Question and Answers 101024.xlsx
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- Attached to
- Data Modernization Federal contract opportunity
- Solicitation number
- DATAMODERN2024
About this file
This document is a set of Questions and Answers (Q&As) related to a Request for Information (RFI) issued by the Department of Education's Federal Student Aid (FSA) office for a future data modernization effort. The RFI is for market research purposes only and there is no defined requirement at this time.
The Q&As provide details about the current state of FSA's data systems and architecture, including the use of tools like Alation, Confluent Kafka, and Greenplum. FSA is interested in modernizing its data lifecycle management, data architecture, and data integration capabilities to enhance data quality, security, and governance. FSA is open to recommendations on COTS products, cloud-based solutions, and other technologies that could address its "Challenge Areas". While FSA has not established a timeline for any future solicitations, the RFI responses will help inform potential future procurement actions. The Government indicates small business vendors are welcome to participate, but has not determined any set-aside categories at this time.
View the file
Other files for this federal contract opportunity
| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| FSA Canonical Model 2024_1016.pdf | ||
| Amendment_0003_Revised_RFI_Data_Modernization 101024.pdf | ||
| Amendment_0003_Revised_RFI_Data_Modernization 101024.pdf | ||
| FSA Data Strategy v1.0 - September 25 2020 (Final).pdf | ||
| Data Modernization_RFI.pdf |
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Q&A
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
DATAMODERN2024 (Request for Information (RFI)
FSA ACQUISITIONS OFFICE
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (Q&As)
| The following are answers to questions received from respondees. | |
| Question | Government Response |
| 1. Is this a new requirement or contract renewal? If re-compete, what is the current contract number and who is the incumbent? | This RFI is for market research purposes only. Accenture Federal Services LLC is currently performing this effort under contract EDFSA15C0006. "FSA is evaluating the need for one or more future solicitations related to the systems, data instantiations, and/or ‘Challenge Areas’ noted in this RFI". There is no defined requirement at this time. |
| 2. Will the Government consider a set-aside for (SBA 8(a) or Total Small Business)? | Socio-economic category will not be determined at this time. This is a RFI used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement at this time. Small business vendors are always welcomed to contact the department’s OSDBU office for information. |
| 3. When does the Government plan to release the RFP? | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 4. Will the Government be making the award for this requirement in FY24 or FY25? | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 5. If the opportunity presents itself to the Government and in accordance with the authority granted under FAR 6.302-5 for 8(a), respectfully request for a noncompetitive procurement. | See Government response listed under question 2. |
| 6. I was wondering, at a general level, if this opportunity will likely be solicited sometime at the start of next calendar year? As I understand these details can change, is this at least a good estimate | See Government response under question 1. |
| 7. Is this a re-compete opportunity? If yes, so who is the incumbent contractor? Do we need to prepare teaming plan | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 8. Please consider this an official request that this solicitation be set-aside for Competitive 8(a), Small Business businesses. If the solicitation is set aside, our plan is to submit a formal response. | See Government response listed under question 2. |
| 9. Is FSA planning any procurement actions before posting the RFP for the Data Modernization requirement | FSA has not established further procurement actions. |
| 10. Could you please provide the anticipated release date for this RFP? Understanding the timeline will help us prepare our proposal accordingly. | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 11. Is there a set-aside designation for this RFP (e.g., small business, minority-owned business, etc.)? If so, could you provide details on the specific set-aside category and any related requirements? | See Government response listed under question 2. |
| 12. Data Sources: What data sources are you looking to integrate? | FSA is looking to integrate Internal FSA systems plus external servicing systems data. |
| • Where is the data coming from? | Data comes from internal and external sources. |
| 13. Data Destination: Where will you be landing the data? | The data will be stored in the EDMAPS Data Lake and/or NSLDS. |
| • What is the data being used for? | EDWA uses data for analytics, data request fulfillment, and machine learning; PMDM holds reference / master customer data. NSLDS holds a comprehensive history of student-aid lifecycle to prevent fraud and overpayments, analytics, and reporting. |
| 14. Cloud Provider(s) Apps: Which cloud provider(s) are you using? (AWS, Microsoft, Google) | There are two distinct cloud platforms at FSA: one at the Next Gen Data Center (NGDC) and one called FSA Cloud. These are maintained under two separate vendor contracts. NSLDS and EDMAPS applications are hosted in the FSA Cloud. Most legacy applications are hosted in the NGDC cloud. |
| • What cloud apps do you integrate with? | FSA integrates with some aws services, Okta, SalesForce cloud applications. |
| 15. Cloud Data Warehouse (DW): Have you created a cloud data warehouse? If yes, who is your vendor? (Snowflake, Redshift, other) | The enterprise data warehouse and analytics platform resides in the AWS GovCloud and utilizes a massively parallel processing (MPP) data model in a Greenplum repository. FSA desires to migrate off Greenplum, possibly to an AWS managed service such as Redshift or other repository. |
| 16. Current BI/Analytics Tool: Which tool are you using? (Qlik, Power BI, Tableau, Looker, other) | FSA utilizes Tabelau, Alation, Cognos, and SageMaker. |
| 17. User Information: How many consumers will be using the solution? | See Government response outlined in question 25. |
| • How many developers do you have? | Each system within the environment has its own developers for initial development and ongoing maintenance. |
| 18. Data Integration Process: What are you doing for data integration today? | EDWA is the traditional batch data acquisition, ingestion, storage, and data reporting /analytics. PMDM uses web services (an enhanced Application Programming Interface (API) layer with business rules) to ingest and send out data. NSLDS uses batch data acquistion, ingestion, storage, and data reporting / analytics. |
EDMAPS also leverages a Confluent Streaming Platform to serve data into the Data Lake and other components including external servicer systems.
