0202USDA.pdf

(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

FARM SERVICE AGENCY

INDUSTRY DAY

TUESDAY

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

The meeting convened at the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Whitten Building Patio, 1400 Independence Avenue, Southwest, Washington, D.C., at 10:00 a.m., Val Dolcini, Administrator, presiding.

PRESENT

VAL DOLCINI, Administrator, Farm Service Agency JONATHAN ALBOUM, Chief Information Officer, U.S.

Department of Agriculture KURT BENEDICT, Chief for Testing and Certification, Farm Service Agency CHRIS BEYERHELM, Associate Administrator for Operations and Management, Farm Service Agency LORETTA BURNS, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Farm Service Agency PAUL CHEVALIER, Director for Operations and Testing, Farm Service Agency KARA COCHRAN, Director, IT Budget and Acquisition Office, Farm Service Agency TONYE GROSS, OCIO Chief of Staff, Farm Service Agency

SHIRLEY HALL, GIS Program Manager, Farm Service Agency YVONNE HOWERTON, Contracting Head, Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, U.S.

Department of Agriculture

CARMEN JONES, Acting Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization

DOUG JONES, Acting Director for Application

Development, Farm Service Agency

FRANK MENDEZ, IT Operations Chief, Farm Service

Agency

GERALD PATTILLO, Chief Architect, Farm Service

Agency

RADHA SEKAR, Chief Financial Officer, Farm

Service Agency

SUDHIR SURENDRAN, Chief for Database Management, Farm Service Agency

MATT TELLADO, Chief, Farm Records Group

JEFF WAGNER, Acting Chief Information Security

Officer, Farm Service Agency

WADE WASSENBERG, Enterprise Applications

Architect, Farm Service Agency

DAMIAN WINTERS, Lead for Enterprise Service Desk, Farm Service Agency

C O N T E N T S

Introductions

FSA Overview

IDIQ Overview

Task Area Panel for Task Areas 1, 2, 3, and 4

Task Area Panel for Task Areas 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11

Task Area Panel for Task Areas 5, 12, and 13

Adjourn

1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 10:03 a.m.

3 MS. HOWERTON: Good morning. Can you

4 hear me? Great.

5 First, let me thank you all for your

6 time this morning. We know your time is

7 important, and we appreciate your attendance here

8 today.

9 I am going to start off with our

10 introductions so that we can get this Industry

11 Day started, okay?

12 First, on my left, let me introduce to

13 you the Administrator for the Farm Service

14 Agency, Mr. Val Dolcini. Mr. Dolcini would like

15 to have a few words with you.

16 ADMINISTRATOR DOLCINI: Thank you, 17 Yvonne. Good morning, everybody.

18 Good to see such a wonderful turnout

19 today. I think that this is going to really

20 result in a better approach to IT procurement at

21 the Farm Service Agency and the important work

22 that we do around the nation to support the

1 farmers and ranchers of the United States.

2 Our mission is at once simple and very

3 complicated. Basically, we provide financial

4 tools of varying degrees to farmers and ranchers.

5 These range from loans to disaster payments to

6 conservation grants to support payments through

7 our various commodity programs.

8 We do this through a network of 2200

9 county offices from Maine to California, and as

10 you can imagine, all of those offices have

11 varying degrees of connectivity and bandwidth, so

12 the strength and stability and reliability of our

13 IT infrastructure is absolutely essential to the

14 good work that we do around the nation.

15 The 2014 Farm Bill gave us a variety

16 of new responsibilities. It gave us new programs

17 and extended other programs. We saw 30 major

18 software releases. Nearly 2 million farmers

19 signed up for the programs that we administer, 20 and last year had another record-breaking year in

21 terms of the loans that we extended to farmers

22 and ranchers around the country.

1 So as you can tell, IT is really an

2 essential part of the way we deliver our

3 services, not just through those 2200 county

4 offices in 50 states, but through headquarters

5 locations here in Washington, in Kansas City, in

6 Salt Lake City, in St. Louis, and a couple of

7 other smaller sites.

8 So the work that we do in partnership

9 with folks like yourselves in the private sector

10 is really important. It is the way that we

11 deliver our services to farmers and ranchers, and

12 that to all of us as Americans should be

13 centrally important to everything that we do.

14 The Farm Service Agency is one of

15 those agencies that has a relatively low profile.

16 There are a number of folks that don't really

17 know what we do or where we do it, but suffice it

18 to say we support the men and women who provide

19 food, fuel, and fiber, not only to our fellow

20 citizens here in the United States, but all over

21 the world.

22 So it is very important work and work

1 that motivates my team of about 13,000 folks

2 around the country to get up every day and to

3 serve the farmers and ranchers. Our

4 relationships with IT companies like those that

5 you represent are very important. Since I have

6 been the Administrator in -- since September of

7 2014, I have really I think held to a greater

8 level of accountability those folks that work

9 with us on the IT side as well as everyone else

10 that contracts with the Farm Service Agency, so

11 for those would-be partners and future partners

12 of FSA, I say, you know, we welcome your

13 contributions and the work that we can do

14 together as teammates, but I am also going to

15 hold you to a pretty high standard when I don't

16 feel like the work that we're getting out of you

17 is adequate.

18 So you will hear more from Radha Sekar

19 and Chris Beyerhelm and Carmen on the Small and

20 Disadvantaged Business side. You will hear from

21 Jonathan Alboum, who is our Chief Information

22 Officer here at the Department and somebody who

1 is intimately familiar with FSA's IT needs and

2 our strengths and our weaknesses.

3 But I just wanted you to hear from me

4 before you heard from those folks just to let you

5 know that it is an important day that we are

6 embarked on here. I think this is the first

7 Industry Day we have done in some years. I

8 really think that you will learn a lot about FSA.

