J.1(a)_Attachment_1_SOW_20170130.pdf

Statement of Work for

NASA Advanced Computing Services

(NACS)

NNA17554082R

January 30, 2017 i

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Background 1

3. Scope 3

4. Advanced Computing Services Requirements 3

4.1 Phase-In 3

4.2 Contract Management 4

4.2.1 Technical Direction 6

4.2.2 Government Furnished Property and Service 7

4.2.3 Phase Out 7

4.3 Technical Integration 7

4.4 High Performance Computing Environment 9

4.5 Networking and Communications 12

4.6 User Services 14

4.7 Facility Operations 18

4.8 Information Technology Security 23

4.9 Application Services and Tools 26

4.10 Visualization and Data Analysis 29

4.11 Modeling and Simulation 31

4.12 Data Publication and Distribution 32

4.13 Big Data Analysis and Analytics Support 33

4.14 Enhanced Collaborations and Visiting Scholars Program 34

4.15 Advanced Computing Research, Development, and Enhancement 35

4.16 Other Advanced Computing System Support 36

5. Appendix: Site Specific Information 38

6. Definitions and Acronyms 40

NNA17554082R J.1(a) Attachment 1

1. Introduction

The NASA Advanced Computing Services (NACS) Statement of Work (SOW) defines the scope of activities required to support advanced computing services for NASA. This SOW primarily covers both the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center (ARC), the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), other NASA Centers and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as required by the Government. The primary advanced computing service provided by both NAS and the NCCS is High Performance Computing (HPC, also known as supercomputing, or High End Computing (HEC)). Other areas, including high-end applications, data-intensive computing, collaborative computing, and emerging computing paradigms (such as quantum computing) are becoming increasingly important services. In addition, NACS will support NASA mission-driven science and engineering using these advanced computing services.

2. Background

NASA’s challenging mission to drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of Earth requires the Agency to innovatively apply and extend humankind’s most advanced capabilities, technologies, and knowledge. Advanced computing technologies are changing rapidly, and the applicability of these emerging technologies may be unrivaled in its breadth and impact across NASA’s mission. As the primary providers of these advanced computing services, NAS and the NCCS play a critical role in enabling NASA mission success across every mission area—Earth and space science, aeronautics research, space exploration, and supporting technology development.

NASA currently operates two major HPC facilities: the NAS Division at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, and the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NAS operates the primary HPC facility in support of all NASA mission areas, whereas the NCCS primarily supports the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Users of both facilities are broadly distributed across most NASA centers, JPL and numerous partner organizations, including other federal agencies, universities, corporations, and other organizations performing work for or with

NASA.

NAS’ mission is

“To support NASA’s Mission to advance science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration through the power of advanced computing and high fidelity modeling and simulation.”

In support of this mission, NAS

Maintains and operates the NAS facility, including world-class production supercomputing systems, data storage, local and wide area networking, and 24x7 user services;

Develops and applies advanced computational technologies and services, such as application performance optimization, system and user productivity tools, and data analysis and visualization;

Serves as the Agency pathfinder by evaluating and implementing advanced computing technologies; and

Develops mission-driven engineering and scientific models, numerical methods and algorithms, and simulation tools, and applies them in high-fidelity simulations in support of NASA’s mission.

The NCCS’s mission is

“To expand scientific and engineering frontiers by providing advanced, usable, agile, and efficient high performance computing services.”

In support of this mission, the NCCS provides services for the Science Mission Directorate by

Maintaining and operating the NCCS facility at GSFC, which includes large production supercomputing and cloud services, data storage, local and wide area networking, and user services designed to push the envelope of the state-of-the-art global climate simulations and related applications.

Developing and applying advanced data services, analytics, and visualization designed for both small and large data from the continuous real time transmission, acquisition, and transformation of satellite data to large-scale observation and model data analysis.

Exploring and developing advanced information technologies and services, such as emerging computing and data hardware and software, system and user productivity tools.

Providing a complete set of computing solutions for science that can rapidly respond to changing requirements, as well as changing technology, by providing support services from low-level system administration to high-level application support for the NASA scientific community.

High Performance Computing (HPC) is the assimilation of the most advanced computing systems, large-scale data storage, and high-speed networking technologies, the capabilities of which have increased exponentially for decades, into a leading-edge integrated tool set for solving complex computational problems that are either too large for standard computers or would take too long. When combined with sophisticated systems software and state-of-the-art specialized applications, HPC provides the premier environment for enabling advances in NASA’s challenging missions and solving NASA’s complex problems in various science and engineering domains. As a result, HPC provides broad support for high-fidelity modeling to design and improve aerospace vehicles, analysis of massive Earth observation data to predict potential near-term and long-term futures of our planet, and detailed astrophysical simulations and data analysis to understand the history and future of our universe, and our place within it.

