Messaging Tool Statement of Objectives 24AUG2020.pdf

Statement of Objectives

Public Alert and Warning Messaging Tool for IPAWS 24/7 Lab

July 13, 2020

PURPOSE:

To purchase a messaging tool for the 24/7 IPAWS Lab currently located at Indian Head, MD.

SCOPE:

Purchase an off the shelf public alert and warning tool that will provide the 24/7 IPAWS lab emergency managers the capability to send or cancel an emergency alert and warning message(s) on behalf of State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial emergency managers.

BACKGROUND:

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) program management office

(PMO) is responsible for complete lifecycle management of the IPAWS Program. The

IPAWS Program is a DHS Level II IT Acquisition Program encompassing multiple projects and initiatives intended to satisfy requirements and intents described in Executive Order

(EO) 13407 and Public Law (PL) 114-143 – The IPAWS Modernization Act. In addition, new directives have been established from the National Defense Authorization Act, PL 116-

92, Section 1756 for the standardization, functionality, and interoperability of incident management and warning tools used by State, Tribal, and local governments to notify the public of an emergency through the public alert and warning system

The IPAWS program mission is to “Provide integrated services and capabilities to Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local authorities that enable them to alert and warn their respective communities via multiple communications methods.” The IPAWS vision is

“Timely Alert and Warning to American People in the preservation of life and property”. To accomplish the IPAWS mission and vision, the IPAWS PMO strives to achieve the following three goals: Goal 1: Create and maintain an integrated interoperable environment for alert and warning; Goal 2: Make alert and warning more effective; and Goal 3:

Strengthen the resilience of IPAWS infrastructure.

Through development and adoption of information standards, the development, deployment and sustainment of interoperable and integrated systems, and education, training and outreach to the alert and warning community of interest and to the public, the IPAWS program is significantly enhancing the ability of Local, State, Territorial, Tribal, and Federal officials to deliver alert and warning information to the public during times of crisis with actionable guidance.

The IPAWS PMO identifies, organizes, oversees, and executes a portfolio of projects necessary to accomplish the IPAWS vision and mission across all phases of the acquisition life cycle framework. The program and projects are managed in accordance with appropriate

DHS acquisition and management policies and best practices. Program and project reporting and out year planning is developed and maintained per the Federal, DHS and FEMA budget process cycle and performance measurement instruments.

The IPAWS program portfolio of projects is organized into the following major areas:

• IPAWS OPEN System: The IPAWS Open Platform for Emergency Networks

(OPEN) is a set of web services and internet accessible applications and infrastructure that enable authenticated public safety officials using compatible software and alerting systems to distribute emergency alert messages in the IPAWS specified Common Alerting Protocol format to multiple IPAWS connected alerting

“channels” that can reach citizens in a given geographic area. IPAWS OPEN alerting channels includes interfaces to radio and television stations via the

Emergency Alert System (EAS), to cellular devices as Wireless Emergency Alerts

(WEA) on participating wireless carrier capable cellular devices via the

Commercial Mobile Alert System, to NOAA All-Hazards Weather Radios via the

NOAA Hazcollect interface, to internet applications and services, and to other local public alerting communications systems as applicable. IPAWS OPEN systems and interfaces are currently maintained in federal data centers but are being transitioned to cloud hosted environments.

• National Public Warning System (NPWS): IPAWS PMO operates and maintains and is modernizing the system enabling the broadcast of a single emergency alert audio message across the entire United States. FEMA has partnerships with radio stations to perform as primary entry points (PEPs) in broadcasting a national alert and warning message which is received and rebroadcast across the nation by other radio, television, cable and satellite channels. Modernization of the NPWS includes modernizing, retrofitting or replacing PEP stations, modernizing the NPWS operations and control points, and maintaining and expanding the communications networks between FEMA and the NPWS PEP stations.

• Stakeholder Engagement: IPAWS conducts engagement, education, and outreach activities to all stakeholder groups in the alert and warning community of interest and the general public. Activities include speaking engagements at conferences for broadcasters, public safety officials, and emergency managers, booths at conferences and major stakeholder meetings, demonstrations of alerting technology at conferences, meetings and other pre-arranged events. IPAWS Stakeholder

Engagement also develops training initiatives and materials for IPAWS users and for the general public to assist in understanding of public alert and warning capabilities of IPAWS and its uses.

• Customer Support: IPAWS PMO administers public safety agencies (IPAWS users and alerting authorities) access to the IPAWS-OPEN capabilities through an application process and issuance of agency digital credentials to the users. IPAWS

PMO customer support responds to requests for assistance in using and configuring user tools to function with the IPAWS-OPEN system interfaces from both alerting authorities and from vendor and system developers.

• Alert and Warning Standards and Technologies: FEMA works with emergency communications community stakeholders, regulators and communications industry standards and specification bodies and other organizations such as the Federal

Communications Commission, the National Institute of Standards and Technology

(NIST), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Association (ATIS) and

Telecommunications Internet Association (TIA) to maintain and develop standards for alert and warning systems. IPAWS uses the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) for the interoperation and exchange of alert and warning information between public safety systems and numerous private sector and other government networks and systems. The IPAWS PMO seeks to encourage development of tools, systems, and technologies to provide improved alert and warning capabilities and to increase alert and warning information to people with access and functional needs.

