this acceptable? | Comparable systems may be proposed, but ED reserves the right to compare proposed alternatives with current solutions based on cost, capability, and compatibility with current environment. | |||
| 13 | Technical | III Requirements | ||||
| Task 2 System Operations Support | Page 45 | If a vendor uses TrendMicro rather than McAfee ePO management for anti-virus and HIPS as part of our FedRAMP package, is this acceptable? | Comparable systems may be proposed, but ED reserves the right to compare proposed alternatives with current solutions based on cost, capability, and compatibility with current environment. | |||
| 14 | Technical | Content delivery network (CDN) services for web and video streaming | Page 34 | Can we know who you are using for CDN currently? Is it Amazon CloudFront? If so is the customer open to other tools such as CloudFlare or Fastly? | AWS CloudFront is in limited use at IES and is integrated with other AWS services, such as AWS API Gateway and AWS S3. Comparable systems may be proposed, but ED reserves the right to compare proposed alternatives with current solutions based on cost, capability, and compatibility with current environment. | |
| 15 | Technical | Addendum to 3452.239-72 DEVIATION (2020-01) | Page 40 | Is there a requirement to be onsite for the staffs? | All work will be performed off-site. | |
| 16 | Technical | Task 1. Amazon Web Services (AWS)/IaaS Solution – Item E - Provide physical colocation space (Equinix SV3, San Jose, CA) to house MTIPS | ||||
| security equipment and cross-connect AWS Direct Connect and MTIPS provider circuits. | Page 44 | Do we negotiate the cost with Equinix or the gov. has an established contract term with Equinix? Will be the customer be OK with alternate CoLo other than Equinix to harvest some cost savings without sacrificing the features? | Yes, vendors will negotiate costs for Equinix. Equinix is currently the only co-location facility connected to AWS GovCloud West region. ED has also procured MTIPS services from CenturyLink which has equipment housed in Equinix. Details stated in Task 1, section e. An alternate colocation facility is not an option. | |||
| 17 | Technical | Microsoft Active Directory management | Page 45 | Where is your current AD – On Prem or in AWS? | In AWS. | |
| 18 | Technical | VPN access and Single Sign On via Access Policy Manager | Page 46 | Are you open to VPN alternative such as Zero Trust (Software Defined Perimeter to secure your On-Premise and Cloud environment more secure? | Comparable systems may be proposed, but ED reserves the right to compare proposed alternatives with current solutions based on cost, capability, and compatibility with current environment. | |
| 19 | Technical | Task 4. Software Licenses | Page 49 | What tools are you using to manage the licenses? Also can we get the contract terms that you have for the licenses mentioned in Page 7 to negotiate better terms? | No tools are currently in used to manage licensing. Contract terms are not available from the current vendor. | |
| 20 | Technical | IT Security and Policies | Page 59 | Complete/update the appropriate level of Security Accreditation (SA) documentation - does this mean 33% security audit yearly? | Yes, approximated 33% each year is audited. | |
| 21 | Technical | IT Security and Policies | Page 63 | Are all high availability (near real time) environments be 100% redundant for DR? | No. | |
| 22 | Technical | Amazon Web Services (AWS)/IaaS Solution | Page 34 | Amazon Web Services (AWS)/IaaS Solution - is high availability / redundancy required? | Yes. | |
| 23 | Technical | System Operations Support | Page 45 (d) | Restore infrastructure operational capabilities during disaster recovery efforts - quarterly? yearly? | DR test exercises are performed yearly. | |
| 24 | Technical | IT Security and Policies | Page 60 | Implement and maintain an automated software asset management/inventory and hardware asset inventory capability (e.g. scans/device discovery processes) at the enterprise-level. Is this government owned and transitioned-in at the award or is it a new procurement? | This is government owned and transitioned in at award. | |
| 25 | Technical | IT Security and Policies | Page 64 | System security documentation shall be developed to record and support the implementation of the security controls for the system - will the outgoing contractor be supplying the current state of these documents during transitioning-in? | Government will supply current documentation during the transition. | |
| 26 | Technical | System Operations Support | Page 45 | How often is it expected to switch over the testing environment(s) to the DR site - quarterly? How long to run on DR site - until next quarter return to Prod? | DR site is not switched over to during annual DR test exercises for production. | |