In addition to managing the lifecycle of advanced computing systems, NAS and the NCCS also provide a comprehensive and integrated set of services designed to solve any user challenge and to help users to be maximally productive with these systems. These services include user support and helpdesk, application and workflow debugging and enhancement, data storage and management, data analysis, visualization, publication, end-to-end network optimization, and system environment customization. Additional essential services in support of HEC operations include facility operations, IT security, and publications and media services. With these services, it is the goal of this contract to enable NASA’s HPC enabled projects to achieve dramatic and rapid advances in scientific and engineering insight.

3. Scope

The Advanced Computing Service requirements (Section 4.0) outlines in the SOW provide support to the NAS Division and the NCCS, as outlines above in Section 2. In addition, NASA may decide to utilize NACS to support other HPC facilities at any of the NASA Centers and JPL, during some part of the contract.

The contract consists of the following:

Phase-In at ARC and GSFC (Section 4.1).

Core Contract Management at ARC and GSFC (Section 4.2).

Core Technical Services (Sections 4.3 through 4.9).

The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) component that provides support to the following:

All of GSFC Technical Services (Sections 4.3 through 4.15)

All of ARC Technical Services (Sections 4.10 through 4.15) and any new additional requirements (Sections 4.3 1 through 4.9) that are beyond the Core Technical Services.

Any required support for Section 4.16.

The process for issuing Task Orders under the IDIQ component is addresses in Section I (See I.8, NFS 1852.216-80, Task Ordering Procedure).

The NACS technical areas and contract management requirements are detailed in Section 4.

4. Advanced Computing Services Requirements

This section describes the advanced computing services requirements.

4.1 Phase-In

The phase-in process shall be accomplished as expeditiously as possible, with a maximum phase-in period of 30 days. The phase-in process shall not adversely impact the work being done by the outgoing contractor. It shall be conducted in a manner consistent with safe operation requirements. The incoming contractor is responsible for providing a qualified contractor staff by the end of the phase-in period.

4.2 Contract Management

The Contract Management technical area includes managing the contractor’s support for all administrative and technical activities, providing an interface between contractor management and the Government, and drawing on corporate knowledge and capabilities to support development of innovative solutions for the Government. The goals of this area are to:

Foster a highly collaborative and interactive environment both within the individual centers and across the entire NACS support contract;

Assist in the implementation of highly innovative approaches designed to increase the mission impact of NACS services;

Make day-to-day operations as efficient as possible and optimize costs;

Create a working environment that attracts and retains highly qualified contractor staff.

The outcome of these goals will be increased capability, flexibility, and efficiency in delivering both routine and novel advanced computing-enabled solutions to the Agency, increased breadth and depth of mission impact within budget, and increased stakeholder support.

Requirements:

The contractor shall:

Provide Program Management that will be the primary point of contact between the Contractor and the Government (CO, COR, and NACS management) that will be responsible for the entire performance under the contract, is authorized to make binding decisions about the contract, and has the authority to address day-to-day operational issues at NAS, NCCS, or other HPC centers.

Provide a primary technical interface between contractor’s staff on each task and the associated Government Task Requestor and Task (or technical area) Lead.

Seek and retain highly qualified staff that can substantially enhance the impact of NACS activities on NASA missions.

Determine the types and levels of expertise needed to effectively and cost-efficiently meets the requirements of each task, and implement this staffing plan as approved by the Government.

Ensure that contractor staff receive necessary technical certifications for performance of work, where required by Government regulations and policies or task requirements.

Respond quickly, effectively, innovatively, and within budget limitations to changing requirements within the scope of the contract.

Efficiently and effectively hire new staff as necessary to respond to changing requirements or as needed to fill openings.

Ensure that contractor personnel employ state-of-the-art approaches (e.g., modern software and system engineering practices) and tools.

Ensure that contract work products are meeting customers’ performance, schedule, cost, and documentation requirements.

Perform all tasks effectively and efficiently within approved budgets.

Where technical progress is adversely impacted by external factors, develop and recommend alternative work plans to maintain schedule, cost, and performance commitments.

Ensure that contractor personnel fully collaborate and exchange technical information with Government and other contractor staff in support of programmatic requirements.

