Integration RFI questionsv and Answers.xlsx
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- Solicitation number
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About this file
This document is a Request for Information (RFI) issued by the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection (CBP) related to a potential Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) Integration Platform.
The RFI seeks to determine if an integration solution is available to facilitate integration of CBP's existing NII systems, such as vehicle x-ray scanners, with CBP's IT enterprise architecture and applications. Key details include the need to integrate data from multiple vendor-agnostic x-ray systems, handle high volumes of data (up to 100 images per hour), and interface with CBP's enforcement applications. The RFI requests responses by June 21, 2024, but does not commit to any future solicitation. Respondents are advised that the government will not pay any costs associated with the RFI. Additional details on technical requirements, security, and performance metrics will be provided in a future Request for Proposal (RFP).
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| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| CBP NII Integration Platform RFI .pdf |
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Sheet1
| # | Company | Question | Government Response |
| 1 | Advent | Could the government provide examples of specific use cases or scenarios where the NII Integration Platform will be applied? | NII x-ray images are remotely adjudicated with results integrated into the CBP enforcement applications |
| 2 | What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that the government will use to measure the success of the integration platform? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 3 | Are there any specific security certifications or standards beyond FedRAMP and CMMC that the government expects the solution to meet? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 4 | How does the government handle data privacy and protection, especially concerning sensitive and classified information processed by the NII systems? | Will be provided in the RFP, HSAR provisions and clauses will be incorporated into the Solicitation and contract regarding handing of sensitive information | |
| 5 | What are the expected data retention policies and guidelines for the data managed by the integration platform? | 30 Days of data | |
| 6 | Does the government require integration with any specific third-party systems or legacy applications not mentioned in the RFI? | Yes, CBP enforcement applications | |
| 7 | What is the anticipated volume of data (e.g., number of scans, size of images) that the integration platform will need to handle daily? | Vehicle X-ray systems generate up to 100 images per hour. File sizes range up to 150 megs | |
| 8 | Are there any geographic or operational constraints (e.g., connectivity issues at remote POE sites) that the integration platform needs to account for? | integration platform will run on the CBP network which is being upgraded to meet the increased bandwidth requirements | |
| 9 | What is the government's preferred method for training and onboarding new users of the integration platform? | CBP uses a train the trainer model | |
| 10 | How does the government envision the support and maintenance structure for the integration platform, including response times for troubleshooting and issue resolution? | TBD, Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 12 | What is the government's approach to continuous improvement and updates for the integration platform once it is deployed? | TBD, Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 13 | How does the government plan to handle data migration from existing systems to the new integration platform? | To be determined and will be provided in the RFP | |
| 14 | Are there any specific compliance requirements related to international data transfer and handling, given the global nature of CBP operations? | This platform is not envisioned to integrate international data at this time | |
| 15 | What is the expected timeline for the deployment and full operational capability of the integration platform? | Anticipate six months from award | |
| 16 | Does the government anticipate any future expansions or modifications to the NII systems that the integration platform should be designed to accommodate? | Updates to the World Customs Organization (WCO) Unified File Format (UFF) | |
| 17 | What level of customization does the government expect for the user interfaces and reporting tools provided by the integration platform? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 18 | How does the government plan to handle feedback and feature requests from end-users of the integration platform? | Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 19 | Are there any specific interoperability requirements with other DHS or federal agency systems? | Government is open to modifying existing systems to support high-performing solutions. | |
| 20 | How does the government prioritize scalability and flexibility in the design and deployment of the integration platform? | Specific priorities may be provided in the RFP; agency-provided ICD to integrate with event mgmt platform. | |
| 21 | Would it be possible for vendors to review the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) in order to provide a firm-fixed price quote? | no | |
| 22 | Could the government please confirm if compliance with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is required in addition to submitting a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)? | yes | |
| 23 | Could the government please provide the contract number and clarify the incumbent's ability to compete again? | This is a new requirement. There is no incumbent | |
| 24 | Could the government please outline challenges with current tools and technologies in use? | Currently X-ray image analysis is done on one of four X-Ray OEM user interfaces, which complicates training and integration with CBP enforcement applications. | |
