EAUTO RFI FINAL.docx

Department of Homeland Security United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Request for Information Enterprise Automation and Unified Task Orchestration

70SBUR25I00000013

1. RFI Announcement 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 Quotations. 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, nor do they affect a potential respondent's ability to respond to any future synopsis/solicitation, which may or may not follow or restrict the Government's eventual acquisition approach. Additionally, the Government will not provide reimbursement for any information submitted in response to this RFI. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Respondents will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided; however, information gathered may be utilized for future technical and acquisition purposes.

The agency intends to gather market information pertinent for acquisition planning. The responses to this RFI will be captured as market research and may contribute to the development of an acquisition strategy. Information provided may be used to assess tradeoffs and alternatives available for the potential requirement and may lead to the development of a solicitation. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate.

This RFI is not intended to include company marketing material, capability slides or sales literature. Rather, real-world experience and lessons learned are the desired outcome.

2. Purpose The purpose of this RFI is to understand the landscape of vendors, including both those that currently hold contracts on government vehicles and those that do not, that can provide the type of service outlined below. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) aims to identify vendors that can recruit and retain staff with the experience and skills needed to meet the needs of this requirement. The results of this RFI will aid the government in determining if small business can perform this work and if any specific set-asides are appropriate. Additionally, responses to the RFI will be used to help USCIS determine which contract vehicle to use.

3. Background The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Office of Information Technology (OIT) has an existing contract performing the requirements for Enterprise Infrastructure Operations Support Services (EIOSS). This RFI is being conducted for a replacement contract EIOSS after its period of performance ends. The follow-on contract, Enterprise Automation and Unified Task Orchestration (eAUTO), will provide modern and adaptive IT Operations to include:

· Automation: Automation tools like Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and AI-powered auto-remediation minimize manual intervention, improving efficiency and reducing human errors.

· Unified Task Orchestration: Complete and wide-ranging implementation of Unified orchestration platforms enables seamless workflow management across IT domains, ensuring seamless end-to-end task execution.

· Automated Intelligence & Predictive Analytics: AI-driven predictive analytics and AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations) detect anomalies, predict failures, and initiate self-healing processes, reducing downtime and improving system resilience.

These services will include ownership of the processes and responsibilities inherent in the implementations, troubleshooting, operations and maintenance of requested services across USCIS enterprise, to include the key aspects of workload, task coordination/prioritization and management of assets in furtherance of these responsibilities. This ownership includes all necessary IT Security work support of USCIS IT Operations. USCIS estimates this effort will have a staffing volume of approximately 65 - 85 people, organized in specific teams.

USCIS requires a service provider experienced and proven in terms of technology and IT in the large enterprises.

An important area of focus for USCIS is for the service provider to demonstrate directly related experience in receiving Government - approved work products that have been developed and designed from another contractor for Implementation, Troubleshooting Operations, and Maintenance of a large enterprise IT infrastructure environment, with emphasis on how the service provider manages and coordinates the workload and tasks.

The specific areas of focus for this RFI include:

· Hosting Operations Support Services

· Automation

· Cloud Operations Services

· Unified Communications

· Change Configuration and Infrastructure Management

4. Vendor Questions

a) Agile Sprint Methodology USCIS currently uses Agile Sprints to plan, schedule, manage, and deliver in- scope work using the various teams on the contract.

· Describe your company’s experience and recommendations for utilizing this method on an IT Infrastructure contract. How are scrums managed and coordinated?

b) Automation The USCIS is seeking information on vendors' experience with automation technologies to enhance IT operations. Automation is critical for improving efficiency, reducing errors, and ensuring seamless service delivery.

· Describe your company’s overall experience with automation technologies, including Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and AI-driven solutions. Provide examples of specific projects.

· What automation tools and platforms have you utilized? Describe your experience with CI/CD pipelines and how you have integrated automation into these processes.

· Discuss your approach to implementing automation solutions in large enterprise environments. What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?

