The file's text, extracted by GovTribe without its formatting.
Question Number
| RFP Reference |
| Question |
| USHMM Response |
| p. 4 G.2.2 Key Personnel & Subcontractors. "Offeror shall include the subcontractor(s) and key personnel to be assigned under this Agreement those persons listed below: (Offerors shall provide this information in their technical proposal, and such list shall be treated as though reproduced below.)" - Can the government provide the title or positions that it considers to be "Key Personnel" or is this to be decided at the discretion of the Offerors? |
| All onsite staff will be key personnel. Offerors should provide a letter of intent from all key personnel. |
| Follow up with regards to question 7 on the provided Q&A document. "If this is a follow-on requirement, could you please provide the previous contract or task order number? Answer provided: AC9531170016" - Is this the correct contract number? No data with that number can be found in BetaSam, FedBiz, or GovTribe. |
| This is the correct contract number. USHMM does not currently report to FPDS or DataACT . |
| Follow up with regards to question 12 on the provided Q&A document. "What are the resources hours? Answer provided: Tier 0/1 offsite should be 7x24x365"- Is it correct that the government is looking for staff to be available to answer the phone at all times, not a routed and monitored voicemail? |
| Onsite hours would be 7:00 am to 6;00 pm to cover all 4 time zones in the US. The offeror should provide a 7x24x365 call center to answer the phone and to route tickets accordingly. |
| Will it be possible to submit past performance information of a sub-contractor in addition to the past performance of the prime? |
| Yes, that would be acceptable if the subcontractor will actively participate on this offering |
| Are the subs also required to have the ISO-9001 certification? |
| no but should have an equivalent overriding security governance program. |
| Is the incumbent 1901 group allowed to bid on this solicitation? |
| yes |
| 7 |
| The question includes the following: "...We recommend that deliverables be defined as part of the proposal process to allow good faith estimates to reflect the work to be performed." The government response was " I am ok with this approach." |
| Please confirm that the solicitation will be modified to reflect this as a requirement. If the solicitation is not modified, is this a contractual requirement? |
| Offerors may propose this but it is not a contractual requirement |
| 8 |
| The question includes the following: "...To eliminate this concern, we recommend the RFP language be modified to say that a draft project plan will be submitted with the contractor’s proposal and finalized 7 days after contract award." The government response was " No objection." |
| Please confirm that the solicitation will be modified to reflect this as a requirement. If the solicitation is not modified, is this a contractual requirement? |
| Offerors may propose this but it is not a contractual requirement |
| 9 |
| The core tool to be provided by the contractor is the ticketing system which should include service requests, KB articles and optionally change management. |
| There are several references in the solicitation to a Self-Service Portal (pages 41, 43, and 45). Is the contractor to provide a Self-Service Portal as part of their proposed solution? |
| Yes |
| 10 |
| Does the contractor have to provide the configuration management database (CMDB) software? The government response was " No" |
| The pricing spreadsheet has a service for Configuration Management to be priced. Is the Museum providing a tool for this capability and if yes, what tool will the Museum be providing as GFE? If no tool is provided, then can offeror remove the configuration Management Service from the pricing model? |
| The Museum at a high level will provide the following GFEs for configuration management: MDT, Solarwinds and JAMF. |
| 11 |
| Does the contractor have to provide the Automated Call Distributor? Government response: Calls should be manned by live personal, so no. |
| An Automated Call Distribution system or ,ACD, is used to allow multiple agents to field calls from a single phone line, allow users to wait in a queue or leave voice mail messages. The question was to clarify whether the government was providing this as GFE as it was not specified as something that the contractor was to provide. Please clarify if an ACD will be provided by the government or if the contractor should provide. |
| The contractor should provide ACD for tier0 support. The Museum will forward internal phone numbers to the contractor to support this function. |
| 12 |
| The response was :"Yes they are all operational at this point, some will need additional deployment as part of the transition." |
| Please confirm that the Museum will be responsible for installing, setting up and configuring all the tools to be delivered as GFE including those to be additionally deployed? |
| Yes, the Museum will be responsible for GFE installation, setup and configurations. |
| 13 |
| Section A - Museum Locations & Network Users, Table 1: USHMM Locations / Network Users |
| There are approximately 700 staff, how many are the help desk and administrators' users? |
| Less than 5, currently. Offerors should propose what they think is adequate based on the requirements in the RFP. |
| 14 |
| Section B – Tools |
| Is the current Service Desk (SNOW) integrated with SolarWinds for Incident management? |
| No. Any service desk application that is proposed will need to be integrated with SolarWinds |
| 15 |
| Section C 1-4, IT Managed Service Desk |
| Would USHMM consider a separate proposal for a new IT Service Management solution? The new ITSM solution (SaaS or On-Prim) would include Incident management, Change Management, Knowledge Management, Service Catalog, Requests, and Self-Service Portal, as well as, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Analytics built in. |
| Yes, and SAAS would be preferred with the Caveat that Museum IT, IT Sec and Internal Audit would have full access to all aspects of the tool. |
| 16 |
| PWS, III. General Information. Requirement: At least fifty percent (50%) of the Contractor staff that provides network/system support should have completed MCSE, MCSA certification, CCNA or CCSE certification. |
| Industry certifications have and continue to evolve. Can USHMM confirm that equivalent industry certifications will meet the stated requirements? |
| Yes |
| 17 |
| Exhibit II, #1 and Q&A #13 Accreditation as CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraised organization (both Services and Development) |
and Question: Is it the Governments intent that Offerors shall have a CMMI Maturity Appraised Organization in both services and development? If yes, would an ISO 20000-1:2011 certification not suffice for the services?