9 Hopefully, for many of you, it will

10 interest you in being a partner of ours and

11 working on some of the big projects that we have

12 in the pipeline, and in future years, and take a

13 question or two, or turn it back over to you, 14 Yvonne, however you'd like to play it.

15 MS. HOWERTON: We have time for maybe

16 one --

17 ADMINISTRATOR DOLCINI: Sure.

18 MS. HOWERTON: -- quick question.

19 ADMINISTRATOR DOLCINI: Absolutely.

20 MS. HOWERTON: Perhaps one quick

21 question. Do we have one question?

22 ADMINISTRATOR DOLCINI: Or I'll call

1 on this fellow in the front row here.

2 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: I look forward

3 to working with you.

4 ADMINISTRATOR DOLCINI: All right. I

5 look forward to working with you too. Thanks

6 very much.

7 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

8 (Applause.)

9 MS. HOWERTON: Again, thank you Mr.

10 Dolcini for making the time to come by and to

11 speak with this group. That is an indication of

12 how important this requirement is.

13 So this is our day. This Industry Day

14 is a request for information, which means it

15 works two ways. I would like to go on now to

16 introduce the rest of our esteemed panel.

17 Mr. Jonathan Alboum, who is the CIO

18 for the Department for USDA.

19 MR. ALBOUM: Good morning everybody.

20 Again, echo Val's comments. Thanks for being

21 here today. It's great to see such a big

22 turnout.

1 It is very important when we think

2 about our relationship with industry that we are

3 as open and forthcoming as we can be. The

4 ability to share information on a day like this

5 goes a long way to getting the kinds of services

6 and support that FSA needs.

7 And as Val referenced, I have a lot of

8 familiarity with FSA even though, you know, I sit

9 at the Department now. I spent a year plus

10 working with the FSA team on some IT projects, so

11 I did get to see FSA in action, and I understand

12 how important that network of 2200 county offices

13 is in the inner workings of USDA overall.

14 The IT work that we do together

15 between the Department and FSA helps so many

16 people. I think there's approximately 2.2

17 million producers, farmers and ranchers, that

18 benefit from the programs that FSA provides, and

19 without IT systems, without the -- the ability

20 for our organizations to work together, those

21 farmers and ranchers would -- would not be able

22 to do all that they do in growing food and

1 raising food that we end up -- we end up

2 consuming and eating, and we benefit from all of

3 that, so it's a really unique and important

4 opportunity that we have here today.

5 So I want to take just a few minutes

6 to give a little perspective on USDA Information

7 Technology and how it relates to some of the work

8 at FSA.

9 I have been in the CIO job at USDA for

10 about seven months now, and during that time, 11 there has been nothing more important than

12 cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is by far the

13 number one priority that we have at USDA, and I

14 expect as you respond to the RFI and hear more, 15 cybersecurity will continue to come up, and it is

16 going to be one of those things that is very

17 important, all the work that all of our agencies

18 do, but especially at FSA.

19 When you think about having to protect

20 personally identifiable information for those 2.2

21 million producers, when you think about the

22 impact of data leakages, some of this critical

1 data that FSA is responsible for, and not just

2 the impact on maybe operations, but how does that

3 look to -- to the American public if we can't

4 protect data for this very, very important group

5 of people that support the rest of America?

6 So information security, cybersecurity

7 is going to be our top -- is my top priority, and

8 you will see that here and in other ways.

9 And just to give a little perspective

10 of how high this reaches in the organization, 11 over the past few months, we have put together

12 this internal cybersecurity scorecard that brings

13 together different kinds of cybersecurity

14 information for all of our agencies, puts it on

15 one sheet of paper, shows how all agencies

16 compare against each other, and we share this

17 with the USDA leadership team, including the

18 Secretary.

19 The Secretary sees this every other

20 week, and he asks hard questions of me and the

21 agencies that are represented on that scorecard

22 about what are they doing and how are they

1 improving and balancing cybersecurity with

2 program requirements?

3 So I share that because I want you to

4 know how important cybersecurity is to me

5 personally as USDA CIO, how important it is to

6 Val as the Administrator for the FSA, and the

7 Secretary, and overall, from an overall

8 perspective of things that are important at USDA.

9 The second thing that is a high

10 priority for USDA IT is the implementation of the

11 Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, FITARA. USDA

12 is very proud to have had the first approved

13 FITARA plan, and that plan sets forth how we want

14 to manage IT corporately over -- over the next

15 several years.

16 It is -- it is a lot of work. We have

17 to govern our work in ways that we haven't

18 before. We have to be more integrated from the

19 Office of the CIO with our agencies, including

20 FSA, in some ways that we haven't had to do

21 before.

22 And while it is maybe not directly

1 tied into this RFI or in this work, it is very

2 much a part of the work that will come out of

3 this RFI. The systems that are built here, the

4 related IT activities, those are the things that

5 we need to understand in the Office of the CIO

6 and make sure that we know how our funds are

7 being spent and we're managing them well. That

8 is what that law is about.

9 USDA has had some notable IT

10 challenges over the past several years, and you

11 know, FITARA isn't the direct result of that, but

12 it is certainly in the ether, and when we think

13 about some of our -- some of our projects that

14 have not gone as well as others, we look at

15 things that we want to implement as they relate

16 to FITARA and think about and talk about

17 corporately with the Deputy Secretary, with the

18 Secretary, with our undersecretaries, about how

19 these are the kinds of things that we need to do

20 to make sure that challenges we have had in the

21 past do not appear again. So you will see those

22 kinds of things conceptually in this RFI and in

1 the related work.

2 The third very important aspect of the

3 work that we do in the USDA CIO Office is what

4 directly relates to this contract. It directly

5 relates to FSA IT.

