I2TS-3 RFI Questions and Answers.pdf

Information Technology (IT) Support Services 3rd Generation (I2TS-3) Increased Level of Effort Modification

Request for Information (RFI) Questions and Answers

Responses to RFI Questions in RED:

o Network Operations Support – Elaborate The contractor shall ensure 24/7 Information Technology (IT) System operation coverage. System operation during surge requirements (i.e., in support of exercises or other mission essential activities) shall be as directed by the Government with at least a seven (7) working day advance notice provided when practical. The contractor shall provide preventative and remedial maintenance for the site’s Systems. The contractor shall provide overall system administration, troubleshooting, scripting, and security administration of the Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) server environment.

o Operational Maintenance Support - Elaborate The contractor shall ensure all IT system changes are captured through a local change management system (e.g., including, but not limited to Remedy, Service Now, Microsoft Service Manager) even if approved at the site level. The contractor shall perform scheduled maintenance to ensure consistent and reliable service availability to the U.S. Army INSCOM customers. The requirement to perform specific scheduled maintenance may result from manufacturers’ recommended service intervals, alerts and bulletins, available patches and updates, directions from the unit’s change management process, as well as other sources (to include Information Assurance Vulnerability Alerts (IAVAs)). The contractor shall remain current with any changes that may impact system performance or availability and promptly make recommendations to the unit Change Management Process.

o Storage Management Support – What product are we offering storage management for?

The contractor shall support tools, processes, and policies used to manage storage networks and storage services such as virtualization, replication, mirroring, security, compression, traffic analysis, and other services.

o Service Desk Support – Assuming this is how we will be ticketing and offering technical support from a call center standpoint and distributing workloads. The plan is to utilize Manage Engine products offered from Zoho, to include the Service Desk Plus ticketing system. Zoho also offers chat support from the website.

The contractor shall provide skill sets to support the following: Remedy, Hewlett Packard Openview, What’s Up Gold!, CA Spectrum, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), SharePoint, Solarwinds, ServiceNow, Service

Center Service Manager (SCSM), Brocade Network Advisor (BNA), HP Insight Manager for Windows, VMware, UNIX, SCOM, SCCM and Ops Mgmt. A working knowledge of IT Infrastructure Library/IT Service Management (service desk) is required.

o Information Assurance Support – Is this referring to the RPIT practices that will be utilized to protect Customer information or how will RPIT help customers protect their information from others. Regardless, both are accompanied by Policies and Procedures documents that include training and sign off of such material that are then backed by proven methods and audits for validation of best practices execution.

The contractor shall provide Cyber Security (CS) support to include measures necessary to detect, document, and counter CS threats. The contractor shall provide the units CS support as defined and directed by the unit's Information Assurance Manager (IAM). The contractor shall provide advice and guidance concerning Information Assurance (IA) matters to INSCOM.

o Installation Support (Of what? Software, Licensing, Cloud, Hardware, Life size Legos?)

Installation of Hardware, Software, peripheral equipment.

o Application Maintenance Support – Assuming this will be the ongoing patch maintenance to client-specific software solutions to include installation, upgrades, patching, testing, backups and restoration. Application Maintenance includes scaling, capacity planning, performance tuning, and optimization.

The contractor shall provide application services support including: software engineering, technical writing/editing, application design, analyzing requirements, preparing plans, documenting specifications, designing system configurations, writing application code, conducting requirements reviews and performing integration testing to provide an effective, efficient, technical solution.

o Web Services (Very Vague) – Assuming no web development will be performed.

Support of the webservers will also need validated if Linux Tomcat, or Microsoft IIS web server. Patching, backups, security scans, code checks, etc.?

The contractor shall provide application project support to include SharePoint design and administration to ensure each application, web page or portal is designed in accordance with established policies, regulations, and guidelines. The contractor shall provide systems administration support that includes, but is not limited to analysis, design, software installation, partitioning, patch installation, device driver installation and configuration, testing, performance optimization, preventive maintenance, documentation, file system management, SharePoint Design and Administration support, SharePoint content development/updating and backup and recovery operations.

o Communications Support (Need Further definition of what type of communication this is) – Telecom, wiring, VoIP, video, audio, email, SMS, secure messaging solutions The contractor shall provide support to all tactical and non-tactical communications to include telephone, satellite, infrared, various radio, various frequency (UHF, VHF, etc.), cryptochannel, telephones, wireless, emergency communications/telecom continuity of operations plan (COOP), video teleconference (VTC) and military spectrum management and foundational services.

o Engineering Support (Staffing Augmentation? Training of their staff?)

The contractor shall provide technical solutions and managing relationships with INSCOM’s tactical and strategic partners and customers. The contractor shall provide expert assessments on solution deployments, implementations and integrations of a variety of products, solutions, tools, and other information system solutions.

o Technical Writers – Are we offering technical writers for staffing or utilizing that for documentation?

Write and/or edit technical documents, including business proposals, reports, user manuals, briefings and presentations, functional descriptions, system specifications, guidelines, special reports, and other project deliverables to meet contract requirements.

o Project Management – Assuming this is going to be project management of general IT projects to include engagements that involve rollouts of new hardware and software, networking, implementations and ongoing maintenance of software and upgrades. Not to project manage software development.

Project Management is the method of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. The contractor shall provide project management services as approved by the organization’s Configuration Management Board and/or the Technical Task Manager.

o IT Logistics – IT Software and Hardware Asset management to include lifecycles support – ITIL v4 Best Practices will be followed The contractor shall support the organization’s business processes for the ordering, receipt, delivery, and disposal of IT equipment and supplies.

o Guidance information to respond to the HHM402-15-D-0020-YJ01-37 Source

Sought/when will there be an RFP released?

The Government does not intend to solicit for the work required by the modification to the existing I2TS-3 task order. The RFI posting was intended to inform the current Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity holders of the Government’s intent to modify the existing task order.