| • How are you moving data today? | Data is moved through batch, Application Programming Interface (API)s, streaming, and Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). | |
| 19. ETL Tools & Process: What current ETL/data integration tools are you using? | See Government response under question 16. | |
| • What is your current ETL process? | FSA's current ETL process uses native tools. | |
| 20. Data Quality & Trust: Are you using anything to help with data quality? | Each source system ensures data quality. | |
| • Do you trust your data? | Yes, data sources are trusted. | |
| • Do you trust your dashboards? | Yes, FSA trusts it's dashboards. | |
| 21. Data Movement & Scale: How big are the datasets you are moving? | The data sets contain millions of records. | |
| • How long does it take to move them today? | Moving datasets can take many hours and in some cases, up to 24 hours. | |
| 22. Real-time vs Batch Updates: Do your integrations involve real-time data, or are they batch-level updates? | Integrations involve both real time data and batch level updates. | |
| • How frequently do you need data updated? | Data is updated based on the source systems and can be real time, daily, monthly, quarterly, or annually. | |
| 23. Business User Involvement: Are business users involved in the data cleansing process? | Business users are not involved in data cleansing within the EDMAPS or NSLDS environments. Data cleansing is most frequently addressed within the source systems. | |
| • Do you already have data stewards in place, and how do they get involved? | Data stewards & technical reps are identified for each system. FSA is re-institutionalizing the data governance board as outlined in the Data Strategy Plan. Please refer to FSA's Data Strategy v1.0 attachment was posted on SAM.gov via Amendment 0002 on 9/24/24. | |
| 24. Team & Tools Usage: How many people are in your data integration team? | The data integration team varies with each source system. | |
| • Are they all using these tools, or are some not doing development? | Tool utlization varies with each source system. | |
| 25. Data Conusmers: Who are the consumers of the data? (Business users, “C” Level, etc.) | Partners are outlined in the RFI under FSA Background and Key Information, paragraph 3 | |
| • How are the consumers using the data? | Consumers use the data for program reviews, budgeting, reporting, critical business processes, and other analysis. | |
| 26. Decision-Makers: Who will make the technical decision? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| • Who is responsible for making the Go/No-Go decisions for tool and solution purchases? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 27. Decision Timeline: When do you expect a decision to be made? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| • When will this go to RFP? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| • Are there any committed dates for the project to be completed? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 28. Procurement & Go-Live Date: Do you need to procure your integration solution before the go-live date? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| • How many users will consume the data? | See Government response listed in question 25. | |
| • How many will develop dashboards? | Dashboards will be developed internally utilizing Tableau, and are available to a limited internal stakeholders. | |
| 29. IDP Providers & Deployment Preferences: Who are your IDP providers? | IDP providers include internal and okta. | |
| • Are you looking for an on-prem or cloud solution? If cloud, are you looking for FedRAMP or COTS acceptable? | At this time, FSA has not fully identified solution designs for future-state functionality. FSA does anticipate there being use cases for edge-cloud and cloud-based data solutions. Any solution making use of cloud services must use FedRAMP certified cloud packages and be approved by the Department of Education. | |
| 30. External User Access: Do you need your dashboard and analytics data to be available to users outside your agency? (e.g., students or non-agency employees) | Dashboards and analytical data is available to users outside of FSA. | |
| • If yes, who are these users, and how many? | See Government response listed under Question 25. | |
| 31. Additional Requirements: Do you need a DL/DW solution included in the estimate? | The ROM should be a range, a low and a high estimate on costs associated with the vendor's RFI response. | |
| • Where is the place of performance (government site, contractor site, hybrid)? | The place of performance is a hybrid approach. | |
| • Can the government confirm if all staff will require Public Trust 6C background clearance or if reciprocity will be granted for staff with a current TS clearance? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 32. Please consider this an official request that this solicitation be set-aside for Small Business businesses. If the solicitation is set aside, our plan is to submit a formal response | See Government response listed under question 2. | |
| 33. In regards of the ED FSA Data Modernization requirement, could you/FSA confirm if there is an estimated timeline for the RFP release? Also, is there any further procurement action planned related to this? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 34. EDMAPS environment hosts a significant amount of custom code facilitating data ingestion, integration queries and analytics/analytics visualizations. In what programming languages/tools was the custom code written in? Is there any orchestration tool being leveraged to execute the custom code? | Custom code and tools vary with each system. | |
| 35. For FSA's TIVOD ecosystem, the backup and disaster recovery (BDR) protocols for batch and real-time processing depend on several factors, including: | ||
| • Data sensitivity: How critical is the data to your operations? | Data is very critical to FSA operations. | |
| • Data volume: How much data needs to be backed up? | This is RFI is used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. | |
| • Data frequency: How often is the data updated? | Data needs to be updated continuously and in real time. | |
| • Recovery time objectives (RTOs): How quickly do you need to recover from a disaster? | This is RFI used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. | |