6 We have a very important

7 responsibility for not just FSA but also the

8 Natural Resource Conservation Service, NRCS, and

9 Rural Development, to support their network, to

10 support their desktop -- desktop support, to

11 provide enterprise network services not just to

12 those organizations but others as well.

13 Those -- those services provide this

14 core for those 2200 county offices that Val

15 referenced, and the work that FSA does is

16 directly dependent on our ability to manage the

17 network at the Office of the CIO level, our

18 ability to make sure that the computers function

19 properly in those offices, our ability to host

20 the systems, sometimes at the National IT Center, 21 NITC, that's in Kansas City or one of those other

22 locations that Val referenced.

1 So the work we do is directly tied on

2 that side of our CIO organization, directly tied

3 to FSA, hand-in-glove. We cannot do our work

4 without them, and they cannot do their work

5 without us. It is really critical for you all to

6 understand that there is a critical, important, 7 symbiotic relationship between our two

8 organizations, and so from that perspective, the

9 relationships, the work that goes on at FSA is

10 across organizational boundaries, not just within

11 FSA organizations, but within USDA organizations, 12 into the USDA CIO's Office, and also sometimes

13 into some of our other USDA agencies where there

14 is a sharing of data or very similar

15 requirements.

16 I just want to conclude by saying that

17 this -- this opportunity and this kind of

18 contract, this broad-based IDIQ, serves as a

19 possible platform for some other agencies as

20 well. We are not here to talk about other agency

21 requirements, but having been in other agencies

22 and seen other agencies, I know that there are

1 similarities between what FSA needs to do from an

2 IT perspective and what some of our -- many of

3 our other agencies need to do, and one of the

4 things we want to consider is is this a vehicle

5 that we will promote across agencies, look for

6 some commonalities in approach, look for maybe

7 some opportunities to share technologies, look

8 for opportunities to share data.

9 Those are all things that we talk

10 about doing, and this is a way to effect those

11 changes.

12 I think that there is a high

13 likelihood we will go in a direction like that

14 over time. I don't know when. I don't know

15 exactly how. But a vehicle like this is -- is

16 certainly a viable option, and we are going to

17 consider that as we talk this through internally.

18 So with that, I want to conclude my

19 remarks and say thank you again for being here

20 today. It is great to see so many familiar faces

21 in the crowd and so many different companies

22 represented. Very much appreciate you being

1 here, and I hope you have a lot of questions and

2 provide us great input to this RFI process.

3 Thank you very much.

4 (Applause.)

5 MR. ALBOUM: If we have time for

6 questions, sort of impromptu, happy to accept

7 that guy who is just so eager. No, yes sir.

8 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: So you

9 mentioned potentially sharing with other

10 agencies.

11 MS. HOWERTON: There's a mic right

12 there.

13 MR. ALBOUM: I am sorry, can you

14 repeat your --

15 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Okay.

16 MR. ALBOUM: -- question?

17 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: You mentioned

18 sharing with other agencies, sharing the vehicle.

19 Can you talk about what your plans are to use

20 this vehicle across USDA --

21 MR. ALBOUM: So there are no

22 definitive plans. This is a contract vehicle

1 that other agencies can use. That is the

2 intention, right? And other agencies within

3 USDA.

4 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Oh, within

5 USDA.

6 MR. ALBOUM: Correct.

7 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Okay, all

8 right.

9 MR. ALBOUM: So -- so just to clarify

10 our language, we talk about our bureaus as

11 agencies, and USDA is the Department, so when I

12 say other agencies, I mean Farm Service Agency is

13 an agency, Food and Nutrition Service is an

14 agency, Rural Development is an agency.

15 So this is an FSA contract, and we are

16 here only today to talk about FSA requirements, 17 but we know that there are similarities in other

18 agencies, so if we award a contract here and

19 another agency sees something that's in their

20 scope and there's vendors on there they want to

21 compete that against, quite possibly they would

22 use this as a -- as a vehicle, and something that

1 we would encourage in the right circumstances.

2 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: And also, at

3 the -- at the Department level, potentially.

4 MR. ALBOUM: Correct.

5 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Okay.

6 MR. ALBOUM: Yes, it supports all USDA

7 -- the intention --

8 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Okay.

9 MR. ALBOUM: -- is that this would

10 support all USDA organizations.

11 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Thank you very

12 much.

13 MR. ALBOUM: Yes.

14 Yes sir.

15 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Because you're

16 nationwide with 22,000 locations --

17 MR. ALBOUM: 2200.

18 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: 2200, excuse

19 me, and 2.2 million producers, will you make a

20 reading room available so we can all see your

21 domain, your networks, and how they interact and

22 work so we can better serve you?

1 MR. ALBOUM: I am going to defer that

2 question to FSA and Yvonne.

3 MS. HOWERTON: That sounds like a good

4 idea.

5 MR. ALBOUM: Yes, so we're certainly

6 open to that. I don't know the logistics, but

7 --

8 MS. HOWERTON: We appreciate that

9 comment. We will take that under consideration

10 as part of this Industry Day --

11 MR. ALBOUM: Yes.

12 MS. HOWERTON: -- to see how we can

13 improve on the process, and that's a very good

14 comment.

15 MR. ALBOUM: Yes, all right, thank

16 you.

17 Any other questions?

18 (No audible response.)

19 MR. ALBOUM: All right, thank you very

20 much.

21 (Applause.)

22 MS. HOWERTON: Again, thank you Mr.

1 Alboum for the time. We know your schedule is

2 busy also, but again, this is how important this

3 requirement is to USDA and the Farm Service

4 Agency.

5 At this time I would like to introduce

6 the Associate Administrator for Operations and

7 Maintenance -- I am sorry, Operations and

8 Management -- for the Farm Service Agency, Mr.

9 Chris Beyerhelm.

10 MR. BEYERHELM: Good morning.

11 Again, just thanks for everybody

12 coming today. We really look forward to this. I

13 have been doing this job for less than a year

14 now, and when I first took the responsibilities

15 over, I realized that IT was the biggest

16 challenge that we had. They talked a little bit

17 about it. We are geographically dispersed. We

18 have our IT operations in four different

19 locations across the country.