Answer: Yes an ISO certification would be sufficient.
| Can USHMM confirm that any ISO certification can be substituted for CMMI Services and Development? |
| yes |
| 18 |
| Q&A #22: Reference: Question: Page 35, Exhibit I – Performance Work Statement, Table 7 Incident Monitoring and Reporting has SolarWinds as the General Functional Expertise. Please provide a listing of modules installed and that are being used in production today. |
Answer: The initial deployment for solarwinds that will be made available to the Contractor will be: DAmeware Remote everywhere and Network Performance Monitor. Network Configuration manager will be in place by the end of the Museum fiscal year. Other components will be added as needed by the Museum IT and ITsec Staff.
| In addition to the SolarWinds initiative and large projects mentioned in the RFP, is the USHMM planning on any additional large technology deployments in the first year of this contract that would fall under the scope of this program? If so, can you please provide details relative to scope and technology? |
| The Museum will handle the deployment of the Solarwinds Products. It is the expectation that the Contractor be able to use it and integrate with it from an alarming/ticketing standpoint. There are several projects on the table for 2021 that will require contractor participation like: |
- new server rollouts
- new image rollouts for MACs and Windows endpoints.
- support IT security agent rollouts through imaging and software pushes
- application deployments
| 19 |
| PWS, C. IT Managed Service Desk, Table 9 Reference: Average Ticket Numbers and Types: (12 months) |
Total Average Monthly Tickets – 800 Service request monthly average – 350 Break fix monthly average - 450
| Can USHMM provide any additional detail on the breakout of types of break/fix and service request tickets (i.e. Are service requests installs, moves, adds, and changes)? What percent of break/fix are password resets? |
| service requests are of the type: installs, moves, adds, changes, equipment requests, Password resets are more of an incident request. Breakfix types are software or hardware troubleshooting and fixing. |
| 20 |
| PWS, D. On Site Services During non-business hours, weekends and Federal holidays, IT (Museum staff and |
the Managed Services Provider) remotely supports and responds to network issues that adversely affect network services typically within a one-hour time frame.
| If remote support is provided, can USHMM provide details on the process by which we gain remote access/connectivity to the USHMM network? Are there any restrictions for remote access to the USHMM network? |
| The Museum can work with the contractor to provide a dedicated or on demand P2P VPN tunnel |
| 21 |
| PWS, C. IT Managed Service Desk Contractor may use their existing Service Desk Ticketing System so long as Museum IT Management and technical personnel have full access to the system and to the |
database.
| Is there an ITSM system of record today? If so, what is it? Are there any limitations with leveraging a shared ITSM from a security perspective (shared with other Federal clients)? |
| The current ITSM system is based around ServiceNow. The Museum would need full access to any such system so going with a shared environment with other federal clients would be not optimal since the Museum is not FedRamp certified with not intention to become so. |
| 22 |
| PWS, D. On Site Services and Q&A #29b: 24x7x365 support |
and Question: b. Also, the requirement in Table 11 for Enterprise Operations/Data Center is for 24x7x365. However, only 3 technicians are specified. It is not possible to provide 24x7x365 support with only 3 people. Were the hours of coverage in error or the number of technicians? Is this support required onsite?