| 25 | What is the average time required for the government to build new interfaces, and could the government please provide this information? | this is a new requirement. Average time to build new interfaces is unavailable | |
| 26 | How often do existing interfaces need modification to meet federal mandates, and could the government please provide this information? | this is a new requirement. Average time to build new interfaces is unavailable | |
| 27 | How frequently are "to-be" processes implemented as a result of BPR for GPRAMA compliance, and could the government please provide this information? | this is a new requirement. Average time to build new interfaces is unavailable | |
| 28 | Could the government please provide the number of existing processes and interfaces? | this is a new requirement. Average time to build new interfaces is unavailable | |
| 29 | Could the government please provide the number of existing stored procedures and microservices? | this is a new requirement. Average time to build new interfaces is unavailable | |
| 30 | Could the government please provide the number of existing roles, groups, authorization items, and users? | this is a new requirement. Average time to build new interfaces is unavailable | |
| 31 | Are current mobile interfaces used by the government web or native apps for Apple/Android? Do they support internationalization of languages, and could the government please provide this information? | internationalization of languages is not required | |
| 32 | What key improvements is the government hoping to achieve with the current SLA, and could the government please provide this information? | Improve effectiveness by increasing the number of scans and improve efficiency through integration with CBP legacy applications | |
| 33 | Could the government please clarify their plans to utilize multi-cloud or a single cloud for high performance computing? | government is open to all single- and multi-cloud solutions. | |
| 34 | Could you please inform us which cloud platforms the government is considering for highperformance computing, such as AWS GovCloud, Azure, Google, or Oracle Cloud? | AWS | |
| 35 | Would the government prioritize vendors who have obtained certifications such as CMMI/Dev III, ISO 9001:2015, ISO/IEC 27001:2013, and ISO/IEC 20000:2011 in order to provide quality work? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | |
| 36 | Would the government prioritize vendors who have DCAA-approved accounting systems that can support Cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) contracts and allow for flexibility in unplanned work? | no | |
| 37 | If a vendor's solution can utilize multiple technologies, improve the return on investment of existing IT assets, minimize delays in building IT processes, and facilitate the integration of third-party applications in order to improve the FITARA score, would the government prioritize such vendors? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 38 | Would the government prioritize vendors who have experience working with 3PAOs and the FedRAMP PMO office to obtain ATO high data impact level (IL5) and have submitted a CMMC Level 3 (self appraised) DoD SPRS system, and can bring CMMC and FedRAMP cybersecurity expertise? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 39 | Would the government prioritize vendors who can provide a no-code solution that reduces the dissemination of sensitive or classified information, as such solutions can enhance security beyond the ISO/IEC 27001 procedures, CMMC standards, or FedRAMP controls, and reduce the risk of insider threats? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 40 | Would the government prioritize vendors who can offer an innovation beyond ML/AI that utilizes ML/AI under the hood and does not require users to have advanced understanding of these technologies in order to implement them? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 41 | Do the current workflows follow the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard? | No | |
| 42 | When business process designers/analysts perform what-if analyses to find the best solution, does the current system require deploying the workflow process on each revision? | No | |
| 43 | Would the government give a higher rating to vendors who offer a no-code solution that can quickly connect to any database (such as Oracle, SAP HANA, MySQL, MSQL, Sybase, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, DB2, etc.) and expose their functions and stored procedures as microservices, allowing for the creation of data analytics and reports from multiple heterogenous systems? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 44 | Can the current system allow authorized government personnel with no technical expertise to schedule the execution of processes for generating reports using an intuitive, user-friendly scheduler interface? | This is a new requirement | |
| 45 | Would the government prioritize vendors with password-protected video player solutions that host and play confidential and sensitive training videos during their evaluation and selection process? | no | |
| 46 | Would the government consider vendors who can build PowerPoint slides programmatically from templates and backend data, reducing the need for manual effort in creating PowerPoint reports, as higher-ranked options in the evaluation and selection process? | No | |
| 47 | Would the government give a higher rating to vendors who offer a no-code solution for Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) that can build interfaces from requirement specifications in spreadsheets format, ingesting source and target system metadata and implementing transformation logic with capabilities beyond machine learning/artificial intelligence? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 48 | Would the government prioritize vendors who offer a solution for visualizing data through various types of graphs and charts (such as pie/donut, horizontal/vertical bar, line/area, heatmap, bubble, equation, combo, etc.) that does not require technical expertise and allows non-technical users to customize the appearance and layout on a web-based dashboard and/or native mobile apps for Apple and Android in their evaluation and selection process? | no | |