20 We have numerous, numerous systems, 21 and trying to get our arms around that has

22 certainly been a big challenge. And today's

1 opportunity I think to expand the opportunities

2 for all of you folks in this room I think are

3 going to help us do that. They are going to help

4 us be more financially and fiscally responsible.

5 And it certainly is our goal that small

6 businesses will have a greater opportunity, a

7 seat at the table.

8 It is a busy day today. I don't want

9 to take too much of your time. I do want to

10 introduce -- she doesn't have to come up here, if

11 you could just stand up -- Radha Sekar is our

12 CFO, but she has been our acting CIO and is a big

13 part of putting today together.

14 So I look forward to meeting you

15 during the day. I had the opportunity before the

16 meeting started to -- to mingle a little bit.

17 Please come up, introduce yourself. I'd be glad

18 to have a few words of conversation with you.

19 Again, thanks for coming.

20 (Applause.)

21 MS. HOWERTON: Because small

22 businesses are so important to our services, I am

1 pleased and honored to present to you our next

2 speaker, Ms. Carmen Jones, the Director of the

3 Small Business Utilization Office.

4 Ms. Jones?

5 MS. JONES: Thank you so much.

6 Good morning, everyone. So USDA

7 really takes our small business performance very

8 seriously. If you have done your research, you

9 will know that USDA, for the past nine or ten

10 years, has awarded more than 50 percent of our

11 contract dollars to small businesses, and we are

12 very proud of that since the federal-wide goal is

13 23 percent.

14 By virtue of the fact that the FSA

15 Administrator and our CIO were here today, you

16 understand that not only is this an important

17 requirement, but it is also important that we

18 engage and include small businesses as much as

19 possible.

20 We are working closely with FSA to

21 really ensure that small businesses are

22 considered and engaged in this process. While we

1 haven't had conversations yet about the

2 acquisitions strategy, we are -- Yvonne and I

3 talk frequently throughout the year to ensure

4 that, you know, all the small businesses that are

5 in different socioeconomic categories are

6 considered.

7 So we want you to use this time to not

8 only learn more about the requirement, but also

9 to network with each other. You know, this is a

10 really large requirement, and it may be too vast

11 for a small business by itself, so, you know, any

12 opportunity that you can have to build

13 relationships and partnerships with other firms, 14 use that opportunity wisely.

15 Our office is available to assist. We

16 look forward to seeing what comes out of today.

17 Thank you.

18 (Applause.)

19 MS. HOWERTON: Thank you, Ms. Jones.

20 We're going to take about a five-

21 minute break, and then we will regroup with the

22 panels so that you can hear more about the

1 technical landscape that we're talking about

2 today, okay? So we'll break for about five

3 minutes. Thank you.

4 (Whereupon, the meeting went off the

5 record at 10:23 a.m. and resumed at 10:32 a.m.)

6 MS. HOWERTON: Okay. Please be

7 seated.

8 Thank you again. I'd like to share

9 with you a few shall we say rules of engagement

10 for today, okay?

11 We thank you for the questions that

12 you've provided. I want to share with you that

13 not all questions will be answered today. That's

14 not an indication that your question is not

15 important. It is. But all questions will be

16 posted by February 8th on FedBizOpps, so everyone

17 will have access to those questions and answers.

18 Also, as a housekeeping note, the

19 session today is being transcribed. I want to

20 thank our transcriber there. So that -- that

21 transcript will also be available. Okay?

22 I just want to share with you, in

1 terms of the dates that have been posted on

2 FedBizOpps for this RFI, as you notice, those

3 dates are fairly aggressive. That is why today's

4 Industry Day is so important, that's not -- it's

5 not a definite that that schedule will be adhered

6 to. We're going to look to comments from you and

7 input, and that will help us to craft not only

8 the timeline but our approach. Okay?

9 So that being said, the acquisitions

10 strategy will not be discussed today.

11 All right. Let me -- first -- now we

12 have our panel up here, but before we go through

13 the panel, let me also discuss with you why we

14 think this IDIQ has advantages for USDA and for

15 the IT population.

16 This IDIQ, indefinite

17 delivery/indefinite quantity contract, is a

18 vehicle that we intend to utilize for many

19 purposes. USDA's FSA Office of Information, 20 OCIO, manages the execution of IT projects across

21 the Agency. You have heard some of that today.

22 This acquisition is intended to

1 support technology services requirements across

2 USDA, primarily FSA, but will be open to other

3 agencies in USDA if they choose to utilize this

4 vehicle.

5 IDIQ contractors shall qualify by task

6 areas. That's important because today we're

7 going to have panels address you based on task

8 areas.

9 Each task area will provide the full

10 range of IT services, technical and management

11 expertise that supports applications, software, 12 hardware, infrastructure, and systems across the

13 FSA IT enterprise.

14 Support will be provided for

15 information technology solutions, technical

16 support, maintenance and sustainment, operations

17 support, application development, maintenance and

18 technical support, and life cycle management.

19 Additionally, this IDIQ is envisioned

20 to support administrative program management, 21 support for the IT program offices, and FSA

22 Office of the Chief Information Officer.

1 While the IDIQ will primarily support

2 FSA IT services requirements, the resultant IDIQ, 3 which will have results and task orders, will

4 allow for decentralized ordering by other USDA

5 agencies.

6 While this SOW identifies the general

7 service areas, the suite of resulting contracts

8 and subsequent task orders is intended to satisfy

9 the full range of IT-related requirements within

10 this area of service.