| • Recovery point objectives (RPOs): How much data loss can you tolerate? | This is RFI used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. | |
| • Budget: How much can you afford to spend on BDR? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 36. As part of its modernization efforts, in order to avoid disruption to existing processes, One of the strategies we would like to propose is - Blue/Green Deployment Model. Is FSA open to this kind of strategies , can FSA share what strategies they have used in the past? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 37. To secure FSA's data, was there a consideration ever to look at Crowdstrike / PaloAlto security frameworks? 5 For Real time data exchanges, is FSA open to Microservices Architecture and has any preference for tools or must use only existing tools only? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 38. To ensure appropriate compliance with GAAP and other audit standards, is FSA open to external training providers? | FSA is open to a wide range of alternatives for training. | |
| 39. There are several classifications and technologies to implement effective data controls and protections . Is FSA particularly looking for - cloud security or Data privacy and compliance? | FSA is looking to evaluate technologies and best practices allowing enterprise management and protection of its data assets. Since current approach covers full-lifecycle and all instantiations of data, FSA is interested in evaluating tools/technologies/best practices across all aspects of data controls and protections. | |
| 40. Is FSA cloud native simplified yet complete solutions to structure operations to conduct external scans and sandbox methods so it remains current on emerging trends? | This question appears to be missing words, or have misplaced words. FSA is unclear as to meaning/intent of the question, and therefore cannot respond. | |
| 41. What is your full tech stack of current state and are you open to new API based/Middleware solution/Data Integration tools to integrate CMS/ERP systems or any other system new tech-stack to streamline To-be architecture? | Please refer to The Technology Guide https://studentaid.gov/sites/default/files/fsawg/static/gw/docs/ciolibrary/Technology_Standards_and_Products_Guide.pdf | |
| 42. In regards of the ED FSA Data Modernization requirement, could you/FSA confirm if there is an estimated timeline for the RFP release? Also, is there any further procurement action planned related to this? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 43. Does FSA currently leverage any CI/CD framework/tools? What tools are being leveraged currently for code repository - bitbucket/git or any other tool? | FSA currently leverages GIT (version control) and GitLab (code repository) tools and also a number of additional tools for other purposes in this CI/CD space. | |
| 44. What are various COT solutions or cloud-based solutions in FSA evaluated thus far? Can you provide the list if you have? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 45. What are the file transfer mechanisms that FSA leverages for both internal and external data exchanges between partners? | See Government response listed under question 18. | |
| 46. Can you provide full tech-stack of each and every system/application/ tool used in your challenging areas? | We are unable to specify each tech stack, but you can refer to The Technology Guide https://studentaid.gov/sites/default/files/fsawg/static/gw/docs/ciolibrary/Technology_Standards_and_Products_Guide.pdf | |
| 47. Do you have incumbents who performed this work in the past? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 48. Can you list your incumbents who is in this space at FSA? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 49. When would you publish list of questions with your responses? | As per this Questions and Answers attachment. | |
| 50. Would you open to have Q&A session before the final deadline of the submission? | See Government response listed under question 9. | |
| 51. Can you share your current state Data Strategy and Enterprise Data Architecture artifacts? | Please refer to FSA's Data Strategy v1.0 attachment was posted on SAM.gov via Amendment 0002 on 9/24/24. | |
| 52. Do you have Enterprise Data Model and data model for your Operational, Data Warehouse, Lakes etc.? | Yes, FSA has an Enterprise Data Model. | |
| 53. Have you performed your Current State Data Assets inventory with tech stack mapped, if yes can you share that document? | This is RFI used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. | |
| 54. Who are the major vendors and their solutions in place in your current state? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 55. What are the current licensing agreements in place – like type, duration, renewal agreements etc.? can you shed a light on this? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 56. What kind of Data Governance Organization do you have in place today? Is this operational? | Data stewards & technical reps are identified for each system. FSA is re-institutionalizing the data governance board as outlined in the Data Strategy Plan (DSP). Please refer to FSA's Data Strategy v1.0 attachment was posted on SAM.gov via Amendment 0002 on 9/24/24. | |
| 57. Do you have Data Quality framework in place, is that being supported by any tools and governed by Data Governance? | There is a Data Quality framework established to resolve current NSLDS quality issues. | |
| 58. Do you have any use cases that you wanted to address immediately for AI/ML? Is this something you are expecting the vendor to identify and define as part of To-be with roadmap? | See Government response under question 1. | |
| 59. Your architecture says, you never archived data, what are your current challenges around performance with huge volumes of data? | FSA utilizes AWS Glacier as part of its Data Lake for archive. | |
