AM007 Questions 264-282 19 Sep 11.doc

Amendment 0007 Questions and Answers 264-282 For RFP HC1028-11-R-0104

Background.

In a question released in Amendment 3, a bidder asks for details as to how bidders should propose OS software in tier 1 and 2, as well as in tiers 3, 4, and 5. The answer says bidders should offer VMWare and all OSs for Tiers 1 and 2. In this context, the government says that bidders should propose any solution for the licensing ("...unlimited license, datacenter license, multi-user, etc."). Given recent changes in the way VMWare licenses it product, a typical enterprise customer would inventory the total amount of RAM in all servers and use that total amount as a starting point for how much VMWare software they might be used to virtualize their server environments. It is most likely DISA (and perhaps the incumbent provider) knows how much memory is currently in use supporting their virtualized environments. Without this information, bidders are at a disadvantage. This is difficult in any event and rendered even more difficult because of the recent VMWare announcement that they are changing products, including licensing terms, basic capabilities, and even the name of their enterprise virtualization software. These newly announced terms are to take place in September, perhaps even before the final bid response is due. The announced changes would make it virtually impossible to offer the government a meaningful, stable pricing plan, since license costs may vary depending upon simple configuration changes that the government currently gets free.

Further, in the RFP’s section J-2, Requirements Document, on page 2 at paragraph 1.2.1 OS Requirements, the government says, "For Operating systems listed under each chipset, the offeror will provide the most current operating system; additionally provide and support for two versions back. The Government defines the most current version as N and the two proceeding versions as minus two (-2)." The definition of N, then, is likely to change because of VMWare’s decision. Bidders may be forced to provide additional pricing for N-1 and/or N-2 versions as well as various licensing models because of the recently announced licensing and pricing changes..

Conclusion.

We believe the complexity of the pricing and licensing arrangements, exacerbated by the recent VMWare licensing announcement, makes it impossible to consistently evaluate variances among bidders’ proposals.

Will the government remove VMWARE software from the evaluation model in the same manner as the zOS operating system has been removed?

In the RFP, the X86 systems require "hot pluggable CPU/memory." Only extremely high-end servers generally have these features. In any event, hot pluggable CPUs require a system equipped with the capability to electrically power-down an individual processor socket – a feature which, it is believed, is not commonly found on entry and mid-tier servers. In a like fashion, hot pluggable RAM conventionally requires the system to "mirror" all of its RAM, and provide electrical isolation at the field replaceable unit level – again, a feature not commonly found on entry and mid-tier servers. The required feature is also extremely complex, and requires not only special hardware, but also an operating system that is capable of adjusting to the changing conditions (insertion/removal of CPU and/or RAM). As a result, special versions of all five required OSs might also be needed to meet this requirement.

Conclusion.

DISA has indicated in the answers to questions published in Amendment 2 that this requirement is "necessary to insure hardware solution provides availability and maintainability for any hosting requirement faced by DISA.” It might be better if the RFP were changed to frame DISA’s requirements in terms of mission availability. More conventional High Availability (HA) measures could be offered by bidders. For example, such requirements might be met by using the required HA configurations of clustering servers, required elsewhere in the RFP. Note that the 99.95 and 99.99% availability requirements should be sufficiently strong to ensure DISA’s mission continuity.

Will the government consider removing these word from the RFP, and replacing them with a more generally stated standard that will allow bidders some latitude in how they propose to meet the government’s need to ensure mission availability?

This requirement could be interpreted to mean that when working under VMware, one must be able to dynamically re-configure the individual VMs (the software); however, the government appears to focus their answer solely on system hardware, saying again, that this requirement is "necessary to insure hardware solution provides availability and maintainability for any hosting requirement faced by DISA." This feature would require special features in the expansion hardware (the bus) as well as in the primary OS (VMware) and the guest operating system(s). It is our understanding that VMware does not currently support this feature. The requirement appears to represent features that are not available in the classes of systems sought here. It is our understanding that VMware does not currently support this feature.

The requirement appears to represent features that are not available in the classes of systems sought here.

Could DISA rewrite the requirements in a more function-based fashion to allow bidders more latitude in proposing solutions to meet the government’s needs?

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2.3: In order to respond to this solicitation, the Offeror must upload a complete proposal to the DITCO web site at https://www.ditco.disa.mil/dcop no later than the time and date specified in Section A.

7.1.1 Section A: Completion of blocks 15A and 16 and signature and date for blocks 17 and 18 of the Standard Form 33. Signature by the Offeror on the SF33 constitutes an offer, which the Government may accept. The "original" copy should be clearly marked under separate cover and should be provided without any punched holes.

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Given that the J-9_SPARC_Chipset_Pricing_Model_(Protected)_AM_0003.xlsx is protected, we cannot add or modify existing CLINS to add the Additional HW Components to the J-9. Please advise how we should address the need for additional CLINS.

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1. Change the specifications to a single number of cores rather than a range of cores and add SLINs to increase the cores.

2. Change the SLIN list to reflect the core nature of the mandatory architecture specified.

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Characteristic

Tier 1 (ESX environments)

Tier 2 (ESX environments)

Tier 3 (Physical Environment)

Tier 4 (Physical Environment)

Tier 5 (Physical Environment)

Memory Capacity

At least 96GB

At least 256GB

Up to 16 GB RAM, above this amount is priced separately

Up to 32 GB RAM, above this amount is priced separately

Up to 64 GB RAM, above this amount is priced separately

Is the government stating its “minimum” memory requirement as 96GB of RAM for a Tier 1 (ESX Environments) and 256GB of RAM for a Tier 2 (ESX Environments) OR Is the government stating that the vendor must propose a Tier 1 and Tier 2 server solution with the “Capacity” to support 96GB or 256GB of RAM, respectively?

What are the government’s “minimum” memory requirements for Tiers 3 through 5?

Would the government please indicate its minimum memory requirements for each tier?

Would the government please modify the bid requirements documents (S.O.O, J-2 and J-5), and resolve the apparent contradictions between X86 tier descriptions and the answers to questions 212 and 224?