11 With the pace of technology change, it

12 is difficult to anticipate how the government's

13 IT requirements and individual programs will

14 evolve over the life of these contracts.

15 All task orders issued against this

16 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract

17 will be performance-based acquisitions utilizing

18 a Performance Work Statement, PWS.

19 Following the award of the IDIQ, the

20 specific scope of each effort will be based on

21 the specific task to be set forth in individual

22 task orders but may include life cycle tasks in

1 one or more of the following areas. And I will

2 now read the task areas.

3 Task Area 1: Advisory CIO Services.

4 Task Area 2: Quality Management and Independent

5 Verification and Validation. Task Area 3:

6 Strategic Planning/Enterprise Architecture. Task

7 Area 4: Program and Project Management.

8 Task Area 5: Systems and Software

9 Engineering, Design, Development, and Integration

10 Services. Task Area 6: Information Assurance, 11 Security and Privacy. Task Area 7: IT

12 Operations. Task Area 8: Test Management. Task

13 Area 9: IT Outsourcing. Task Area 10: Enterprise

14 Information Management (EIM)/Data Management.

15 Task Area 11: Database Operations. Task Area 12:

16 Digital Services. And finally, Task Area 13:

17 Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

18 The place of performance for these

19 tasks may be at any USDA agency nationwide. The

20 primary locations for FSA are the FSA Headquarter

21 complexes located in Kansas City, Missouri; St.

22 Louis, Missouri; Salt Lake City, Utah; and

1 Washington, D.C.

2 Again, the contract type is envisioned

3 to be an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, 4 IDIQ.

5 Task orders are contemplated to be

6 time and material, labor hour, and/or firm-fixed

7 price. Period of performance: one base year and

8 four one-year options.

9 The NAICS code: 541512, Computer

10 System Design Services.

11 Government-furnished information: that

12 question was asked earlier, FSA will post the

13 interim list of GFI for the IDIQ to this RFI on

14 FedBizOpps by COB February 8th. That's interim.

15 Government response to questions: FSA

16 will post responses to questions to this RFI and

17 Industry Day also on FedBizOpps by COB on

18 February 8th.

19 Okay. Information provided in this

20 presentation is for informational purposes only

21 and is subject to change. Neither this

22 presentation nor any information gained from this

1 is binding on the government.

2 FedBizOpps, Federal Business

3 Opportunities Portal, will be the method of

4 notification for releases such as, but not

5 limited to, this Industry Day, future industry

6 days, GFI, questions and answers from Industry

7 Day, the final solicitation if there is one, and

8 questions and answers.

9 Please continue to monitor the Federal

10 Business Opportunity Portal for any releases or

11 updates to this acquisition. We had anticipated

12 potentially a release date in February, and as we

13 said earlier, that is subject to change.

14 Okay. We provided online a list of

15 incumbent contractors. If there are any

16 questions about that information, please let us

17 know if you did not see that, and we can post it

18 again.

19 Are there any initial comments and

20 questions before we move on to the panel?

21 Yes.

22 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Is it posted on

1 FBO?

2 MS. HOWERTON: Okay, the question was

3 asked was that posted on FBO, and the answer was

4 yes, but if you did not receive that, please let

5 us know and we'll resend it to you or repost it.

6 Any other comments or questions? Yes.

7 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: I just want to

8 clarify. You mentioned that task orders may

9 cross task areas. Is that the case?

10 MS. HOWERTON: I am sorry. Let me

11 rephrase that. Your question was?

12 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: My question was

13 do -- can task orders on the IDIQ cross task

14 areas? Since you also mentioned that you qualify

15 by task area.

16 MS. HOWERTON: I thank you for that

17 question. We will take that into consideration, 18 but I believe our intention at this point will be

19 that task orders will be issued against each

20 respective task area.

21 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

22 MS. HOWERTON: Okay. Any other

1 comments or questions?

2 And again, let me just thank you for

3 those that submitted questions today. We will

4 also review and analyze those. Kristine Zechman

5 here will assist me in fielding any questions

6 that we may be able to answer today, but

7 generally speaking, please look forward to those

8 answers on FedBizOpps.

9 At this point -- if there are no other

10 questions, any other questions?

11 (No audible response.)

12 MS. HOWERTON: We're going to move to

13 the panel.

14 So the first grouping -- let me

15 introduce Loretta Burns, the Deputy CIO.

16 And this group -- do you want me to go

17 through, and then you'll --

18 MS. BURNS: Okay.

19 MS. HOWERTON: I will turn it over now

20 to Loretta Burns.

21 MS. BURNS: Good morning, everyone.

22 It is great to see so many of you out here.

1 Today I have with me on this panel

2 Tonye Gross, who is the FSA OCIO Chief of Staff;

3 Gerald Pattillo, who is our Director of our

4 Architecture and Management Center and the Chief

5 Architect; and I have Kara Cochran, who is the

6 Director of the IT Budget and Acquisition Office.

7 So I would like to start by just

8 speaking to slide -- a slide. Do we have --

9 first slide, please.

10 (Pause.)

11 MS. BURNS: We're IT challenged, 12 that's why you're here. Okay, next please. And

13 next. There we go. All right.

14 As Val so eloquently spoke to our

15 mission, I would just like to share with you that

16 as an IT organization, our primary function is to

17 deliver and maintain our IT applications and

18 services, and these services are used every day

19 by about 11,000 employees that are distributed

20 across 2200 service center sites, as well as many

21 of these are also used by other agencies within

22 USDA and beyond.

1 While we, FSA IT, have responsibility

2 for this service delivery for FSA, we also

3 acquire support from our departmental

4 counterparts. As Jonathan mentioned, the Client

5 Technology Services provides end user support to

6 us. We also acquire enterprise network services

7 from our departmental counterparts, as well as

8 data center services from the National

9 Information Technology Center and the National

10 Finance Center.

11 So FSA's IT organization supports the

12 primary lines of business from FSA, and those

13 include our state and county field operations, 14 and these are the individuals out in the field

15 every day that are touching the producers and

16 farmers, serving them across the counter; our

17 farm program line of business, which is

18 delivering -- responsible for delivery of various

19 disaster -- helping farmers overcome market risk

20 as well as conservation programs.