| 60. What is your current Back-up and recover solution you have? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 61. What kind of COTS solutions you have looked at for NSLDS? Can you provide the list? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 62. What are the Service Level RTO and RPO requirements for the data on each of these systems? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 63. Given the future uncertainty of development for GreenPlum after its acquisition by Broadcom, does FSA intend to continue with Greenplum as the datastore for EDWA? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 64. Is FSA willing to look at alternative cloud solutions that support all the analytic, geospatial, ML and AI capabilities? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 65. With regard to the desired common data models, can FSA please provide a comprehensive list of the tools and processes currently in place? | Currently, FSA has limited concurrent licenses for Erwin 12.5 data modeler and data mart for use in a Citrix environment. Erwin supports Extensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) models which allows the reference model (Common Data Model) to be dual purpose for a storage model and a message model. | |
| 66. What is the expected SLA for consumers? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 67. Can FSA please provide details on how API clients and / or end users are authenticating as part of the API transaction? | FSA authenticates using industry best practices on passing tokens between requesting client and the system. | |
| 68. Does FSA have a preference for how it wants to onboard new API consumers? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 69. Does FSA anticipate needing integration with an IDP to authenticate API publishers and as part of runtime API transaction authentication? | FSA anticipates it to be a positive to integrate with an IDP to authenticate API publishers as a part of the runtime API transaction authentication. | |
| 70. Can FSA please provide details on the environments currently in FSA's SDLC? | This is RFI used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. | |
| 71. What is FSA's classification of data? | FSA follows National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) classification requirements. | |
| 72. Is there a specific evaluation framework or set of criteria provided by the Department of Education for assessing the proposal response? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 73. Are offshore resources permitted for this project? | No, offshore resources are not permitted for this project. | |
| 74. Is it possible for the department to grant an extension on the proposal due date? | The Government has amended the RFI response date to October 31, 2024. Also, see Government response under question 1. | |
| 75. Does the Department of Education have an estimated timeline for releasing the RFP? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 76. Is participation in the RFI mandatory to be eligible for the RFP? | No, participation in the RFP is not predicated on participation in the RFI. | |
| 77. Does the Department of Education have an estimated budget for this project? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 78. Will the department review the RFI responses, and if interested, will there be any subsequent steps following the RFI? | At this time, FSA has not established further procurement actions. | |
| 79. Is the department considering having any set-aside goal in the future RFP? | See Government response listed under question 2. | |
| 80. Is the department considering setting any specific set-aside goals for the upcoming RFP? | See Government response listed under question 2. | |
| 81. Does the department have any specific format for the Rough Order of Magnitude? | There is not a specific format for the ROM. | |
| 82. Is there any incumbent for this project? If so, may the department please provide the details? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 83. Does the department prefer vendors to utilize the existing tools and technologies? If so, can the department please provide a list of tech stacks that they prefer the vendor to utilize? | FSA's approved technologies are reflected in the Technology Standards and Products Guide (TSPG) https://studentaid.gov/sites/default/files/fsawg/static/gw/docs/ciolibrary/Technology_Standards_and_Products_Guide.pdf | |
| 84. Are there any challenges the department is facing with any of the tech-stack? | See Government response under question 1. | |
| 85. Do we need to submit any experience narrative as part of the RFI responses? If yes, can the vendor submit commercial and state experiences? | This was not requested as a part of the RFI response. | |
| 86. Could you provide more detail on the current operational data stores and reporting platforms in use, and how tightly coupled they are to the data? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 87. What specific tools or technologies does FSA currently use for data integration and transfer? Are you exploring specific platforms for streaming services and real-time data integration? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 88. Are there any technical preferences for implementing real-time data transfer protocols, particularly for servicing data? | FSA currently uses Kafka for data streaming, but is open to recommendations. | |
| 89. What specific data governance frameworks or standards (e.g., Federal regulations, industry best practices) does FSA currently adhere to or plan to adopt in the future? | See Government response under question 51. | |
| 90. How does FSA envision implementing Master Data Management (MDM) across its complex environment, and what specific areas of data governance are currently the most challenging? | FSA desires to implement a COTS solution to manage individual master domains such a Customer (e.g., Student, Parent, Borrower), Partner (School, Servicer, Guarantor Agency), and Award (e.g., Direct Loans, TEACH Grants). The solution must integrate master data identifiers to access individual records in individual domains. For example, a system or user can use master data identifiers to generate a list of students and their loans from a specific school. Since candidate master data is collected by internal FSA systems and external financial and education partners, there are considerable governance challenges to determine if the master record should be the most recent collected data from any source, or only from the authoritative source. | |
| 91. What security frameworks, policies, or tools does FSA currently employ for data lifecycle management, especially in sandbox environments and analytics instances? | See Government response under question 51. | |