| 49 | Would the government consider vendors who offer a solution for automatically building forms for IT process manual tasks, eliminating the need for front-end developers and requiring no HTML/CSS expertise to customize the forms, as higher-ranked options in the evaluation and selection process? | No | |
| 50 | Would the government give a higher rating to vendors who offer a solution that can automatically map forms to backend database functions, stored procedures, and queries built by PL/SQL developers, without the need for manual implementation of the process? | No | |
| 51 | Would the government prioritize vendors who offer a solution that allows multiple form designers to work on the same form concurrently and refine its layout with real-time testing in their evaluation and selection process? | No | |
| 52 | Would the government consider a vendor who offers a solution that can automatically generate forms based on the data fields specified in a BPMN diagram, and demonstrates superior performance in handling human-in-the-loop automation compared to the industry leader, UiPath, as a higher-ranked option in the evaluation and selection process? | No | |
| 53 | Would the government rate vendors higher who can provide user-friendly microservices that can be easily implemented from any executable, including those written in languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, Python, JavaScript, Pertl, .Net, Ruby, COBOL, etc., without requiring in-depth technical expertise or knowledge of the 3 C's of microservices (componentization, collaboration, and connection)? | Government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| 54 | If a vendor has a solution that can provide security capabilities for an executable immediately after registering into the solution's repository. The solution secures the executable with TLS 1.2 encryption, zero trust authentication, authorization, load balance traffic, enables retries/failovers, applies rate limits and quotas, generates audit metrics, logs input/output for ingress and egress within a cluster container environment. Would the government rate higher vendors who can bring such capabilities? | government will prioritize proven COTS solutions from vendors with experience integrating x-ray systems at the required scale | |
| Techflow | Does the CBP currently have a preferred commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) integration platform (IP) to aggregate all x-ray and ancillary system data currently in use or is this a green field? | this is a new requirement, however CBP has identified potential COTS solutions for integrating x-ray and ancillary system data | |
| Does the CBP have a list of edge locations for the Large Scale (vehicle) NII x-ray data and technology machines that need to be connected? | Initial Priority is given to Ports of Entry along the SouthWest Border | ||
| Would the CBP consider extending the response period to ensure robust RFI submissions leading to comprehensive innovations and mission focused solutions? | No | ||
| B&A | Do all the NII inspection sites have high-speed internet connections? | CBP is upgrading network infrastructure to accommodate increased bandwidth requirements | |
| RFI section 2.0 - Does OFO require or prefer a FedRAMP AWS solution? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | ||
| What security level does OFO require? (Il2, IL3, – IL4)? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | ||
| Is there a current hardware/software list available for the current NII infrastructure? | Primary X-ray Original Equipment Manufacterers include, Leidos, Rapiscan, Smiths Detectiona and Astrophysics | ||
| Does the government have any plans to solicit this scope of work via Small Business, or is it the expectation that this will be Full & Open? | To be determined based upon market research and responses received from this RFI, The purpose of this RFI is to identify which vendors are capable of meeting this need. | ||
| Mulesoft | Can you provide a comprehensive list of the Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) systems currently deployed within the CBP portfolio and detail the interfaces they support? | Current X-ray OEMs include Leidos, Rapiscan, Smiths Detection, Astrophysics. Interfaces include World Customs Organization (WCO) Unified File Format (UFF) for large X-ray systems and Digital Imaging Communication in Security (DICOS) | |
| Are there plans to maintain the current "air-gapped" status of the NII systems, or will they be integrated into the CBP network infrastructure? If so, what is the projected timeline for this integration? | The current systems will be integrated through this platform as soon as possible. | ||
| What specific AWS services will be used for the end NII cloud database where the data will ultimately be stored? Can you elaborate on the architecture and security measures in place for this cloud environment? | To be determined. Will be provided in the RFP | ||
| What types of interfaces and protocols are supported by the existing primary and secondary law enforcement applications used by CBP? | JSON and XML messaging | ||
| What are the current methods and technologies used for integrating data with primary and secondary law enforcement applications? Additionally, how is data integration handled for Port of Entry (POE) controllers? | Through JSON and XML messaging; more specifics provided in RFP. | ||
| How many NII systems are there across the CBP portfolio that require networking, and what is the estimated daily data transfer volume for these systems? | Over 300 systems across the CBP enterprise. |
File details come from the government source that posted it. Updated .