Utilize throughout the contract a Government furnished task management system to support the processing of task orders, track performance, and document work products.

Incur, in a timely and cost-effective manner, Other Direct Costs (ODCs) under each task, when approved in advance and in writing by the CO and COR.

Support advanced computing and related acquisitions, for NASA- or contractor-owned.

Support the development of requirements documents, supporting material, solicitation of quotes and/or proposals, evaluation of bids with respect to the requirements, and provide a recommended solution for NASA- or contractor-purchased advanced computing and related hardware, software, maintenance, services, or supporting materials.

Purchase advanced computing and related acquisitions for NACS, upon approval from the Government.

Comply with all Government policies, regulations, and contractual requirements for all work performed under this contract.

Comply with NASA and Center(s) health, safety and environment requirements.

Contractor personnel may be required to travel for short periods of time to attend planning meetings, participate in industry site visits, attend technical conferences, or assist NASA customers. All foreign travel by Contractors supporting NASA requirements must be completed following the policies and procedures of the NASA Center International Services Office and NFS 1852.242-71.

Provide a trip/training report for all NASA-funded travel and training, summarizing the value to NACS and the individual centers as applicable.

Provide the Government with all data, databases, software, and documentation created or provided for the functioning of NACS’ advanced computing capabilities.

Provide the seamless management and technical control of subcontractor and vendor activities required to fulfill the requirements of the contract.

Include appropriate management visibility into all aspects of subcontractor and vendor performance, and integrate with other required management systems and reporting requirements of the prime contractor.

Meet regularly (at least monthly) to discuss and communicate contract progress to and accept feedback from the Contracting Officer, the Contracting Officer Representative, Government Task Monitors, and Government Site Leads.

Meet regularly throughout each contract year (at least quarterly) to discuss existing processes and proposed business process improvements across all NACS sites.

Meet yearly to assess Key Personnel positions, including recommendations and justification for positions to remain key, to de-scope key positions to other than key, or to elevate other than key positions to key.

Provide management reviews and required reports that provide accurate status of progress and performance.

Ensure that the Government has adequate insight into the risks associated with the Contractor’s ability to accomplish the SOW and Task Order requirements.

Include identification and mitigation of any risks associated with performance of the requirements.

Support any secure processing requirements, which could include hiring and employing personnel with required secret or top-secret clearances and expertise in any of the NACS technical areas.

4.2.1 Technical Direction

The COR may be authorized to provide technical direction in accordance with the Statement of Work and the NF 1634, Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR)/Alternate COR Delegation. Technical direction encompasses written direction from the COR to provide clarification of the contract’s general description of the scope of work to include approaches, solutions, designs, refinements or shifts within tasks, or inquiries related to the general tasks and requirements in the SOW.

The COR does not have the authority to, and shall not, issues any instructions purporting to be technical direction that constitutes an assignment of additional work outside the SOW; constitutes a change as defines in the changes clause; constitutes a basis for any increase or decrease in the total estimated contract cost, the fixed fee (if any), or the time required for contract performance; changes any of expressed terms, conditions, or specifications of the contract; or interferes with the contractor’s rights to perform the terms and conditions of the contract. Any disagreement between the COR and the Contractor must be elevated to and resolved by the Contracting Officer.

4.2.2 Government Furnished Property and Services

The Government will provide the Contractor the use of all office space, laboratory space, facilities, and computer hardware and software access, required to support the requirements of this SOW, except as otherwise noted.

4.2.3 Phase Out

Upon completion of this contract, the outgoing contractor is responsible for the orderly transfer of duties and records to the incoming contractor. This should be accomplished in an expeditious manner, consistent with any contract phase-in schedule, while minimally impacting ongoing task orders. The contractor shall submit a phase-out plan no later than 60 days before the end of the contract for Government review and approval.

4.3 Technical Integration

The Technical Integration area conducts or manages any high-level and crosscutting technical activities such as the development and implementation of advanced computing best practices that are designed and optimized for NASA and the individual center environments. This technical area seeks to

Create and enhance a NASA-wide advanced computing and data environment in order to reduce unnecessary duplication and disparity.

Efficiently share processes, workload, data, expertise, best practices, and information.

Provide backup for critical data and functions at each site.

The goal of this area is to provide expertise and focus to technical integration such that best practices will be developed and implemented in a useful timeframe. The desired outcomes are to maintain and enhance NASA’ performance and reputation as a world-class provider of advanced computing services; improve responsiveness, reliability, and quality of service for all of NASA’s advanced computing users; and increase effectiveness of NASA’s advanced computing investments.