| 92. Can you elaborate on the data labeling and access control challenges FSA has encountered, and how these are currently addressed? | This is RFI used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. | |
| 93. Could you provide additional details on the existing document repositories and the challenges FSA has faced with unifying borrower records and correspondence? | FSA has multiple document repositories across our systems and contracts. Repositories exist within COD, DCC, USDS Servicers (x5), DMCS with additional archival repositories. Additionally, when servicing transfers occur between USDS servicers, the historical documents must also be transferred (i.e. copied) creating a duplicative and fragmented borrower records across multiple environments. This increases costs, creates inefficiency and generates greater exposure to risk. These challenges continue to persist when contracts end and we must care for the documents in the possession of decommissioning vendors. FSA envisions that a single enterprise document repository can solve all of the above problems by centralizing all borrower documents, eliminating the need to transfer documents between vendor systems and persist in a stable FSA environment while still serving authorized stakeholders and vendors systems. | |
| 94. Is there a preferred tool or approach for consolidating and integrating these disparate document repositories? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 95. What are the primary challenges when dealing with FSA’s partner systems and contracted loan servicers regarding data integration? | There has been a proliferation of data integrations over the years. Simple management and cataloging of data integrations connections is a challenge. The bigger challenge is modernization of the integrations. Most are flat file based such as fixed length or CSV, some are XML and even fewer are API driven. We have also recently introduced kafka streaming utilizing JSON message topics. The integrations are difficult to modernize because of how tightly coupled they are to the various systems. Making even simple changes requires significant planning an coordination across the environments. Another challenge is the lack of a common data model or messaging model to reference in order to drive consistency in data organization, definition, typing and validation which in turn increases development cycles and defect risk. | |
| 96. How does FSA envision balancing control over its data assets across internal and vendor-managed cloud environments? | FSA is open to vendor recommendations. | |
| 97. Could you clarify if there are any anticipated timelines or phases for future solicitations related to specific areas, such as data architecture modernization, security, or document management? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 98. Does FSA have any plans for creating pilot programs or proofs of concept before full-scale operational changes are implemented? | Technical Proof of Concepts (TPOCs) are an acceptable method of experimenting with new methods or processes prior to accepting any new solution. | |
| 99. What level of detail is expected in the 5-year Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimates for tooling, architecture changes, and labor, and would you prefer that cost be broken down by challenge area? | See Government response under Question 31. | |
| 100. The RFI mentions enhancing data security across multiple environments and architecture tiers. Please provide more guidance on the agency’s approach to data access controls, encryption standards, and secure data analytics environments. | At this time, FSA is seeking input on what best-practice approaches it might employ to enhance its data management lifecycle (including data access controls, encryption standards, and security of various data instantiations). In a potential future RFP, FSA would include additional detail about how it seeks to further analyze or implement such best practices. |
The security and privacy requirements https://www.ed.gov/about/doing-business-ed/contractor-requirements/security-requirements-for-contractors-doing-business-with-the-department-of-education for all Department of Education IT procurements provides more information. Please also reference the Data Strategy attachment.
| 101. What are the specific security frameworks the government expects the vendors to adopt for compliance with data governance and federal regulations throughout the lifecycle of the proposed solutions? | See Government response under question 100. |
| 102. Are there any specific instructions on factoring the labor cost standards to be used in ROM estimates? | See Government response listed under question 99. |
| 103. The RFI response requirements states “Specific responses to the ‘Technical Question(s)’, which are furnished in each ‘FSA System’ Section of this RFI.”. We do not see a “FSA System” section, what page can this be found in the RFI Document? | Pages 19-20 are the complete set of technical questions and the RFI has been amended to reflect this change. |
| 104. To facilitate recommendations of products as requested in the RFI, please share a list of the approved products for use of at FSA | See Government response listed under question 83. |
| 105. How many External and Internal Partners are sharing data? | See Government response listed under question 25. |
| 106. Is the current Master Data Management a COTS Product? If so, which product | Currently person master data management pMDM is a custom-built stand-alone application. The FSA Partner Connect system uses Salesforce to manage education partners and maintains a master list of schools/school codes. There are also a list of five inividual Servicers that manage the loans. There is currently no master data management component that relates customers to schools to servicers to awards. |
| 107. The EDWA is in 3rd normal form; does it also provide aggregate data sets for reporting and analytical services? | Yes, EDWA provides aggregate data sets for reporting and analytical services. |
| 108. With data coming from multiple systems, how is the pMDM deciding which edit to customer data should be part of the master record? | pMDM collects data from multiple systems and uses pre-defined hiearchy rules based on data source and/or effective date to promote one or more field values to the active master record. |
| 109. Is pMDM custom built or supported by a 3rd party application? | PMDM is a custom built application. |