| 27 | Technical | Website Administration and Development | Page 48 | Continually update IES’ websites with content provided by IES staff to ensure that the websites stay current with the latest information - as needed? or on a release schedule? Sandbox, Dev, Test, Imp, Prod environments? | Content is developed on release schedules as well as needed. IES provides a web development environment to perform the development work. | |
| 29 | Technical | IT Security and Policies | Page 61 | Provide and maintain multi-factor authentication solutions utilizing the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card - is this existing? | ED has yet to implement PIV card authentication for external systems. This being planned for the future, but no schedule exists. | |
| 30 | Technical | IT Security and Policies | Pge 62 | Will transitioning-in include access to all the security documentations and POAMs? | Yes. | |
| 31 | Technical | Information Security Incidents (ISI) | Page 73 | EDSOC is available 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, Are you using collaboration tools? Sharepoint, Jira, Confluence? | Sharepoint and DOJ’s proprietary Cyber Security Assessment and Management (CSAM) system. | |
| 32 | Technical | Instruction to Offerors | Page 100 of 117 | Instructions state "Technical Proposals must not exceed 30 pages. Page numbering shall begin with the cover page. Excluded from the page count are i) resumes of key project staff, ii) past performance information, iii) letters of commitment or subcontracting agreements, and iv) conflict of interest plans." Will the government consider removing the Cover Sheet, Abstract, and Table of Contents from the total page count of 30 pages? | No. | |
| 33 | Technical | Instruction to Offerors--Management Plan | Pages 101-102 of 117 | The instructions request offerors to present an abundance of tabular requirements within the 30-page limit. Will the government consider allowing the discussion of the following items to be part of the 30 page count (with references to the appendix) and allow the larger tabular requirements to be moved to an Appendix to the Management Plan and the Appendix would not be part of page count? |
1. Time commitments table for the entire contract
2. Schedule of task activities and delivery of products for the Base Period in calendar days (Gantt chart)
3. Proposed timeline addressing tasks/subtasks, deliverables, and Department approval of deliverable together with responsible staff.
4. Critical Milestones with dates
5. Listing of materials or services the offeror expects the Department to make available
| 6. Baselines and set targets for performance metrics | No. | |||||
| 34 | Technical | Instruction to Offerors--Management Plan | Page 102 of 117 | The instructions state, "Establish baselines and set targets for performance metrics and performance measures utilizing the sample chart of performance metrics provided below:" The government did not provide the sample chart of performance metrics. Please provide. | Please disregard this statement in the instructions to offerors, as offerors are expected to provide that information in their own format/charts. | |
| 35 | Business | Business Proposal Contents: Labor Categories and Labor Rates | Page 105 of 117 | In section entitled Labor Categories and Labor Rates it states, “Offerors must submit their labor rates broken out, not fully loaded.” Is it accurate that only the CR tasks require “labor rates broken out, not fully loaded” and that FFP tasks should provide full loaded hourly rates multiplied by the number of hours to show cost build up? | This is correct, CR tasks require labor rates that are broken out and FFP labor rates should be fully loaded. | |
| 36 | Technical | Contractor Employee Security Screening Requirements | Page 54 of 117 | The instructions state, "For the initiation of these accounts, the Contractor Security Liaison must use the COR-approved list of employees and the risk levels assigned to the employees’ positions to produce and submit the following list using the attached template." Would the government please provide this template? | This was a typographical error. Template will be provided after award. | |
| 37 | Technical | Instructions to Offerors - Past Performance | Page 103 of 117 | The instructions state, "The offeror should submit references for any contract discussed in the past performance section by using the “Contract Performance Information” form that is attached to the solicitation." Would the government please provide this form? | This form is now included. | |
| 38 | Technical | Instruction to Offerors | Page 100 of 117 | The instructions state, "Proposals shall be 1.5 spaced with a 12-point font size and margins of at least 1 inch." Would the government consider changing the formatting requirements to single spaced? | No. | |
