RFI__Oct14.docx

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS)

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (CBP)

Data Center Support Services (DCSS)

Description of Intent This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal, or Request for Quotes. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Additionally, the U.S. Government will not provide reimbursement for any information that may be submitted in response to this RFI. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI, and any submissions to this notice will not result in an evaluation or rating by the Government.

The Government’s explicit intent, in this request for information, is to not receive from respondents any proprietary data, trade secrets, business sensitive information, or information considered CONFIDENTIAL under 18 U.S.C. §1905. The Government’s constraint does not in any way relieve contractor’s from their responsibility to properly mark proprietary data when it is provided, nor does it alleviate any requirement for the Government to protect marked data. The Government is not obligated to protect unmarked data.

Respondents shall ensure that any material/data that is provided is marked appropriately to ensure proper handling of all information. Unless otherwise noted herein, anything submitted in response to this RFI will not be returned to the sender. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the survey or results of information submitted, nor will it respond to telephone or email inquiries.

Background The mission of the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is to provide information, services, and technology solutions to secure the border, prevent the entry of terrorists or terrorist weapons, and to ensure the efficient flow of lawful people and trade across U.S. borders. OIT provides the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP with a 24x7x365 secure, stable and high-performance information technology infrastructure, scientific solutions, and forensic services.

OIT has the responsibility for identifying and evaluating new technologies for applications in support of CBP business processes. A new era of economic and terrorist threats require systems that can support the future vision of a unified, integrated, intelligence-driven agency to protect the United States against all threats. In order to be successful, a new Government and Contractor team must identify and acquire highly-skilled professionals from across industry that are capable of leading the technological revolution currently underway within OIT systems and applications.

Highlights of current efforts:

· Improving system availability to include re-engineering the current CBP infrastructure environments to provide local and geographic redundancies at the server, storage, network, database, and application layers. The availability and reliability of CBP’s mission critical application services is vital to supporting the screening of passengers and cargo coming into the United States.

· Implementing the ITIL framework to establish best practices through a set of concepts, strategies, policies and procedures for managing the CBP information technology infrastructure, development and operations environments;

· Implementing Agile practices, in conjunction with our required DHS System Engineering Life Cycle, supports the practice of shorter and more succinct software/system delivery;

· Modernizing storage and media providing cost effective highly reliable, highly scalable, highly available, cost effective storage and backup solutions with capacity on demand;

· Continuing to modernize the CBP monitoring systems to provide auto discovery, automatic business processing groupings and threshold and failure alerts to enable the Enterprise Data Center Operations Group to proactively and un-disruptively respond to capacity and performance thresholds and hardware failures;

· Supporting modernization of systems such as the TECS, Passenger systems, Cargo systems, Automated Commercial Environment (ACE);

· Engineering, implementing and operating clusters of highly available and scalable commodity servers that host discrete services which are leveraged by multiple projects; and

· Transitioning and migrating production CBP systems and applications to operate at multiple data centers (including but not limited to Department of Homeland Security Data Centers, CBP Sponsored Data Centers, and commercially provided Data Centers).

· CBP data center processing is performed at multiple data centers within the continental United States. Data centers currently providing services to CBP include the following - the CBP National Data Center (NDC) Complex located in Springfield, Virginia; the Stennis Data Center (DC1) at Space Center in Mississippi (supports multiple DHS Agencies, including CBP); the DHS Data Center 2 (DC2) in Clarksville, Virginia (supports multiple DHS Agencies, including CBP); the Finance Center located in Indianapolis, Indiana; and other locations throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Data Center Support Services (DCSS) will integrate, implement, operate, administer, support, and maintain all components of the CBP enterprise Database infrastructure. This task includes: (1) supporting a scalable efficient infrastructure that can automatically provision resources and services; (2) administering, managing and maintaining all database software (e.g. database systems and third party software products); (3) monitoring and maintaining database performance; (4) create user accounts and grant access permissions after receiving authorization from appropriate CBP resources; (5) providing system stability and uninterrupted systems availability; (6) providing improved system response times and improved processing throughput: and (7) providing Database Administration services for all non-production and production database environments which may include defining schemas, tables, indexes etc.

The anticipated scope of these services will support the engineering and operations of products and services across the CBP enterprise. The primary objective is to provide 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year (24x7x365) systems availability and reliability. Work shall be conducted in accordance with all DHS/CBP/OIT policies, standards, directives, processes, procedures and practices. This includes working with CBP Government and Contractor personnel, other government agencies, and vendors to support DHS/CBP/OIT mission and goals. The Agile methods of project management of automated systems shall be used to develop work products / artifacts that are compliant with current and future DHS/CBP/OIT policies, standards, processes, procedures, and guidelines.

CBP data center processing is performed at multiple data centers within the continental United States, with the primary operating location for contractors at NDC (Springfield, VA) with ongoing efforts to integrate with multiple public cloud service providers.

The Government retains all authority over access to systems and applications developed by industry partners.