• IPAWS Lab: IPAWS maintains an alert and warning test and demonstration capability used to confirm current and developing technologies can interoperate with the IPAWS architecture. The IPAWS Lab also provides demonstration, test and evaluation support to local, state and other Federal alerting authorities and private sector alert channel networks and supports development, internal verification and validation, operational, and utility testing, assessments and exercises of all components in the IPAWS architecture.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION and OVERARCHING OBJECTIVES:

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directs the FEMA Administrator (delegated to the IPAWS PMO) to develop minimum requirements for State, Tribal, and local governments to participate in IPAWS that are necessary to maintain the integrity of the public alert and warning system. In addition, the NDAA directs the standardization, functionality and interoperability of incident management and warning tools used by, State, Tribal and Local governments to notify the public of an emergency through the public alert and warning system as well as the capability where alerting authorities can contact each other and federal officials during an emergency.

To satisfy this overarching requirement, a separate acquisition is being sought. To meet the requirement whereby alerting authorities can contact federal officials, the FEMA NCP IPAWS lab is purchasing an off the shelf messaging tool that will allow federal alerting authorities to act on public alert and warning emergencies at the request of State, Tribal, and Local governments.

CONSTRAINTS:

The FEMA IPAWS PMO faces certain constraints that come with being a government agency.

The workings of the Federal budgetary process mean the FEMA IPAWS PMO regularly faces difficult choices between protecting funding for current projects and putting them at risk in support of FEMA NCP programs. Moreover, the FEMA IPAWS PMO, as with all agencies, is constrained by a myriad of acquisition laws, regulations, policies and procedures.

NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Usability: The alerting tool must have an intuitive user interface such that sending alerts, updates, cancels can be accomplished through a workflow versus manually entering parameters and values. Note: manually entering free-form textual alert messages (e.g.

headline, instruction, description, CMAMtext) is considered part of the workflow and is acceptable and necessary.

• Compatibility: In order to ensure the preservation of life and property, the alerting tool vendor must be capable of sending IPAWS alerts and be compatible with the IPAWS features and functions. Therefore, the alerting tool must make updates to support IPAWS changes (IPAWS features, IPAWS capabilities, and IPAWS bug fixes) once they are available in the FEMA production environment.

• Features: The alerting tool must support all IPAWS features listed in the IPAWS-OPEN

Interface Design Guide including but not limited to getCogProfile, getMessageStatus, getMessageList, getMessage. These features must be present in order to support functions such as alert cancellation and update, COG permissions, and for the review of alerts previously sent using the COG ID and digital certificate loaded into the alerting tool.

• FEMA does NOT require a subscription-based mass notification feature (e.g. send email notifications to the public, send text messages to the public, automatic dialing public phone numbers), only IPAWS capabilities.

FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

1. User can install live COG and test COG digital certificates (alerting tool supports both IPAWS live and IPAWS lab environments)

2. User alerting permissions (eventocdes, geocodes, etc) are constrained through the

IPAWS getCogProfile function (e.g. system does not present eventcode or geocode selections for which they are not authorized per getCogProfile result)

3. User can send alert, update, cancel messages

a. User can blockchannel (or “select channel”) to prevent a message from reaching WEA, EAS, and/or NWEM

b. User can select FIPS codes from the COG’s list of permissions (implemented by getCogProfile function)

c. User can select event code from the COG’s list of permissions (implemented by getCogProfile function)

4. User can view a list of messages sent based on IPAWS getMessageList function

a. The results are presented based on the COG digital certificate that is loaded

b. The full CAP xml for each message in the results can be viewed based on

IPAWS getMessage function

c. User can “update” or “cancel” active messages displayed in the results

i. When selecting a previous message to update or cancel, the previous message content will be pre-populated and can be edited

ii. Required fields necessary to update or cancel will be pre-populated

(i.e. reference field, msgType field)

5. User can open a map view when creating a message

a. User can create polygon(s) and circle(s) on a map

b. User can view and edit the polygon(s) and circle(s) on a map when updating a sent message

6. User can access the alerting tool through the internet via web-browser (Internet

Explorer, Firefox, Chrome)

7. Alerting tool has 99.9% availability (8.76 hours downtime per year permitted)

8. User can view status codes for sent messages (implemented by getMessageStatus function)

9. Alerting tool will support at least 10 user accounts and at least 5 concurrent users

10. User can preview the message before sending

11. User can include a link to an mp3 file for EAS alerting

System will provide a file hosting service to store the mp3 for retrieval by external entities

DELIVERABLE SCHEDULE:

Since this is an off the shelf acquisition, the deliverable schedule is 30 days after award

PERIOD OF PERORMANCE:

The period of performance for this task order will be 30 days after award.

GOVERNMENT FURNISHED EUIPMENT (GFE)/GOVERNMENT FURNISHED

INFORMATION:

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CONTRACTOR STAFFING PLAN AND KEY PERSONNEL: [Each offeror should submit a staffing plan for achieving the SOO…]

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