· How do you measure the success of your automation initiatives? Provide relevant metrics or KPIs.

c) Cloud Services USCIS is heavily invested and well established in using commercial cloud services. For this work area, please, describe your experience with designing and maintaining business systems under a DevSecOps methodology utilizing a multi-environment continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline model. This CI/CD model should ideally use an open-source technology stack and be fully automated from code check-in, automated testing and code promotion, and integration from the lower environments through to the production environment.

USCIS is interested in responses that include any of the following attributes:

· Describe what methods and tools you have used to ensure fully automated builds with self-healing capabilities and continuous resiliency testing.

· Describe your experience with and how you have designed CI/CD pipeline automation and orchestration.

· Describe recent experience with containerization tools and how they were used. Include experience with engineering and operations of container platforms.

d) Recruitment

· Does your organization have an effective recruitment and retention program for personnel that could be dedicated for this contract’s performance?

· How does your organization measure/define “effective”?

· Describe in detail how your organization will recruit, provide and retain the highly qualified and experienced IT professionals this new contract requires, while using the labor rates you will propose.

e) Proposal Evaluation Factors.

USCIS is interested in the ideas, experiences, and suggestions of contractors on the Evaluation Factors to be used for contract selection and award, these can include pricing, costs, labor, sizing, contract types, work measurements, experience, etc.

f) Related, Relevant Experience.

· Describe any recent (within the past three years) and relevant (similar scope) experience as a contractor (specify prime or sub). Specifically, discuss projects for which your company led the modernization of any of the four areas of focus listed in Section 3 above. The experience should demonstrate experience with real world production environments, not development or experimental in nature. Writing white papers is not the experience USCIS is seeking. If providing information regarding an IDIQ/BPA, please only report on task orders and call orders that have been awarded. The list should include the following information:

· Organization/Agency that awarded the contract/task order

· Contract/task order number Description of the award, to include a short synopsis of the scope/statement of work.

· Period of performance

· Solicitation type (i.e. set aside small, SDVOSB, full and open competition/MOBIS RFQ, open market RFQ or RFP, etc.)

· Type of award (i.e. firm-fixed price with a SOW/PWS/SOO, or hourly staffing)

· Name and contact information for the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR)

Response Instructions Interested parties should provide the following information:

a. Vendor Profile: Please provide the following information:

· Company Name and Location

· Indicate if you are a large or small business, socioeconomic category, and size of company (number of personnel and annual revenue).

· Name of contact person responsible for this RFI response, including telephone number and email address.

· Any US Government contract vehicle which USCIS can use that your company currently has a contract with.

b. Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI with responses to the questions in Section 4. Responses should be submitted in Adobe PDF format via e-mail only to the Contract Specialist Sarah Overton, at Sarah.M.Overton@uscis.dhs.gov, and are due no later than Wednesday, June 23, 2023, at 8:00 am ET. Responses should be no more than seven (7) pages in no smaller than font size 12. Please do not include charts, graphs, or inserts with smaller print to fit more information into the seven (7) pages.

The subject line of the email shall read RFI Response for USCIS Enterprise Automation and Unified Task Orchestration.

Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and must be clearly marked. To aid the Government, please segregate proprietary information. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

Reminder: This RFI is for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute and Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposals, or Request for Quotations.

That government may, at its sole discretion, contact responding companies after submission for clarifications.

Failure to respond to this RFI may be viewed as non-interest/non-capable in performing this future requirement. Should there be any conflicting information between this RFI and the final solicitation that the requirements in the final released solicitation will take precedence.

Questions: Any questions can be submitted via email to Sarah.M.Overton, Contract Specialist at Sarah.M.Overton@uscis.dhs.gov.

52.215-3 Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes (Oct 1997)

(a) The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this solicitation or to otherwise pay for the information solicited except as an allowable cost under other contracts as provided in subsection 31.205-18, Bid and proposal costs, of the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

(b) Although “proposal” and “offeror” are used in this Request for Information, your response will be treated as information only. It shall not be used as a proposal.

(c) This solicitation is issued for the purpose of: Information.

(End of provision)