Applicable Documents/Constraints The following DHS/CBP/OIT policies, standards, directives, processes and procedures are applicable for all work performed:

· DHS Acquisition Instruction/Guidebook #102-01-001: Appendix B, Systems Engineering Life Cycle, and support CBP processes found in online Process Asset Library (PAL);

· DHS Sensitive Systems Policy 4300A;

· DHS National Security Systems Policy Handbook 4300B;

· DHS National Security Systems Policy 4300 B;

· DHS National Security Systems Handbook 4300 B;

· CBP Information Systems Security Policies and Procedures Handbook (HB 1400-05D);

· Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 199, Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems;

· CBP OIT Change Management Handbook;

· CBP Technical Reference Model (TRM);

· DHS Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Standards;

· DHS Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Standards;

· Federal Enterprise Architecture;

· National Information Exchange Model (NIEM);

· International Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Standards; and

· Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Best Practices;

· Agile Development Methodology.

On June 09, 2016, CBP issued a RFI with the intent of receiving information from Industry as it related to DCSS requirements. We thank Industry for responding to that RFI. This is a second RFI of a series of RFIs that will be issued as a means of information gathering and exchanges with Industry as well as a method for keeping Industry abreast of this acquisition. The purpose of this RFI is to allow Industry the opportunity to review and provide input on the Draft Data Center Support Services (DCSS) Performance Work Statement (PWS). This is an effort to promote continual open communications with Industry in the hopes of improving the quality of the final DCSS PWS.

Submission of Responses - Instructions Industry responses may consist of recommendations pertaining to the content of the Draft PWS and its attachments if applicable. All responses must be received in a matrix format as identified below. Phone calls and or unannounced visits will not be accepted.

CBP requests that a Matrix format be used. The matrix will allow for traceability to the key area(s), reducing any confusion or misunderstandings.

The Matrix should reflect the following Columns across the top:

* Attachment or Doc Reference

* Page or Reference

* Recommendation

All responses must be emailed to the Contracting Officer, (CO) Gary Robertson, GARY.R.ROBERTSON@cbp.dhs.gov, by November 1, 2016.

Acquisition Strategy CBP anticipates releasing a Full & Open Competition, with a mixture of pricing CLINS, and an anticipated period of performance of approximately ten (10) years consisting of potentially a (2) year base and the potential to earn up to eight (8) option years.

CBP also anticpates using the advisory multi-step process (hereafter referred to as “voluntary down-select”) pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.202. Based on this advisory multi-step process, the following is CBP’s acquisition milestone schedule of events:

· On or around November 21, 2016, CBP anticipates its release of a Pre-Solicitation Notice. Potential offerors will be asked to submit information that allows the Government to advise them about their potential as viable competitors. A written submission will be required in response to the Pre-Solicitiation Notice. The information that must be submitted in response to this synopsis and the criteria that will be used to make the initial evaluation and resultant voluntary down-select.

· On or around December 28, 2016, CBP will provide feedback to the Pre-Solicitation responders based on the criteria that will be used to make the initial evaluation and resultant voluntary down-select.

· On or around January 04, 2017, CBP will release a Request For Proposal in accordance with FAR 15.202 with Offerors’ proposal submissions due on or around Febuary 17, 2016.

· On or around May 26, 2017, CBP will award the DCSS contract.

CBP plans to conduct one-on-one meetings with Industry instead of holding an Industry Day on or around November 14th through November 16th of 2016. Due to time constraints, CBP anticipates holding only twelve (12) Vendor One-on-Ones. Only potential Prime Vendors whom have submitted a matrix with mature and well thought out recommendations will be eligible to request One-on One meetings.

One-on-Ones Meetings One-on-Ones will be for no more than 60-minutes, this will include introductions and greet and meets. Discussion will focus on the following topics:

· Recommendations to improve the Draft DCSS PWS

· Recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness of DCSS program/contract execution; and

· Questions regarding the PWS

Presentations including marketing information and leave behind/take away materials will be not be accepted.

Through an email request only, contact Contracting Officer, (CO) Gary Robertson, GARY.R.ROBERTSON@cbp.dhs.gov, to attempt to schedule a One-on-One Meeting. Phone calls, personal visits or drop-ins of any kind will not be accepted. Requests may be initiated beginning November 07 with a cutoff date of COB November 09, 2016..

One-on-Ones with Prime Vendors will begin November 14, 2016.

Times are 9:00 am, 11:00 am, and 2 pm each day only.

To request a One-on-One,

a) Email only, No phone calls

b) Identify your first (3) dates and times

c) No more than five (5) participants including any Teaming Partners names and titles

The Contracting Officer will notify those vendors who will be attending a one-on-one via email. CBP’s official email will reflect only those participants expected to attend, the date, time and location of the one-on-one.

One-on-One questions and answers will be captured and consolidated for the purpose of improving the Draft PWS and any associated attachments. At no time will any vendor be permitted to electronically record one-on-one meetings.

Lastly, CBP will issue the next RFI on or around November 04, 2016. The purpose of that RFI will be to provide potential offerors with the draft Section L and Section M of the solicitation as well as draft PWS.

Also, a dedicated email box is being developed specifically for this requirement and will be provided in the next RFI for all future communications.