Answer: Yes we are looking for Tier 0/1 7x24x365 support with escalation to the other FTE's proposed in this RFP and to Museum IT and IT Security Staff.
| Please provide the USHMM’s ability to provide 24x7x365 support. What is the availability of the USHMM’s staff to provide escalation support? |
| The Museum will make staff available for critical outages to cover the desired coverage time frames. First call resolution (password resets, account lockouts, etc..), initial ticket triage and escalation, should be handled on a 7x24x365 by the contractor. |
| 23 |
| PWS, IV. IT Managed Service Requirements: Table 3: Network, Infrastructure and WAN connectivity |
| Is the contractor responsible for supporting End of Life (EOL) or End of Support (EOS) equipment? How is that equipment being supported if no maintenance contract is in place? |
| The Museum has extended warranties on EOL/EOS equipment. |
| 24 |
| Q&A #30: Question: Reference Page 46, Exhibit I – Performance Work Statement, Section E. This section says, “In support in the planning and delivery of new IT infrastructure and/or services, Contractor shall utilize onsite resources to implement these projects. The Museum will maintain a bench of additional 3rd party resources that can be used on a Task Order basis as required in order to adequately meet the Museum time constraints.” |
Given that the contract type is firm fixed price, how does the Museum envision the role and responsibilities of the Museum and their third party resources as It relates to the Contractor and a firm fixed price contract type? We recommend that any project implementation work be done on a time and materials, task order basis based on negotiated rates.
Answer: The intent here is to utilize museum staff, IT security resources and the proposed on site tier 2/3 resources (requirement of this contract) to perform new project work.). In some cases, additional surge capacity is required which will require additional resources. In this scenario, the contractor should indicate that they want to be a part of the bench and to provide a rate structure.
These projects will be run on a T&M basis.
| Should the rate structure referenced in the answer to question 30 be referenced as part of the Cost Proposal? Is the Offeror allowed to modify Exhibit IV Cost Proposal to add T&M rates? The current Exhibit IV does not conducive to such structure. Our recommendation is to insert a tab to add the T&M rate card. |
| Exhibit IV states, " If this breakdown is not suitable, please feel free to offer an alternative approach.", therefore you are welcome to add T&M rates. |
| 25 |
| PWS, F.1.1: The notice to proceed (NTP) date will be set by the Contracting Officer, but is anticipated |
to begin in October 2020.
| Given the extension to the Proposal Due Date, what is the anticipated NTP date, to begin work? |
| January 2021 |
| 26 |
| PWS, F.2.1: Offeror shall deliver to USHMM the IT services specified herein from the date of contract start of services through the conclusion of the contract. Specific deliverables including service dashboards and reports shall be determined during the transition phase and as necessary throughout the duration of the contract |
| This section infers a transition phase. What is the anticipated transition timeframe, if any? |
| The time it take for the awardee to knowledge transfer everything from the current MSP to the awardee, rough estimate is from 1 to 3 months. |
| 27 |
| PWS, F2.4 Policy. Contractors shall perform all contracts, so far as practicable, without using overtime, particularly as a regular employment practice, except when lower overall costs to the Government will result or when it is necessary to meet urgent program needs. Any approved overtime, extra-pay shifts, and multishifts should be scheduled to achieve these objectives. |
| Since this is a FFP contract, our assumption is that overtime does not apply. |
| Correct, we don't pay overtime on the current contract |
General
| 28 |
| Q&A, #10: Question: How many resources are currently providing services under this contract? |
| Can USHMM provide an answer to question #10? |
| 4 onsite help desk technicians, 1 tier2/3 network/systems engineer, .25 network engineer, 1 Program Manager, Tier0 first call resolution desk, 1 SLM, Vulnerability/Patch Team, Backup/Recovery /Storage Team, Server/Virtualization Team |
| 29 |
| Q&A, #17d and 27a Question: d. Does the contractor have to provide the Automated Call Distributor? |
Answer: Calls should be manned by live personal, so no.
Question: a. Reporting requirements for Incident Management Answer: Some example reports would be:
a. Reporting requirements for Incident Management
- tickets open/close over time
- mean time to closure (MTC)
- tickets per support staff
- MTC per ticket type and by technician
- call wait times
- satisfaction surveys
- reports on breach tickets based on SLAs on Priority type, etc
| The Q&A states USHMM will provide the 800 number, however also states that there will be no Contractor provided ACD. In addition to the 800 number, is USHMM providing an ACD? If no, please describe how the metrics referenced in question 27a will be tracked and reported. |
| USHMM will not be providing an ADC, the vendor should provide call metrics for Tier0 and first call resolutions |
| I want to know if you can confirm the incumbent contract number that was listed in the Q&As that were released on September 17th. In Question 7 you stated that the incumbent contract number was AC9531170016, however there is no record of this contract in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). Can you please confirm this is the correct contract number and if so, could you point me in another direction to obtain details on the contract since they don’t exist in FPDS. |
| This is the correct contract number. USHMM does not currently report to FPDS or DataACT . |
Response to Questions – Exhibit A to SF30 954767-20-R-0820 P0002 10/28/20
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum