DRAFT CASS Statement of Objectives.pdf

Dr aft

Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO)

Common Analytic and Support System (CASS) for the NOAA/National Weather Service (NWS) Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs)

1.0 Purpose

This SOO describes the objectives for a contractor to engineer, furnish, install and test the CASS to support local network fault tolerance requirements for the two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/NWS TWCs.

2.0 Scope

NOAA’s NWS operates two TWCs, National TWC (NTWC) in Palmer, AK and the Pacific TWC (PTWC) in Honolulu, HI. The TWCs require a CASS to provide comprehensive and consistent forecast and alerting guidance in support of joint TWC Operations. CASS must incorporate originally-developed code from the first version of this requirement, the Common Analytic System (CAS), the tsunami modeling component of the CASS platform.

The scope of this requirement is for the contractor to fully-develop CASS (the second and more comprehensive system-based version of CAS) and participate in the migration activities of the CASS into the TWC operations, including testing, evaluation, implementation and code fixes, during the period of performance. The contractor will join the dedicated NWS team, composed of NWS Office of Central Processing (CP) and OAR Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) staff along with their supporting contractors, in integrating the AWIPS Tsunami Operations Messaging Service (ATOMS) operational platform into the TWCs and synchronizing it with CASS.

The International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC), with branches in Honolulu, HI, and Mayaguez, PR, supports the TWCs. This support includes education and outreach, in-event staffing, and decision-support services for various domestic and international partners. A component of CASS will also be accessible to the ITIC staff, via a web portal or some other modality that allows for the visualization of the key, critical tsunami model outputs and other post-production information, graphics, and other outputs, for their support of the Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS) provision to key stakeholders and users, in real-time.

3.0 Period and Place of Performance

The period of performance for this project shall not exceed one year from award. The Government is considering including an option to extend services for one additional year, subject to need and availability of funds. The majority of the work will be remote work. Some activities may be performed one of the following TWCs:

● NOAA/NWS NTWC at 910 S Felton St, Palmer, AK 99545

● NOAA/NWS PTWC at 1845 Wasp Blvd, Honolulu, HI 96818. Note: PTWC is on Ford Island, a military installation and requires an additional level of security clearance for non-federal (USG) employees and contractors.

The contractor will be authorized to coordinate critical site visits to NTWC and up to approximately twelve trips to the PTWC.

4.0 Background

The TWCs have developed their own unique and independent event-based software and analysis methods, used operationally, to accomplish their individual missions for their Area of Responsibility (AOR) for tsunami events. These separate development paths have made it impossible for NOAA’s TWCs to perform seamless and comprehensive service backup in the event one of the TWCs becomes inoperable.

CASS is designed as a software application that interfaces with the NWS enterprise platform, the ATOMS, but is extensible to function as production agent that includes the following:

● Observational and other data ingest and assimilation,

● Tsunami and other seismic-based model generation displaying and constraint-based manipulation, model output post-processing capabilities, and

● Self-sustaining system health status and monitoring.

The primary and dedicated function of CASS for the operational on-duty TWC Watchstanders, Duty Scientists, and other in-event service coordinators is an array of timely event-based guidance, based on a common and comprehensive data layer/threat database, which will be available and accessible in real-time, for the entirety of the life cycle of each event. Post-event playback will also be available for users to review and understand the tsunami event, from end-to-end, in a non-operational environment to analyze the data.

References to the original code through a prototype system, deemed CAS or CAS 1.0, are referenced in a limited-access technical requirements document, developed by NOAA Office of Atmospheric Research’s (OAR) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). These requirements were generated from approved NWS functional requirements. CAS (v1.0) included design for an application that, among other primary functions, performed continuous synchronization of system information and data, as well as performed seismic and tsunami modeling guidance layers, within the application. The cornerstone functionality of CAS v1.0 was the technological, application-based infrastructure to be fully-synchorized at each TWC, allowing for rapid failover / service-backup processing.

CASS will infuse the CAS v1.0 application, within a larger end-to-end system that performs the requisite synchronization of seismic data and other observational data that is not attributed to seismic events, such that the full picture of all tsunami-causing events are captured.

5.0 Performance Objectives

5.1 TWC Designated Service Area (DSA)/AOR Adherence

The NTWC DSA consists of U.S. and Canadian coastal regions except Hawaii and the U.S.