21 We support the farm loan portfolio

22 which is responsible for providing direct and

1 guaranteed loans to those farmers and ranchers

2 who are not able to obtain commercial credit

3 through the banking systems or other lenders. In

4 addition, we serve the commodity operations area, 5 which is responsible for price discovery of the

6 various program crops as well as maintaining

7 interest in the commodities acquired through CCC.

8 And then lastly, we have a suite of

9 financial management services that we support, 10 and through those services, every year, FSA will

11 disperse between $15-20 billion that will flow

12 through our systems, so as you can see, what we

13 are doing every day is very important and vital

14 to the farmers and ranchers throughout the

15 country.

16 Next slide, please. FSA's IT

17 organization is comprised of roughly 370 federal

18 staff members, and about 800-850 contractors.

19 Many of you here today may be supporting us, and

20 we thank you for that.

21 We are organized in a way -- I've

22 organized this slide to try to illustrate the

1 fact that we have four geographic locations that

2 -- where we're supporting IT. The Headquarters, 3 here out of Headquarters is the primary

4 management functions, so the Office of the CIO

5 and the Chief of Staff located here in D.C., our

6 Budget and IT Acquisition Office located out of

7 D.C., as well as web service, and by web service

8 I mean those web communications, digital

9 services, where we are supporting internet and

10 intranet, the communications, the digital

11 communications with our customers both internal

12 and external.

13 The day-to-day operations is largely

14 supported out of the Kansas City location. In

15 Kansas City we maintain -- we have our

16 Application Development Center, which is

17 responsible for the development and maintenance

18 and integration of all of our systems, whether

19 those be custom or COTS solutions.

20 We also operate our -- our operations

21 and testing out of the Kansas City location.

22 This team is responsible for testing all of the

1 IT solutions that are developed or implemented

2 out of -- out of the IT shop. They are

3 responsible for data architecture as well as

4 database operations and the technical operations

5 of those applications as they are -- as they are

6 implemented throughout the development life cycle

7 and into the production environment.

8 And then we also operate our

9 information security primarily out of the Kansas

10 City office. This team is responsible for IT

11 security requirements, risk and compliance, the

12 authorization and accreditation of our IT

13 systems, as well as user provisioning access

14 management.

15 And then lastly, we have a contingency

16 out of Salt Lake City that is responsible for

17 acquiring and maintaining the base imagery layer

18 for -- that's used to support all of FSA's

19 various programs, as well as providing a set of

20 geospatial services.

21 The one thing I will note is we also

22 have a small team that operates out of St. Louis, 1 and they are responsible for supporting systems, 2 so within the application development space, 3 there is a team that is working out of the St.

4 Louis office.

5 So again, to recap, you know, IT is

6 operating out of four geographic locations, with

7 those primary management functions, oversight

8 functions, being out of the D.C. Headquarters

9 office and the application development operation

10 that -- the delivery side of IT, being delivered

11 out of predominantly Kansas City and Salt Lake

12 and St. Louis as well.

13 Next slide, please. So as I

14 mentioned, 11,000 users every day walking into

15 their offices expecting to be able to conduct

16 business across the counter with those producers.

17 So it's vital -- IT is vital to mission delivery.

18 Our primary -- our first priority is ensuring

19 that those systems are available every day for

20 operations, which is our near-term priority, is

21 really to ensure the availability, the security, 22 and the integrity of our current portfolio of

1 systems, of which we have 37 systems comprised of

2 158 sub-systems.

3 In addition, every day we are dealing

4 with new legislation, new requirements, and

5 changing priorities, so we are continually

6 looking at how do we effectively deliver the

7 mission as well as leverage available assets and

8 streamline our portfolio, as well as looking at

9 how do we partner?

10 As Jonathan mentioned, there is a

11 great deal of partnership with the other service-

12 center-based agencies, and for FSA, that means

13 our Natural Resource Conservation Service, NRCS, 14 as well as Rural Development, which are also

15 generally operating, or oftentimes operating, out

16 of that -- that service center out of the field

17 office.

18 So we're continually looking at how we

19 can partner with those partner agencies on high-

20 impact programs or initiatives.

21 We also are addressing now the

22 requirements around FITARA, so we're looking at

1 how do we improve management and oversight of the

2 delivery of our solutions day in and day out.

3 And with that, I am going to turn it

4 to Tonye Gross.

5 MS. GROSS: Thank you, Loretta. Good

6 morning and welcome.

7 Today I will provide you the landscape

8 for the Farm Service Agency's Information

9 Technology portfolio management.

10 FSA has seven portfolios which are

11 comprised of 33 investments, which are also --

12 five of those are major investments. Just for

13 your reference point, I will call out the major

14 investments for you: number 72, which is our

15 aerial photography and geospatial services; 124, 16 services and outreach to agricultural

17 communities; number 97, MIDAS; 111, common farm

18 programs; and 103, farm loan.

19 In accordance with the OMB A-11

20 Capital Planning Guide, EVM is required for major

21 acquisitions with development. USDA also

22 requires EVM for all investments that meet any

1 one of the following three requirements: number

2 one, all new investments with $20 million or more

3 DME over the Agency's defined life cycle; number

4 two, all major IT investments that are currently

5 in process and are budgeted for $20 million or

6 more in DME during the remainder of the life

7 cycle; and number three, any investment planning

8 to spend $1 million or more in DME in the current

9 year.