| 110. How many message types or topics are defined? Are these common messages for the solution or specific by application? | There are a variety of message types and varies with each source system. |
| 111. Are all assets expected to be migrated? Are all assets activity used? | Yes, all assets are expected to be migrated and all asset activities are used. |
| 112. There are many paradigms for RESTful interfaces that support an entity based system; Are there any limitations to the standards or formats used to create the RESTful interface? | No, there are no limitations to the standares or formats used to create the RESTful interface. |
| 113. Is the work described in this RFI intended to complement or integrate with existing contracts or projects, such as the CDIS contract under the OCIO? | The work described in this RFI is not complementing or integrating with other contracts. |
| 114. Could FSA provide more specific details around the existing frameworks, policies, and tools currently in use, particularly any data governance policies or frameworks that should be integrated into the DAMA framework? | Please see Government response under question 51. |
| 115. What are FSA's expectations for vendors concerning compliance with federal data security and privacy regulations beyond those mentioned in the RFI, such as Executive Orders or OMB M-21-31? Additionally, outside of federal requirements, would FSA appreciate recommendations for aligning data strategies against quality standards such as ISO and CMMI? | See Government response listed under Question 100. In a potential future RFP, FSA would include additional detail about how it seeks to further analyze or implement such best practices. |
| 116. Is this potential contract going to be a recompete or a new requirement? If it is a recompete, what is the existing contract number? | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 117.Given the emphasis on this request, could FSA provide high-level details on the extent and function of custom code within the TIVOD/EDMAPS/NSLDS environments? | This is RFI is used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. |
| 118. Can the government provide a description of the EA27 file transfer process and components? | See Government respons listed under question 1. |
| 119. Does "deployed models" refer to analytical models? | Yes, deployed models refer to analytical models. |
| 120. What time frame is the government seeking to begin the support? Does the government have any high-level milestone goals or strategic "no later than" dates? | See Government response listed under question 9. |
| 121. Incumbent: Could you please confirm if there is an incumbent contractor currently performing similar work under this requirement? | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 122. Data Decouping and Integration: Are there any existing constraints or dependencies that must be considered while decoupling and integrating data from the FSA's existing systems? | This is RFI is used to collect written information about the capabilities of vendors. There is no defined requirement. |
| 123. Does the FSA have a preferred framework or set of standards for data governance, or should the contractor propose one? | See Government response under question 51. |
| 124. Preferred Technologies: Are there any specific technologies or platforms that the FSA prefers or prohibits for data integration, such as certain cloud services or data management tools? | See Government response listed under Question 83. |
| 125. Security Requirments: Could you please clarify if there are specific security frameworks (such as NIST, ISO) that the contractor must adhere to beyond the general federal data security laws? | See Government response listed under Question 100. In a potential future RFP, FSA would include additional detail about how it seeks to further analyze or implement such best practices. |
| 126. Will the FSA provide specific performance metrics or KPIs that contractors should aim for concerning data quality, latency, and governance? | See Government response listed under question 1. |
| 127. What is the requirement for future access to these data sources? Is it ad hoc, defined historical reports? Or is there no requirement at all? | Future access to data sources include ad hoc and defined historical reports. |
| 128. This section 3.4 mentions Alation for “query and metadata management” for EDWA. The prior section on EDMAPS mentions IBM’s IGC tool for metadata management. Are these two catalogs running in parallel in completely separate environments? | IGC is already being replaced by Alation, a tool FSA owns. However, we would welcome any tool demonstrating strengths in ease-of-use, robustness in data goverance features, querying, and reporting capabilities. |
| 129. Are there specific use cases involving analytics with geospatial data? If so, what tool is being used currently, and can you please provide an example question that is being answered using geospatial analytics? | FSA desires to deploy an FSA owned geocoding service as opposed to our current solution of SmartyStreets. This would involve deploying an ArcGIS enterprise server and subscribing to the Street Map data. That would allow us to geocode US addresses at around 500k addresses/hour, so it would be able to handle the load for address standardization of all existing EDMAPS address cleansing workloads (currently FAFSA, COD, and servicing AC records, but not including PartnerConnect, PAS, or anything else), as well as provide that service to other FSA systems that use address standardization. This would also allow us to have this service available when ad-hoc address data comes in (like we are currently getting with FPS). |
Complementary to this would be to have spatial database capabilities in the data warehouse. Greenplum supports this with the PostGIS extension, and Redshift supports this natively. Currently, lacking this when we do manual geocoding and spatial joins, we do them on the analytics platform using GEOS/Shapely/GeoPandas. As an example, once we have geocoded location data from SmartyStreets/ArcGIS/whatever, that can be added as a dedicated GEOMETRY/GEOGRAPHY data type, and then there are dedicated, optimized functions to work with that data (such a being able to join a table of points to a table of perimeters on point within perimeter, to be able to determine what school district an address is in).
