Matrix of GSMO Ques- Answers posted on FedBizOpz.doc

Pre-Solicitation Questions

Questions and Answers

For

GSM-O

RELEASED TO FEDBIZOPPS 09 AUG 10 (8-9-10)

GSM-ETI vendor(s) is/are responsible for engineering, modeling and testing any new capability or solution presented for operational service to the DISN, again with governmental direction and approval.

Question #21: GSM-O draft RFP Section H.28.C provides OCI guidance that restricts “satellite service carriers, providers, or integrators”. Please confirm the following interpretation of these terms:

Satellite service carrier Companies that own satellite assets and sell communication services over those satellites

-E.g. Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, Telesat, Inmarsat, Iridium, Globalstar, etc.

Satellite service provider

- All satellite service carriers, plus companies that provide communication services over satellite assets owned by other companies (resellers, etc)

-e.g. satellite service carriers above, plus companies such as Vizada, Stratos, etc

Satellite service integrator

- Any company that sells communication services over satellite assets and which provides optional specialized engineering to customers to design, install, and deliver those services.

- E.g. DSTS-G contractors (CapRock, ARTEL, DRS Technologies) some satellite service providers, etc.

Question #25: GSM-O PWS Section 6.2.6 contains tasks for Operational Network Engineering that incorporate “network engineering support of GIG services/networks, including providing: regional tactical network modeling and simulation, regional tactical capacity planning, regional tactical network optimization, regional tactical traffic engineering, new requirements analysis support, configuration management system updates, and network integration support”. Furthermore, GSM-ETI SOO contains engineering tasks for network capacity planning (5.2.1), modeling and simulation (5.2.4), network optimization analysis (5.2.4), and other engineering and optimization requirements.

We agree that the Operational Network Engineering requirements of GSM-O PWS Section 6.2.6 are an important part of providing OA&M services to the DISN under the GSM-O contract. In addition, the GSM-ETI SOO also incorporates similar engineering tasks. Please provide further clarification on the roles and responsibilities of GSM-O vs. GSM-ETI for engineering-based tasks that appear to span both contracts.

Question #38: H.28(b): This section states that a series of contract-holders as well as their affiliates and subcontractors are excluded from participation in the Program. To the best of our knowledge, in the course of their performance of those contracts, there have been no perceived or actual unmitigated OCI that impede performance.

a. Is the Government aware of an existing actual or potential OCI in the performance of these contracts, individually or conjunction with DGS/GSM, which has not or cannot be mitigated? If yes, please identify those conflicts.

b. If there are no existing actual or potential OCI in response to item 1.a above, please indicate what has changed or is expected to change between the existing contracts and the GSM-O contract which will create an OCI that cannot be mitigated.

Question #39: H.28(c): The Government has excluded firms involved in telecommunications, bandwidth and satellite industries as having an OCI which cannot be mitigated, despite their successful participation without conflict throughout the history of the program.

a. Please identify the conflicts that cannot be mitigated and which the Government has determined categorically preclude performance by firms, their parents, subsidiaries, and affiliates in these industries.

b. Will the Government reconsider the potential participation of these firms as subcontractors?

Question #40: Overall: In light of the above questions, we recommend DISA consider the following recommendations,

a. Revise the OCI language in subparagraph H.28 (c) to read similarly to the language in the predecessor contract: “ […] prime contract awardees cannot be firms who are terrestrial or space local or interstate exchange carriers and/or telecom/bandwidth providers (to include corporate affiliates of these parties), but that no OCI restrictions are placed on subcontractors to the DGS prime contract awardees, since the DGS prime contractors will be required to mitigate any conflicts through management of their subcontractors under specific task orders.”

b. Allow for mitigation of any potential OCI on existing contracts to the extent that such OCI actually exist and are identified.

c. Allow for Contractors and Subcontractors on the winning team to address and mitigate actual or perceived OCIs on a task-order basis.

Question # 41: In the GSM-O DRFP, page 53 paragraph H.28 C. (3) it states that there would be an Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) if: “c. For further clarification, the GSM-O prime contractor and/or its affiliates, if any, shall not be firms who are: satellite carriers, providers, or integrators and/or”.

Does a subcontractor under GSM-O incur an OCI if they are also a subcontractor providing IT support services to a satellite integrator who is bidding the DISA/GSA Future Commercial Satellite Acquisition (FCSA) End-to-End, full and open IDIQ opportunity?

Question #45: Reference: H.28b – “……the GSM-O Contractor and its subcontractors, at any tier, their parent companies, subsidiaries,…… shall not also provide as the prime contractor, or a subcontractor, at any tier, the following contracts:……..- GSA Alliant-Small Business Global-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs)” Given that the GSA Alliant SB GWAC can be and is frequently utilized by all Federal agencies, this prohibition as currently stated, is unnecessarily restrictive, as it precludes the GSM-O Contractor from participation on other Agency programs that are totally unrelated to the DISA GSM Acquisition of Services (AoS). This unduly restricts competition, as many entities in the industry currently do and will continue to want to participate in GSA Alliant procurements from various DoD and civilian agencies.