10 So that is just a brief look at our

11 information technology portfolio management.

12 Thank you.

13 MS. BURNS: Okay. With that, I think

14 we are able to take some questions. Yes? And

15 again, I will just say that we won't be able to

16 answer all of them, but we -- we will do our

17 best.

18 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Is NITC Kansas

19 City in any way involved in this acquisition?

20 MS. BURNS: Right here in the middle, 21 there is a microphone, please. Okay.

22 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Is NITC Kansas

1 City in any way involved in this acquisition?

2 MS. BURNS: Do you want to take that, 3 Yvonne?

4 MS. HOWERTON: I am sorry, sir, could

5 you repeat that again? I am so sorry.

6 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: I'm sorry about

7 that.

8 Is NITC Kansas City in any way

9 involved in this acquisition?

10 MS. HOWERTON: We are going to make

11 this available to NITC should they use this.

12 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: I mean in terms

13 of the process and source selection, are they

14 involved in any way?

15 MS. HOWERTON: We haven't determined

16 that yet, but thank you for your question.

17 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: You understand

18 my question?

19 MS. HOWERTON: I am assuming that that

20 is a recommendation.

21 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: No, it is

22 definitely not.

1 MS. HOWERTON: No? Okay. Thank you.

2 (Laughter.)

3 MS. HOWERTON: All right, thank you.

4 MS. BURNS: Any other questions?

5 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Just a quick

6 question. Maybe you can hear me from here, but

7 the question I have is there's a forecast on your

8 small business site that lists opportunities for

9 2016/2017, and some of them are 541512 and also

10 for FSA. Are those going to be rolled into this?

11 Or as you talk through some panels, if you can

12 give us some guidance on some of the ones that

13 you think will probably fall under the scope of

14 this, that would be helpful from a planning

15 standpoint.

16 So my question is are those -- or are

17 those going to all be separate --

18 MS. HOWERTON: We're anticipating that

19 those are separate.

20 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Okay.

21 MS. HOWERTON: But that is a good

22 question, and we'll revisit that as well.

1 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Okay, thank you

2 --

3 MS. HOWERTON: Okay?

4 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: -- very much.

5 MS. HOWERTON: Thank you.

6 INDUSTRY PARTICIPANT: Is there going

7 to be consideration of adding things such as

8 infrastructure as a service, software as a

9 service, or platforms as a service within the

10 scope of the task areas?

11 MS. BURNS: I believe if you would

12 look at Task Area 9, there is a category, a task

13 area called IT Outsourcing. That would be a

14 candidate for those services.

15 MS. HOWERTON: Was that the right task

16 area?

17 MS. BURNS: Yes, that was Task Area 9.

18 MS. HOWERTON: Okay, thank you.

19 Okay. All right, thank you so much.

20 We're going to move on to our next panel unless

21 we have any other questions.

22 (No audible response.)

1 MS. HOWERTON: Okay. Give us about

2 two minutes for the next panel to come up. That

3 will be Task Areas 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

4 (Pause.)

5 MS. HOWERTON: While we are waiting

6 for the next panel to come, I would like to make

7 two other suggestions. Andrew, do we have a

8 breakout room? Okay. We also have a breakout

9 area that, if you were interested in the -- any

10 of these panels for large businesses and small

11 businesses to meet, to assist in teaming.

12 Andrew, where is that room? Right behind here.

13 So that last panel, if there are any

14 large or small businesses that would like to

15 break and go to that room for -- for discussions

16 on teaming, we would certainly encourage that.

17 If you wish to stay and continue for the next

18 panel, that is your decision. Okay?

19 So we're about to start with the next

20 panel group.

21 Okay. Let me introduce the panelists, 22 and then I will turn it over to them.

1 Okay. Jeff Wagner, Acting Chief

2 Information Security Officer; Paul Chevalier, 3 Director for Operations and Testing; Kurt

4 Benedict, Chief for Testing and Certification;

5 Sudhir Surendran, Chief for Database Management;

6 Damian Winters, Lead for Enterprise Service Desk;

7 and Frank Mendez, Chief for Operations.

8 And I will turn the panel over.

9 MR. WAGNER: Good morning, everyone.

10 As Yvonne mentioned, my name is Jeff

11 Wagner. I am the Chief Information Security

12 Officer and Director of the Information Security

13 Office for FSA.

14 And if we can advance to the slide

15 regarding information assurance, security, and

16 privacy. Thank you.

17 On the slide, I provide you a diagram

18 that demonstrates our relationship with the CIO.

19 As you can see, the Farm Service Agency takes

20 information security very seriously and has the

21 CISO reporting directly to the CIO.

22 I have also organized the work for you

1 so you can see how it is divided amongst my teams

2 in Kansas City and D.C., although the location is

3 not directly reflected there.

4 So as the CISO, my work focuses on

5 ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and

6 availability of IT assets and digital

7 information. This slide shows also the tools we

8 use to do our work as well as some metrics that

9 help you gauge the level of effort that my office

10 does.

11 A few highlights of the work we do are

12 contingency planning, identity and access

13 management, security architecture and application

14 requirements, as well as information risk

15 management, audits and reviews and assessments, 16 risk -- risk management framework, authorizations

17 to operate, and there's several other items

18 listed on there that I did not mention.

19 MR. CHEVALIER: Good morning, 20 everyone. My name is Paul Chevalier. I am the

21 Director of the Operations and Testing Center at

22 the Farm Service Agency out of Kansas City, 1 Missouri.

2 I oversee the operations side, 3 including the systems operations for the

4 applications, scheduling, database management, as

5 well as testing, and then service desk operations

6 for all of IT.

