Sources Sought Notice.pdf

SMALL BUSINESS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE

1. Notice Number: NIH-NINDS-SBSS-24-007304

2. Title: POTS Development and Solution Support

3. Classification Code/Title: R499 – Support-Professional: Other

4. NAICS Code/Title/Size Standard: 541512 - Computer Systems Design Services, $27.5M

5. Description:

This is a Small Business Sources Sought Notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this Notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of all qualified small business sources to perform a potential requirement.

This Notice is issued to help determine the availability of qualified small business sources technically capable of meeting the Government requirement and to determine the method of acquisition. It is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotations. No award will be made as a result of this Notice. The Government will NOT be responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this Notice. This Notice is for research and information purposes only.

6. Background:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s leading medical research agency and the primary Federal agency whose mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and apply that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, reduce illness and disability, and conduct, support, and make medical discoveries that improve people’s health and save lives. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is an institute within the NIH that conducts research into the causes, treatments, and preventions of neurological disorders and stroke. The NINDS mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.

The NINDS Division of Intramural Research (DIR) Information Technology Program (ITP) plays a critical role in providing and supporting the information technology resources necessary to further the mission of NINDS and other collaborating ICs (Institutes or Centers) at NIH. ITP provides customized software applications, database applications, and other solutions not available in off-the-shelf modular software applications. Support includes, but is not limited to, planning, requirements analysis, designing, developing, testing, implementing, documenting, and training. Software development also includes, but is not limited to, software upgrades to accommodate back-end database schema modifications; software modifications for emergent business requirements; ad-hoc reports; dashboard business intelligence and AI/ML automation; system migration/integration and maintenance to cover all aspects of software life cycle development, database development, backup & recovery, monitoring, and full application support services. As the neuroscience and neurological disorders are dynamic, the software applications, support needs, and priorities for NIH stakeholders may change.

The goals and objectives of this PWS include but not limited to the following:

7. General Requirements:

Purchasing Online Tracking System (POTS) assists with the submission and tracking of purchase orders through a Web-based system and facilitates the transactions between the end-users in each IC and the central NIH Business System (NBS). POTS is a role-based workflow system. The user administrators can configure the workflows for one or more approval processes based on the IC’s or organization unit’s needs easily. It tracks the procurement life cycle of any types of purchases orders across scientific and administrative functionalities, from initial submission, approval, cancellation, status, through partial/final receiving, and acknowledgement of receipt for completed transactions of goods and/or services. POTS is expected to ensure the compliance with the requirements of the FAR and is used as a workload management and acquisition trending tool.

8. Specific Requirements:

NINDS has divided POTS development and solution support into three sections. First is the Application Development, a general section that explains the services and solutions provided to the NIH user communities and requirements that cover each of the core functional areas. The second section, Operations and Maintenance, and the third, Innovation and Modernization Solutions section will cover items specific to its core functional area to better address emerging needs for full software development life cycle support.

1) Application Development

For each software solution implementation and delivery, the Contractor works directly with the customers and stakeholders of POTS user committee to perform business requirement analysis and testing in a fast-paced environment for new initiatives, prioritized changes, and end-user support to meet the business demand as the business evolves. It is imperative to avoid disruption of current initiatives and ongoing projects. It is expected that the Contractor need to support future new technologies, including evaluating, planning for, and implementing new technologies in response to policy and regulatory changes. The contractors shall have all the competencies needed to provide a wide range of solutions and support that together will provide a great user experience. This means minimal bugs, work stoppages, and misunderstood requirements that could lead to an unsatisfactory user experience and rework.

Work being done by the Contractor shall adhere to governance, directives, policies, and best practices defined by the customer and governing bodies including but not limited to the Federal government, DHHS, NIH, and NINDS unless exceptions have been approved by the CO or COR. The governance, directives, policies, and best practices include ones related to, but not limited to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, FISMA, personally identifiable information (PII), sensitive information (SI) handling, NIST standards, and vendor best practices. The Contractor shall provide customer guidance and follow NINDS application development processes, including documentation, business cases, demo presentations, training, security, configuration management and change management, to support the POTS business. The Contractor shall create, manage, and keep up to date a list of applications, solutions, processes, support items, and any other items related to the POTS Development Portfolio. This shall include supporting information defined by the customer and contractor.

Working with Federal leads and selected members of the business functional areas, the Contractor shall prioritize work across different functional teams and the work needed for the full life cycle needs of applications, solutions, and support. The requirement includes but not limited to the aforementioned activities.