Territories served by PTWC. The PTWC DSA includes Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of

Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), American Samoa, countries participating in the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific outside the NTWC AOR, Caribbean Sea countries, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. CASS will allow for the complete and timely ability to support service backup and system failover such that one TWC can fully support their other TWC’s DSA/AOR, as well as their own, for the length of time that it is necessary to do so.

5.2 System Description

The TWCs operate a high impact-level Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) system. FISMA has 3 levels of IT compliance and impact (low, moderate, and high). A high impact classification indicates that the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability is expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect on organizational operations, organizational assets, or individuals. Therefore, the suitability or risk level for this work must adhere to these strict compliance standards of the system. As such, the contractor shall pre-screen their employees to eliminate anyone who does not meet the following criteria: The prospective employees must be U.S. Citizens only. The contractor shall be responsible for safeguarding all government property provided for contractor use. If in the physical location of either TWC, at the close of each work period, government facilities, equipment, and materials shall be secured.

All materials provided shall be new and not refurbished. The contractor shall ensure all work including subcontracted work is performed by federally authorized Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and provide contractor letter of authorization.

The operational system of the TWCs must fully carry-out the tsunami warning mission, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, under these high security IT constraints, with rapidly accessed data from across the globe, from a variety of seismic and water level reporting stations and networks, including their status availability. The TWCs use this data in real-time to estimate earthquake and non-seismic activity that has the potential to produce a tsunami. TWCs use their systems to forecast tsunami arrival times and coastal inundation and disseminate appropriate message products based on this information.

5.3 Functionality

A critical but non-exhaustive list of other necessary functions and CASS specifications include:

● Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) source characterization

● Data ingest from Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications (SMART) subsea cable installations

● Metadata management for the disparate sensing networks

● Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ingest from other networks

● Data ingest for landslide monitoring

● Embedded coordination modules and tools to support collaboration with the USGS’s

National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), interactivity with their Product Distribution Layer (PDL)

● Volcanic monitoring and modeling

● Event notification from Total Electron Content (TEC) (NASA Guardian)

Other Modeling and Database Sets (Meteotsunami, landslides, glaciers):

● Ensemble modeling, display and error estimation (probabilistic forecasting)

● Inundation modeling (interfacing or utilizing code from currently-used operational tsunami models)

● Time-dependent forecasting information

● High-resolution, dynamic display capabilities, downloadable formats, and other pertinent outputs from data layers.

Event simulations and playback functionalities:

● Launch simulated events and provide characterizations (i.e. location and magnitude)

● Simulated DART and water-level data

Dissemination Factors:

● Messaging transition to ATOMS from legacy pathways

● Testing of available alert dissemination modalities, including CAPv2.0 and Wireless

Emergency Alert (WEA) testing for targeted zones.

Other potential functionalities include:

● NWS Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) and atmospheric pressure data ingest

● Observational and tsunami model data archiving/storage/access from the NOAA National

Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

6.0 Operating Constraints

6.1 Classification/Credentials

Stated work and associated product deliverables shall be performed at the UNCLASSIFIED level.

Escorts may be required, as some work shall be performed in secure facilities. It will be the Government’s responsibility to provide escorts. Contractor personnel requiring access to Government systems shall have a minimum of Department of Defense (DoD) 8570 Information Assurance Technical (IAT) Level II Certification. Only those personnel actually performing work on systems attached to the Air Force Network (AFNET) require this credential.

6.2 Intellectual Property

The NOAA Tsunami Warning System (NTWS) will provide source code, data formats, historic data and relevant documentation, as requested by the contractor. The Government reserves the right to deny a request, if it determines that the request is not necessary to the success of this effort, or outside the scope of the CASS. These documents and materials may not be used or sold by the Contractor without written permission from the Technical Point of Contact (TPOC).

6.3 Data Rights

The Government will have unlimited rights to all documents/material produced under this contract. All documents and materials, to include the source code of any software produced under this contract, shall be Government owned and the property of the Government with all rights and privileges of ownership/copyright belonging exclusively to the Government. These documents and materials may not be used or sold by the Contractor without written permission from the TPOC.

All materials supplied to the Government will be the sole property of the Government and may not be used for any other purpose. This right does not abrogate any other Government rights.

5.0Performance Objectives