| 130. Can you provide more details on the current limitations of the Person Master Data Management (pMDM) system, and what specific improvements are desired in terms of integrating customer information from partners and other systems? What is the end goal of bringing more data in? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 131. What specific functionalities or data points are required to create a truly unified borrower portal on StudentAid.gov | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 132. What are the key requirements and challenges FSA faces in implementing real-time or near-real-time data exchanges between systems, and how critical is this capability for improving borrower experience and operational efficiency? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 133. Would FSA consider a replacement tool for data harmonization and creation of the unified borrower profile? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 134. Does the Cover/Title page, and Table of Contents count against the 35-page limit? | ||
| The RFI states “…Specific responses to the ‘Technical Question(s)’, which are furnished in each ‘FSA System’ Section of this RFI…However, it would appear that the Technical Questions being referenced are in fact on page 19-20. Can you confirm? | See Government response listed under question 103. | |
| 135. What functionality are we looking for from the COTS products? | FSA would like to replace all custom code as much as possible. | |
| 136. Has FSA ruled out Alation as a data catalog tool to replace IBM's Information Governance Catalog (IGC) tool? | FSA is currently using Alation as it de-commissions Information Governance Catalog (IGC). | |
| 137. Which model use cases would FSA like to address algorithmic fairness? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 138. What are the performance and scalability requirements for the common data model in terms of data volumes, query loads, etc | Currently, the common data model is strictly a logical-level reference model for names, definitions, grouping of fields and associated metadata. It primarily serves as a governance tool. FSA believes the common data model should be used to develop a physical data storage model for the future enterprise operational data store. Performance and scalability requirements will be determined on when and what data resides in the enterprise Operational Data Store (ODS). | |
| 139. Does the FSA require a physical data model, logical data model, or conceptual data model? | The primary database for each system should have a conceptual, logical, and physical model and each level should be mapped to its common data model counterpart (e.g. conceptual primary database to conceptual commond data model). | |
| 140. What are the expected storage capacities and growth rates? | FSA expects an average annual growth rate of 12% which will vary dependent upon new data source and retention solutions. | |
| 141. Is FSA looking for a COTS platform or smaller integration tools (e.g., Airbyte, dbt) with specialty in areas of the analytics pipeline? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 142. Confirm SW=software, HW=hardware | Yes, Software (SW) Hardware (HW) | |
| 143. Can you provide more details on the specific features of the Alation data catalog that are currently being utilized within FSA? For example, are you using it primarily for data cataloging, data lineage tracking, or metadata management? | ||
| Additionally, could you clarify which systems are currently integrated with Alation? | FSA currently utilizes Alation for query and metadata management and adding the data lineage piece. NSLDS, EDWA, and EDMAPS utilize Alation. | |
| 144. Who is currently responsible for ensuring the quality of data being ingested into FSA systems? Is FSA solely responsible for standardizing and validating the data, or are there specific requirements and expectations placed on data providers (e.g., loan servicers, partners) to ensure data quality before submission? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 145. Can you provide details on the current data quality systems and mechanisms in place (e.g., validation processes, automated tools, or governance frameworks) to maintain data accuracy, consistency, and completeness across EDMAPS, NSLDS, and pMDM systems? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 146. Would the Government consider allocating a certain budget for all types of training for support staff? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 147. Would the Government consider listing all the technologies used by applicable systems in addition to the diagrams shared as part of the RFI on pages 12 and 15? | See Government response listed under question 83. | |
| 148. Would the Government consider giving details of total licenses and contract period for the technologies listed on pages 12 and 15? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 149. Would the Government consider using popular open source technologies that might help in the overall solutioning? This would include commonly used products such as Python, Apache Spark, AirFlow, AI/ML libraries, and file formats like Parquet & AVRO etc. | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 150. Can FSA please quantify the size of the code base (e.g., lines of code) currently hosted in the EDMAPS environment? | The size of the code base is not available for the purposes of this RFI. | |
| 151. Can the Government confirm if any tooling, licenses, or hosting costs (e.g., Smarty Streets, Greenplum, etc.) should be omitted from the ROM due to existing FSA investment, acquisition, etc.? | See Government response listed under question 99. | |
| 152. Would the Government consider providing a bidders library in an eventual solicitation? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 153. Will the Government consider 10 point font size for tables and graphics? | No. As per the RFI , 12-point font is the minimum (pg. 21) | |
| 154. Can the Government confirm if the Title page and Table of Contents count towards the 35 page limit? | Title page, table of contents, appendices, and/or any other information pages included with the RFI response will be counted against the 35-page limit. | |
| 155. Would the Government consider providing a price range for bidders in an eventual solicitation? | See Government response under question 1. | |
| 156. When the Government references "staffing…considerations" on page 20, does this refer to current federal, contract, or hybrid staff? | This question refers to federal or contractor resources. | |