Activities in support of Technical Integration:

Plan, conduct, and document market surveys to assess the state-of-the-art in relevant information system technologies and solutions.

Maintain and improve facility data backup and recovery.

Maintain and improve an effective incident response and disaster recovery plan that minimizes the impact of advanced computing system or facility downtime.

Maintain and improve an accessibility improvement plan for all NASA Centers.

Enhance Agency-wide approaches to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and ease-of-use of NASA’s advanced computing resources, involving sharing of knowledge, websites and information access, facility operations databases and processes, help desk functions, user accounts and single sign-on, job submission, and remote file access.

Requirements:

The contractor shall:

Coordinate dissemination of technical information among various contract activities, and maximize synergies among various technical areas.

Support the management of integrated product teams (IPTs), including (as necessary) the advanced computing user and Government and contractor staff from one or more technical areas, formed to resolve challenging and potentially interrelated bottlenecks in facility operations or application workflows.

Support the development of innovative advanced computing best practice concepts and implementation plans designed and optimized across NACS or specifically to the individual center environments that can substantially increase capability, flexibility, and efficiency in delivering both routine and novel advanced computing enabled solutions to the Agency.

Support the implementation process for advanced computing best practices, and the dissemination of these practices across the NACS contract and to the broader user community.

Develop tools for systems analysis of the NASA advanced computing environments, and apply those tools to identify and prioritize improvement opportunities.

Support the development of a long-term strategic vision and action plans for NACS to optimize costs, develop innovative best practices, enhance the contractor-Government team, and increase NASA’s ability to leverage advanced computing for greater mission success.

Support requirements gathering for use of NASA advanced computing and related capabilities and services.

Conduct market surveys and research studies as requested, to assess the state of the art and NASA requirements in current and emerging relevant technologies.

Conduct trade-off studies to provide a factual basis for cost-performance assessments.

Adhere to and support NACS in complying with and implementing relevant Government policies, regulations, and initiatives that require technical implementation approaches, including IT security, IT procurement, project management, and NASA Enterprise Architecture, including NASA Enterprise Architecture Procedures (NPR 2830.1A), Security of Information Technology (NPR 2810A), applicable FIPS, HSPD and FISMA documents, NASA program/project formulation and management (NPR 7120 publication series), Section 508 accessibility, and compliance with Section 516 of Public Law 113-6 that requires NASA to conduct an assessment of the vulnerability of IT systems to cyber-espionage and sabotage before acquiring any IT systems.

Support a coordinated and constructive dialog between NASA’s advanced computing facilities, stakeholders, and user community.

Support high-level technical interactions with external organizations (either within or outside of NASA, such as other Government computing centers) when required.

4.4 High Performance Computing Environment

HPC Environment technical area provides state-of-the-art, robust HPC and data environments to support NASA mission requirements for high-fidelity computational modeling, simulation, and data analysis. The goal is to provide integrated, balanced, leading edge, and yet highly reliable HPC and storage systems that optimally meet NASA’s needs. The desired outcome is to maximize the productivity and achievements of facility users. The NACS’ approach is

To maintain extensive knowledge of current and emerging HPC and storage technology.

Influence the development of large-scale systems.

Acquire and install high-productivity and cost-effective systems.

Improve operational characteristics to match the specific needs of the NASA user community.

Operate and support the systems to help users be highly productive and achieve maximum mission impact.

NACS simultaneously operates multiple HPC systems of differing sizes, architectures, user bases from across the NASA mission directorates, including research, development, and production systems. To effectively operate and improve these systems, NACS also acquires or develops software for resource management, job scheduling, system health monitoring, and usage reporting.

This technical area supports the entire lifecycle of NACS systems. While there may be site specific differences, in general, the system lifecycle includes the following 4 phases over a period of 6 or more years:

1. Procurement: Within this 12- to 18-month phase, there are four steps:

Market Research: Market-wide research and briefings from interested HPC system vendors on their technology roadmaps.

Assessment: Broad assessment of the performance, usability, reliability, and other characteristics of the most promising HPC system architectures.

Testbeds: Procurement and comprehensive performance evaluation and benchmarking of one or more large testbed HPC systems representing the most promising HPC system architectures.

Partnership: Support design development, in partnership with one or more selected HPC system vendors, of the next-generation HPC system(s) to be acquired. These systems will be selected considering the full cost of implementation and delivered performance for large-scale NASA applications, with a goal of tracking commodity price-performance improvements.