Recommendation: We recommend that this restriction be amended to read “GSA Alliant-Small Business Global-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) issued by DISA and related to DGS, GSM-ETI and GSM-P&S.” This will provide an adequate yet more reasonable restriction to address potential OCI issues.

Question #47: Reference: H.28b “……the GSM-O Contractor and its subcontractors, at any tier, their parent companies, subsidiaries,…… shall not also provide as the prime contractor, or a subcontractor, at any tier, the following contracts:……..- DISA’s GSM-Engineering, Transition, and Implementation (ETI) Multiple award Contracts… Recommendation: Recommend companies are allowed to bid on both GSM-O and GSM-ETI procurements. However, in the event the company was on winning teams in both areas, the company would then be allowed to propose an OCI mitigation plan to include rigid OCI firewalls and other appropriate safeguards to mitigate against potential COI violations.

Question #48: Reference: H.28c – “c. For futher clarification, the GSM-O prime contractor and/or its subcontractors, at any tier, their parent companies, subsidiaries, and affiliates, if any, shall not be firms who are

(1) terrestrial or space local or interstate exchange carriers and/or:

(2) telecom/bandwidth providers (to include corporate affiliates of these parties) and/or

(3) satellite service carriers, providers, or integrators and/or

(4) providing information technology or other telecommunications support under the GSM Acquisition of Services (AoS) (GSM-ETI and GSM-P&S).”

Question #53: Reference: Section H.28, Comment/Recommendation: In the FBO posting of June 30, 2010 the Government Organizational Conflict of Interest announced its intent to release modified OCI language currently

Question 58: Is the Government able to describe a method whereinthe Government, the GSM-Ops awardee and the incumbent vendors may reach concurrence on the installed inventories for which they will be responsible to provide on-going maintenance services under the GSM-O-Contract?

58B As an incumbent vendor for the DISN providing infrastructure and maintenance services for that installed inventory, we interact with the DGS prime contractor on a continual basis for engineering actions relating to the support of the installed database.

This includes, but is not limited to, the test and evaluation of newly released software versions, test and evaluation of newly available hardware options and testing of operational scenarios necessary for continued support of the DISN. These actions are generally conducted at the Tier III lab, and occasionally at vendor facilities when certain operational scenarios cannot be replicated in the Tier III lab.

Answer: #58A: The scope for required GSM-O maintenance for year-1 is as stated in Task Order-2. Transition from the DGS contractor to the GSM-O contractor, for maintenance activities, will be addressed by the Transition Plan.

Answer #58B: See Question/Answer #6: testing of new capabilities is an ETI function.

Question #59A: We would like to see further description of how these types of activities will be conducted under the GSM contract. Which GSM awardee (Ops or ETI) will have responsibility for the Tier III lab? Under which GSM contract (Ops or ETI) will some of these functions fall? How does the Government envision incumbent vendors maintaining a seamless continuation of the engineering activities currently associated with one Contract holder at the Tier III lab to a scenario under the GSM contract where there will be multiple awardees (Ops and ETI)? Question #59B: Also, which GSM (Ops or ETI) awardee will be responsible for maintenance of the hardware that is installed in the Tier III lab? Some of the lab activities may cross over lines of responsibility between Ops and ETI.

Question #59C: As an incumbent vendor for the DISN providing the infrastructure and maintenance services for that installed inventory, we interact with the DGS prime contractor on a continual basis when certain components of the infrastructure have reached the end of their useful life and can no longer be supplied. This is commonly known as “manufacturing discontinuation (MD)”. In all cases, we make a substitute product available. The substitute product requires test and evaluation and also a support plan going forward for the installed inventory (i.e. product substitutions for the older product, when required). We would like to see further description of this scenario and how it will be handled under the GSM contract:

Answer: #59A: See Question/Answer #25. Tier III lab is expected to be under the GSM-ETI contract. Details of transition will be worked out within the task order.

Answer # 59B: See Question/Answer #25 and 59A.

Answer #59C: As described in GSM-O Task Order-2, the Contractor is required to provide repair equipment; in selecting a device, it must be on the current DISA Approved Products List (APL). There is an established process for the addition of a new item of equipment to the APL.

Question #66: Reference PWS Section 6.3, Page 25. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS). Please refer to section 6.3 titled GSM-O Contingency/Emergency Response Support. We would like to know the typical frequency and duration of this need; would these be in the provisioning centers, or could they be in other locations?

Question #69. Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 4.5a, Business-Related Metrics, (Row 4), Page C-2, Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc. The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to Appendix C.