| 157. What technical constraints exist? That is, what technologies cannot change in the new proposed architecture? | FSA is open to changing technologies in the proposed architecture as long as the Return on Investment (ROI) is justifiable. Any new technologies introduced must adhere to government standards and be FedRAMP compliant if cloud based. | |
| 158. What are the volumetric information of the current environment? |
* Volume of data by data store (pMDM provided)
* Number of inbound and outbound interfaces / APIs
* Number of business rules
* Number of users
* Number of business processes
* Number of portals
* Number of loans by state
| * Any other pertinent metrics | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 159. Do you have SLAs that you need to track, alert and report on? | Yes, SLAs will be defined in the RFP and identified, tracked, and reported on when a contract is awarded. | |
| 160. Which of your SLAs for each process need improvement in results achieved? E.g., Loan on-boarding, Loan servicing, Loan transfer, Debt collection, Problem debt management, Call center operations, Fraud, Loan default, Financial Close, etc. | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 161. What are the current data risks and issues? E.g., data quality, data management, data governance, data privacy, data security, etc. | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 162. Has FSA already identified one or more COTS packages that satisfy the majority of the functionality and address the six challenge areas? | No. FSA wants the offerors to propose COTS packages to address our challenge areas. | |
| 163. What resources would FSA provide to support the project? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 164. Where is Attachment No. 1 titled “FSA Data Strategy v 1.0?" | See Government response listed under question 51. | |
| 165. Do you currently have a process for finding and addressing quality issues? | FSA relies on vendors to manage all aspects of our systems. Thus we rely on vendors to monitor, identify root causes, and fix any issues. | |
| 166. Does FSA fix the issues or does the vendor fix the issues on their end? | See Government response listed under question 165. | |
| 167. Do all datasets that FSA has access to have the same quality checks? | No. Individual systems ae managed by their respective teams, who have their own data quality checks. See Government response listed under question 51. | |
| 168. How do you track data lineage now? (Tools/Process) | FSA has experimented with data lineage in the existing IGC tool. All the data from the IGC is being moved to Alation. The data lineage is nascent and will need to developed under the auspices of FSA Data Governance Board. | |
| 169. Do you currently have a way to redact/obfuscate data fields that users should not see? | EDWA utilizes the Protegrity tokenization soaftware. | |
| 170. Do you currently monitor/govern your statistical and machine-learning models? If so, how? | FSA has a Research and Modeling team using machine learning for predicting risks, fraud, etc. However, machine learning is not being used at this time to determine data quality or security. | |
| 171. Do you plan to offer data as a product? This would be a centralized location for data scientists, data engineers, and business analysts to collaborate on data products and make them available to applications and users across the organization. | Yes, FSA does plan on offering data as a product within FSA. | |
| 172. "The RFI states in bullet 2 that the ""Proposed solutions must either be positioned as an application tenant in one of two existing platforms in use by FSA..What are the current existing platforms that FSA is refereeing to? OR Could the FSA further highlight what the ""two existing platforms in use by FSA are referring to? " | See government response listed under question 14. | |
| 173. Does the FSA require a "high-level sequencing scenario/roadmap of projects, key activities, and/or procurements" for each of the technical question responses? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 174. What FedRAMP requirements is the solicitation targeting for its environment and impact Level? | See Government response listed under Question 100. In a potential future RFP, FSA would include additional detail about how it seeks to further analyze or implement such best practices. | |
| 175. What kinds of custom code need to be replaced as mentioned in the “technical questions” section on Page 19. | ||
| By “replace” does the government mean migrating pipelines and code to a new platform or eliminating the pipelines and replacing them with something else? | There is custom-coding to: 1) compare previous batch data to the latest, 2) API, 3) data sends to other systems. When we say "replace", we mean replace it with COTS tools that can perform the same task as custom code. The offeror would be responsible to seamlessly replace it without any disruption to current fuctionality. | |
| 176. Can FSA clarify what it means by “operations to conduct external scans and sandbox methods so it remains current on emerging trends and analytics techniques” on Page 19. | ||
| It is unclear what the connection is between sandbox and emerging trends, or what kinds of “external scans” are being referenced. | FSA is revising to provide a clearly questions. The new question should read: What technologies, tools, and methods might FSA employ to access, analyze, and make use of data from any data source? How might FSA best create tool-stack/ environment meeting a diverse set of stakeholder/customer needs, while remaining appropriately synchronized. How might FSA structure operations to conduct external scans and employ sandbox methods to experiment and test emerging trends and analytic techniques. | |
| 177. In order to provide an accurate estimate of a 5-year ROM (mentioned on Page 18) we would need FSA proposed data size (petabytes, terabytes) for the overall solution and number of envisioned users, number of data pipelines, number of environments, and other information | See Government response listed under question 99. | |
| 178. Can FSA provide the FTEs that are currently providing the Operations and Support of the systems EDMAPS and NSLDS ? | See Government response listed under question 1. | |
| 179. Will the government be open to multi-cloud architecture, where in a combination of cloud-based COTS, Platforms and Tools from different software vendors can be used to address the five Challenge Areas? | FSA is open to recommendations. | |
| 180. Do the suggested COTS, Platforms and Tools need to be FedRAMP authorized? Or they can be non-FedRAMP authorized with an option to be installed on FedRAMP authorized infrastructure like Amazon Web Services (AWS)? | Yes, FEDRAMP certification is required. Also important to note: any user-facing software must be 508 compliant. |
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