| 39 | Technical/Business | Instruction to Offerors--Management Plan and Subcontractor Costs | Page 102 of 117 and Page 107 of 117 | Page 102 states, "All proposed contractors and subcontractors shall sign a Conflict of Interest Certificate, and this shall be included in the technical proposal submission." However, page 107 states," All Conflict of Interest Certifications are to be submitted with the offeror’s Business Proposals." Can the government please clarify where the Conflict of Interest plan and certificates should be placed? | Conflict of Interest Certificates and Plans are to be submitted in the business proposal. | |
| 40 | Business | II Business Proposal - Instructions to Offerors | 6 of 13 | The government writes that it “anticipates awarding … through a women-owned small business set aside.” Is this a minimum mandatory requirement? Are 8a, Veteran-owned Service Disabled Small businesses eligible for the award? This vendor asked that you broaden the eligibility requirement to other small business classifications. | This is a WOSB set aside. Subcontractors may be other than WOSB. | |
| 41 | Business | INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS | 99 of 117 | Could you please provide a couple of weeks extension to help us engage relevant teams efficiently and to provide quality response? | No. | |
| 42 | Technical | STATEMENT OF WORK | 43 of 117 | Please provide details of incumbent service providers for each task area? | Quality Information Partners (Task 1, 2, 4), Sanametrix (Task 3). | |
| 43 | Business | INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS | 103 of 117 | We understand that this opportunity is a Women - Owned Business (WBE) set-aside, please confirm if we can involve NON WBE large vendors to support us as a subcontractor. Are there any restrictions on the percentage split of revenue between prime and subcontractor? | Subcontractor is not required to be a WOSB. There is a 51% revenue requirement for the prime contractor. | |
| 44 | Business | INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS | 103 of 117 | Could you please provide the missing attachment to provide past performances. | This form is now included. | |
| 45 | Technical | STATEMENT OF WORK / Task 2 - System Operation Support | 45 of 117 | Could you please provide details of the previous tickets/tasks dump for the last year by website and databases? | IES can supply the follow information about tickets for the calendar year 2020: |
609 Account Requests (e.g. account creation, modification, deletion) 3440 Web Share Requests (e.g. file transfers, deletions, permissions modifications) 579 Database Requests (e.g. new DB, backups, restores, transfers, permissions modifications) 753 DB Script Requests (e.g. SQL Script execution requests) 788 Special Requests (Any request that is not covered by the other request categories, e.g. custom application configuration changes, log requests, software installations, SSL certificate changes, etc.)
| 46 | Technical | STATEMENT OF WORK / Task 3 - Website Administration and Development | 47 of 117 | We are assuming that the scope of services mostly includes SOP/Configuration and basic troubleshooting L2 tasks and does not include helpdesk and break fix/development support? | In addition to basic troubleshooting, help desk type support is expected during business hours stated in the SOW. This includes developer support and application and database troubleshooting. |
| 47 | Technical | STATEMENT OF WORK / Task 3 - Website Administration and Development | 47 of 117 | Could you please provide some details on type of website submissions for the last year. | IES can supply the follow information about tickets for the calendar year 2020: |
609 Account Requests (e.g. account creation, modification, deletion) 3440 Web Share Requests (e.g. file transfers, deletions, permissions modifications) 579 Database Requests (e.g. new DB, backups, restores, transfers, permissions modifications) 753 DB Script Requests (e.g. SQL Script execution requests) 788 Special Requests (Any request that is not covered by the other request categories, e.g. custom application configuration changes, log requests, software installations, SSL certificate changes, etc.)
48 Technical Evaluation Criteria 116 of 117 Please explain how the Government intends to implement the provision on Proposal Evaluation to remediate "Technically Unacceptable But Susceptible to Being Made Acceptable" technical approach proposals during source selection process. The government reserves the right to ask clarification questions of vendors about their proposal submissions.
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