Task: 4.5a Business-Related Metrics

Objective: Business related activities as measured by business metrics should show improvement

(Row 4)

ALP: The Contractor’s performance as measured by the business metrics of PWS 4.5 shall show improvement over the previous period in at least 3 of the 5 areas

The objective requires improvement but if the performance has reached the maximum value of the metric (i.e. 100%), further improvement is not possible.

The ALP states that the contractor is required to improve performance in 3 out of 5 areas while the PWS 4.5 does not specify any set number of performance metric requirements. What are the performance metric requirements?

Question #70: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.1a Order Processing & Request Fulfillment, Customer Support and Validation (Row 8), Page C-4. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc. The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).Refer to Appendix C.

Task: 6.2.1a Order Processing & Request Fulfillment, Customer Support and Validation.

Objective: Seamless and efficient process to allow customer orders processed and service available within a maximum of 21 days, to meet the requirements of the DISN Service Level Agreement (SLA). Note: if a circuit requires C&A or crypto actions by user, vendor is not responsible for that time period

(Row 8)

To meet these ALP goals, is a transition plan required?

Question #71: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.1a Order Processing & Request Fulfillment, Customer Request Processing ( Row 9), Page C-5. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

Refer to Appendix C.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Task: 6.2.1aOrder Processing & Request Fulfillment, Customer Support and Validation

Objective: Maximize availability of the order entry system to customers

(Row 9)

Will the contractor will be held accountable for outages (e.g. OSS outages) which are beyond the control of the contractor in determining the availability of the order entry system?

Question 72: PWS Appendix C, Order Processing & Request Fulfillment, Customer Request Processing (Row 10), Page C-5. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc. The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to Appendix C.

Task: 6.2.1aOrder Processing & Request Fulfillment, Customer Support and Validation

Objective: Maximize quality of data entered in the order entry system

(Row 10)

Will the contractor will be held accountable for any data that is beyond the control of the contractor (e.g. data entered by customers or populated automatically by the OSS) in determining the data quality in the order entry system?

Question #73: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.2 Trouble Management, Help Desk Support, Row 11, Page C-5. Refer to:

Objective - Within 90 days of contract, achieve and maintain established service levels for First-call resolution rate, Call Abandonment Rate, Average Answer Delay, and Customer Satisfaction.

To meet these ALP goals, will a transition plan be required?

Question #74: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.2 Trouble Management, Alarm Surveillance/ Reporting, Row 12, Page C-6. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

Acceptable Level of Performance (ALP) – Recognition within a five minute period that an alarm needs response action.

Can the current process under DGS recognize within a five minute period that an alarm needs response action? Will a transition plan be required to meet these ALP objectives?

Question #75: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.3 Configuration Management (CM): Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Accuracy, Row 19, Page C-8. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

Objective – For configuration changes added by the vendor, information shall be accurate and complete

Acceptable Level of Performance (ALP) - Vendor-executed CMDB transactions will be at 99%

Does the use of the word vendor imply the GSM-O Contractor? If not, why is the GSM-O contractor being held responsible for the ALP that is not in its control?

Question #76: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.3 Configuration Management (CM), Row 20, Page C-9. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

ALP - Change to be submitted within the following timeframe:

90% within 24 hours

Is the change being submitted a physical change implementation to the network or an update to the CM database to reflect the change?

Question #77: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.2.4 GSM-OSS Application Operation, Maintenance Support, Row 22, PageC-9. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

Objective – Provide uninterrupted GSM-OSS availability.

What portion of the OSS is under GSM-O Contractor’s control? Please explain why the OSS availability requirement is higher than the LAN availability requirement in row 21.

Question #78: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 6.3.2 Contingency/ Emergency Response Support, Row 27, Page C-11. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

Objective - Seamless and efficient process to allow Contingency/Emergency change orders processed and service available with a target of providing proposed solutions within 24 hours of receipt of an approved validated request(s).

Is the objective to implement a change or propose a solution?

Question #79: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 7.1 Computer Network Defense -Protect Activities, Row 29, page C-11. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc. The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

Objective - Timely Dissemination of Anti-Virus updates.

ALP - Disseminate vendor supplied updates to anti-virus software within 24 hours of release by vendor

Are anti-virus updates taken directly from the vendor, or are they funneled through a DoD agency for approval? Are there instances where dissemination plans would require more than 24 hours, or is this requirement applicable only to WARNORDs?

Question #80: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 7.4 Computer Network Defense Sustainment Activities, Row 33, Page C-12. Reference document file named Attachment_1_-_PWS-O_Final_Draft_v10_05-21-2010.doc.

The document is titled Global Information Grid Services Management - Operations (GSM-O) - Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Refer to:

Positive/Negative Incentive – N/A=Blue

100% = Green

98-99% = Yellow

<98% = Red

What are the metric for positive/negative incentive percentages are how are they calculated?

Question #81: Reference PWS Appendix C, Section 7.4 Computer Network Defense Sustainment Activities, Row 34, Page C-13.