Draft PWS Skillable 2024.pdf

DOS/FSI/EX/ACQ

United States Department of State Foreign Service Institute

School of Applied Information Technology (SAIT) Draft Performance Work Statement (PWS)

FSI/SAIT/ET is in search of a service provider to host Online Virtual Labs for its IT courses. The principal goals are for the vendor to provide SAIT/ET’s students access to SAIT dedicated labs, during class delivery as well as additional access after class.

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT: Acquisition of Online Training Labs Service

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The School of Applied Information Technology (SAIT) of the Foreign Service Institute

(FSI) requires a service provider to host Online Virtual Labs for its IT courses. The principal goals are for the vendor to provide SAIT/ET’s students access to SAIT dedicated labs, during class delivery as well as additional access after class.

2.0 BACKGROUND

The U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the bureau of record responsible for providing training opportunities in support of the Institute’s mission. The

School of Applied Information Technology (SAIT) of the Foreign Service Institute is committed to globally providing the highest level of quality instruction to the Department's

Foreign and Civil Service technology practitioners and professionals in information technology tradecraft, systems and security. SAIT’s Enterprise Technology (ET) division seeks to augment its classroom training with course specific online labs, delivered via the

Internet.

3.0 REQUIRED PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

• SAIT dedicated customizable labs with the option of SAIT instructors to add step-by-step instructions

• Microsoft labs (if required) with step-by-step instructions, also known as integrated digital labs, the ability to save incomplete labs for thirty days

• The ability to take a lab snapshot and save the snapshot for twenty-four hours, and resume the lab from the snapshot

• Provide remote access to students’ labs, also known as the instructor share service, for

SAIT instructors, all via a secure Internet portal. The Internet portal shall be branded with the SAIT logo.

The labs need to be section 508 compliant.

• The Labs and instructor share service shall support HTML5, not require any plug-ins or add-ons, shall be accessible from any type of device, including mobile devices, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year, and accessible from anywhere in the world with a reasonable performance latency regardless of student location, except during planned downtime.

• Student access to labs for one year from time of taking the course.

• Data centers located in different regions of the world to support our worldwide work force.

• Ability to designs labs for all courses utilizing tools to tailor the experience of a real environment.

• Learning management platform

• Import and export current labs from existing system to the new contract system. Both the VM servers and the lab written instructions in text format to attach to the lab.

• Videos with voice over

• Support all types of VMs such as but not limited to (ESXI, Vcenter, VMWare workstation, and VMware Server) as well as Support Linux VM

• Tools to build labs directly in the environment including VMs and containers

• Performance based assessment activities

• Activity based assessment activities

• Shared labs and access allowing for collaboration between teams

• Individual support to help build labs from scratch helping speed the development of the course ware

• Access to labs by instructors at any time

• Access to internet from within the lab

• Each student’s lab will be its own unique environment which will be initialized and torn down individually

FSI may seek an equitable price reduction for nonconforming services. The labs offer training and study opportunities to students outside the classroom. The instructor share service allows SAIT instructors to troubleshoot and monitor students’ progress as they are completing labs.

4.0 CONTRACTOR RESPONSIBILITIES

The lab hosting service offered by the vendor shall include the option to host SAIT custom labs supporting VMWare-type virtual machines, including but not limited to operating systems (desktop and server), messaging, ISO files, applications, internet connectivity, local networking, and scripting.

The labs will be instructor-led and instructor share service shall be accessible via modern

Internet browsers, including but not limited to, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. The Labs and instructor share service shall support HTML5, not require any plug-ins or add-ons, shall be accessible from any type of device, including mobile devices, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year, and accessible from anywhere in the world with a reasonable performance latency regardless of student location, except during planned downtime. The Labs shall include a “save lab” function and a “revert lab” function. In order to access the labs, a secure login to an Internet portal is required. The

Internet portal shall be branded with the SAIT logo. The labs need to be section 508 compliant.

The vendor shall notify the Contractor Officers Representative (COR) via email, seven days prior to planned downtime and shall schedule planned downtime, to the maximum extent practicable, during the weekend hours from 6:00 p.m. Friday to 3:00 a.m. Monday

Eastern time.

Technical support shall be available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year and accessible via a toll-free telephone number, email, and Internet chat messaging.

5.0 PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

1) Online Custom lab for all courses.

2) SAIT requires support for VMWare and Hyper-V.

Standard Lab Requirements:

1. Lab Internet connectivity

2. File access support (ISO files)

3. Hypervisor – VMWare

4. Average 12 students per class with each student having their own unique lab environment

5. Labs will run average 6 hours per day per class

6. Classes range from 2 to 10 days

Annual Lab Resources Breakdown:

1. Custom Labs for 1,200 students (per year).

2. Flat rate per student / per course - Max 60 hours and Max 50GB RAM (per year); may include a tenant

3. Lab Developer Seats is 12 (per year)

4. All services are to be paid as an annual commitment on a flat rate

5. Period of performance for this effort is one year

6.0 PLACE OF PERFORMANCE/DELIVERY

The vendor must deliver the online labs via the Internet as outlined above.

7.0 SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

HTTPS, TLS2, SSL, and as these technologies improve, the improvements shall be included in the labs and instructor share service.