2) Operation and Maintenance

The Contractor shall perform the following tasks that are specific to software engineering including but not limited to the following support activities:

1. Design and implement iterative or agile software development life cycle methodologies to achieve efficient delivery, rapid responses to changes in business priorities and requirements, and increase customer satisfaction.

2. Maintain product backlogs and incorporate desirable functionalities into future releases.

3. Support cloud adoption with full-stack automation capabilities and migration of existing application portfolio to NIH/NINDS IT-managed cloud environments.

4. Provide operational and maintenance support for software solutions deployed to production such as: user production support, incident triage and resolution, feature request routing and tracking, application performance monitoring and troubleshooting.

5. Develop and implement database design, schemas, and table structures.

6. Develop and implement data analytics and reporting solutions.

7. Create database architecture documentation and maintain technical documentation including system, user guides, training material for software solutions deployed to the production.

8. Assist infrastructure team provisioning database version upgrades and additional work that needs to be done.

9. Assist federal system owners to attain and maintain the ATO (Authorization To Operate).

3) Innovation and Modernization Solutions

System modernization will require a robust, scalable, and reliable infrastructure that can handle the demands. The Contractor shall provide qualified cloud architects and application engineers with appropriate certifications to implement efficient cloud operation delivery, including but not limited to the following support activities:

• Discuss and analyze cloud adoption/deployment feasibility and considerations such as cloud service provider selection, cost estimates, migration strategies and options (e.g., rehost, revise, rearchitect, rebuild and replace), engineering and architectural options, security requirements.

• Build resilient applications and data analytics to generate insights, create cloud-optimized designs and architectures using cloud native capabilities that are compliant with HHS, NIH, and NINDS architectural and security standards.

• Decompose the system into microservices such as user profiles, order processing, recommendation engines, and utilize Docker containerization and Kubernetes orchestration for managing microservices efficiently. Use a mix of databases for various data needs. Improve the search with various criteria.

• Collaborate with NIH/NINDS IT staff to automate CI/CD pipeline for rapid and safe deployments, perform testing to locate issues, vulnerabilities, and verify deployments are handled according to SOPs and ITSM processes.

• Improve the build and deployment automation implementation for applications, databases, containers management, secured APIs, and system integration. Reduce operational overhead and scale based on demand.

Performance Standards

The Contractor’s level of performance for services under each labor category shall at all times be consistent with, or better than, acceptable industry standards and will comply with the targets specified in the SLA. Successful performance includes not only responding to the users timely, but by completing help desk and development tickets with status and closure descriptions.

A. LEVEL OF EFFORT

The following labor categories are anticipated to successfully perform the task order requirements based on existing infrastructure, including phase in and phase out services.

Depending on project complexity and scope, additional labor categories may need to be incorporated to accomplish tasks for optional requirements. Experience and expertise in providing similar support to NIH is highly desirable.

9. Capability statement /information sought.

Respondents to this Notice must provide clear and convincing documentation demonstrating their capability to provide the consulting service(s) specified in this Notice.

This includes the ability to perform the specific requirements listed above.

Respondents must include the following in their response: respondents’ technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, organization DUNS number, organization name, organization address, organization’s business type (e.g., 8(a), HubZone, veteran-owned, etc.) under NAICS Code 541512, and any other information that may aid in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements.

The response must address each of the elements in the “Specific Requirements” section (above). A cover page and/or an executive summary may be included but are not required.

Responses may not exceed ten (10) pages. The 10-page limit does not include a cover page and executive summary.

Respondents must submit their response in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format using 12-point font, 8-1/2” x 11” paper size, with 1” top, bottom, left and right margins, and with single or double spacing.

All responses to this Notice must be submitted to Shayna Simpson, Contract Specialist, via e-mail at Shayna.simpson@nih.gov. Facsimile responses will not be accepted.

All responses must be received on or before the closing date of this Notice and reference Notice Number NIH-NINDS-SBSS-24-007304.

“Disclaimer and Important Notes: This Notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in a response. The Government reserves the right to use the information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this Notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization’s qualifications to perform the work.

Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in SAM; however, responses to this Notice will not be considered as responses to a solicitation or request for quotation.

If a request for quotation related to this Notice is issued, all offerors must be REGISTERED and have an ACTIVE System for Award Management (SAM) (www.sam.gov) account at the time a quote is submitted to the Government.

All offerors registered in the System for Award Management (www.sam.gov) must be in full compliance with FAR 52.204-13 System for Award Management Maintenance to be eligible to submit a quote. The Government cannot accept quotes from offerors who do not meet the SAM requirement.

Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).”

mailto:Shayna.simpson@nih.gov http://www.sam.gov/ http://www.sam.gov/