7 Today what we're going to do is we're

8 going to give you a broad high-level overview of

9 the environment that we operate in. It is very

10 complex, so we stayed at the very highest level

11 just to give you some familiarity with what your

12 teams would be looking at if you were selected to

13 come in and assist us with our work.

14 So the first thing we're going to

15 start with, we're going to start with IT

16 Operations, and I'm going to introduce Frank

17 Mendez, who again is the Chief for Operations for

18 the FSA IT organization.

19 MR. MENDEZ: Good morning, everyone.

20 I am Frank Mendez, Chief of Information

21 Processing Group in Operations.

22 The first slide I would like to show

1 you here is that this is our SAP platform. It is

2 a Linux base with Oracle 12 on the database side.

3 It is a -- has approximately around 67 servers, 4 so trying just to give you a little idea of what

5 the environment looks like, the key components in

6 this slide that I like to point out is -- are

7 CRM, PI, and the Portal.

8 Next slide, please. This slide is our

9 non-production. Looks like we had a little

10 technical goof here. It's our non-production

11 area, and the points that I want to kind of make

12 on this slide is that we support multiple

13 environments, multiple integration, 14 certification, and stress lab. It has

15 approximately around 117 servers, so I kind of

16 want to give you all an idea of the magnitude

17 there.

18 Next slide, please. Our next slide is

19 -- and if you all have it there on -- on your

20 lap, the hard copy, it is our web-based

21 applications, and they are mainly JBoss. The

22 points I'd like to take -- for you all to take

1 out of this slide is that there's 79 JBoss

2 application servers that we support.

3 We average about -- about three

4 deployments per day, and we support around 37

5 systems and about 158 sub-systems from -- from

6 our county offices.

7 Next slide, please. Or should I just

8 move forward?

9 Okay. This is our key operation

10 partners that we deal with. Just want to show

11 you all the geographical locations of -- of where

12 we all support.

13 One more slide, please. And this

14 slide is a -- is the network diagram that you all

15 probably have if you have the hard copy with you.

16 Just kind of want to give you all an overview of

17 what our environment looks like. It does not

18 give you a true sense. I kind of wanted it to be

19 one of those big wham kind of things for you all, 20 but what it doesn't reflect is that we support in

21 -- on the web base side over 400 servers. On the

22 SAP side, approximately 200 servers. So

1 together, we support around 600 servers.

2 We also have -- what do I want to say

3 -- I am -- I kind of got lost a little bit

4 without the slide here. Well, that is about all

5 I'd like to say about that. My apologies. Thank

6 you.

7 MR. SURENDRAN: Good morning everyone.

8 My name is Sudhir Surendran, and I am the Chief

9 of Database Management and Data Services out of

10 Kansas City.

11 In my few slides here, basically what

12 I will try to give you is the complexity or the

13 size of operations in terms of databases, and

14 then I will follow up with enterprise information

15 management, EIM.

16 So on the first slide, obviously you

17 cannot see, the slide number 15 is what I am

18 referring to, it gives a breakdown of database

19 technologies that we use. You can see that SQL

20 server. Apart from SQL server and Oracle, we

21 also have IDMS and IBM DB2.

22 Some of the breakdown in that database

1 structure that I have given, I have broken down

2 SQL server into SQL server and GIS, so geospatial

3 data specifically, and then Oracle, on the --

4 just like Frank was mentioning, Oracle is divided

5 into the EAM supported Oracle and the

6 transactional -- on the transactional side, the

7 Oracle for SAP.

8 And this -- this describes all of the

9 environments that include development to

10 production.

11 We will move on to the next slide, and

12 the slide that you are seeing, actually, it is a

13 previous slide that I would like to describe at

14 this point.

15 MS. HOWERTON: Okay. Excuse me.

16 We're going to take a ten-minute break while

17 we're having some technical difficulties so we

18 can try to sort out the slides to better assist

19 you, okay? Ten minutes. Thank you.

20 (Whereupon, the meeting went off the

21 record at 11:11 a.m. and resumed at 11:15 a.m.)

22 MS. HOWERTON: Thank you for your

1 patience. We're about to get started.

2 (Pause.)

3 MS. HOWERTON: Thank you. We're about

4 to get started. Please be seated. Thank you for

5 your patience as we worked through that technical

6 glitch. Thank you again. We've worked through

7 our technical issues and we're about to get

8 started.

9 Let me also correct something that I

10 said earlier. We'll have the breakout session at

11 the end of the industry day in the room behind me

12 in Room 108-A where the incumbents, large

13 businesses, small businesses, et cetera, can meet

14 to introduce themselves to each other and talk

15 about possible teaming, partnership, mentoring

16 arrangements. That would be your area to have

17 those discussions, Room 108-A, and it's right

18 behind us here.

19 We are happy to say that we have the

20 slides back up and running. And so, to be fair

21 to all parties, we're going to ask Mr. Frank

22 Mendez to repeat his -- I'm sorry, to reset his

1 presentation where you can follow along with the

2 slides. Mr. Mendez.

3 (Applause.)

4 MR. MENDEZ: Thank you. They didn't

5 think one time was suffering enough. I

6 apologize. I kind of got flustered once the

7 slides got out of synch a little bit, so let me

8 go ahead and go back.

9 So, basically what we're trying to

10 show you in the overview is the platforms and

11 environments that we support in these next seven

12 slides that I have.

13 This slide here we're showing you is

14 the SAP environment. As I said before, it's a

15 Linux base. Our databases are Oracle 12 and this

16 environment, the main key points that we wanted

17 to say about this slide was the CRM, the PI

18 component and the Portal component.

19 If we can go to the next slide, 20 please, this is a view of our SAP platform, the

21 non-production environment.

22 This environment has, as I stated

1 before, has multiple environments, has multiple

2 integration, certification environments, stress

3 lab. It also…