2. Build and Test: Once a system is purchased, it must enter production as soon as possible. Thus, the build and test phase requires an extremely disciplined and dedicated approach to quickly overcome the inevitable challenges of building a leading edge HPC and storage system. NACS intends to improve the process of building and testing for the future HPC systems.

3. Production: During the production phase, which typically covers 3 or more years, NACS pursues continuous improvement of its HPC and storage systems, to extract maximum benefit from these systems for NASA’s constantly changing computational workload. For systems that push the state-of-the-art, many aspects of the HPC hardware, software stack, supporting storage systems, and user environment can be improved to better match user needs and improve utility and reliability. NACS aggressively pursues this through the entire production phase.

4. Transition: During the production phase, NACS conducts one or more new HPC system procurements. When new systems are brought into production, NACS transitions users onto these more capable and cost-effective systems, and phases out the old systems. Due to the large number and variety of NACS users, this transition may take 2 years or more, because there are typically a few users whose applications are difficult to port from, or are well matched to, the previous system.

The activities associated with Supercomputing and Storage Systems technical area can also be partitioned into the following categories:

Systems Engineering and Development: Determining on-going system requirements and system architecture configurations for balanced capabilities including technology upgrades, identifying system deficiencies, and development and testing of proposed solutions. This also includes evaluation of current and future technology options, regression analysis after configuration changes (such as updates to the operating system, compiler, MPI and/or math libraries, etc.), and configuration management.

System Management: Day-to-day operational responsibilities, including activities such as on-going operating system kernel upgrades, system maintenance, patch management, configuration control, and system monitoring.

Security: Ensure that systems are updated and validated per NASA specification, and enhance data and system usability where specifically impacted by NASA security guidance.

Tools: Software development and management in support of system operation, including the development of a batch scheduling system to distribute work over the various computational systems, development of a monitoring and reporting infrastructure to assess and report on system health and usage, and installation of tools and third party packages to enhance user productivity.

The contractor shall:

Maintain market-wide expertise in HPC and storage systems to support mission requirements.

Support the evaluation and engineering of computing and storage systems and environments that will be used to solve large-scale computational modeling problems of interest to NASA.

Support the installation, integration, testing, securing, stabilization, and acceptance of new systems, services, or modifications to the existing environment.

Continuously improve the reliability, hardware and software features, scheduling, performance, and/or other appropriate capabilities as required to achieve significant improvements in computational modeling capabilities within NASA.

Maintain and manage NACS computing, storage systems, and relevant infrastructure in support of applications that have time critical and/or high reliability requirements for NASA missions and according to relevant security requirements and guidelines.

Maintain and manage robust application development environments.

Provide system engineering and administration to provide all operational duties on hardware and software to achieve high levels of availability, functionality, and performance, including, but not limited to, the following: installation and testing of software; configuration management; 24x7 automated monitoring; metrics gathering; tuning; documentation; standard operating procedures (SOPs);

problem solving; user support; and ticket resolution.

Address system issues quickly and promptly, coordinate with relevant hardware and software vendors, if necessary, to resolve issues, understand the root cause for failures, and to propose solutions to prevent or mitigate future issues.

Track vendor hardware and software requirements, propose, plan, and schedule upgrades to the Government as needed to maintain systems in accordance with maintenance contracts, IT security requirements, or industry best practices.

Support system development to support NASA’s largest computational requirements, such as large-scale parallel processing.

Provide systems engineering and development to maintain and improve compute and data systems, including shared file systems.

Provide systems engineering and development to support the development of the HPC operating system, developer and user tools, and run-time systems.

Develop, as needed, and deploy automated HPC tools for resource management, job scheduling, system monitoring, and system accounting.

Support other technical areas of the SOW, including Networking and Communications, User Services, Facility Operations, IT Security, and Applications to implement and maintain a highly secure and usable HPC environment.

Support the retirement, de-installation, and proper scrubbing of systems and services, as required.

4.5 Networking and Communications

The Networking and Communications technical area involves network development, engineering, integration, testing, deployment, operations, and performance studies in support of high-bandwidth and specialized HPC and other advanced computing requirements for the NACS facilities:

NAS

The NAS Local Area Network (NASLAN) core, border, and access.

The HEC enclave LAN including existing 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Infiniband (IB), future higher-speed technologies such as 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, and other high speed interconnects.

NCCS

The NCCS LAN core, border, and access points.

The HEC enclave LAN including existing 1, 10, and 40 Gigabit Ethernet, IB, future higher-speed technologies (Ethernet or other), and other high speed interconnects.

The Science and Engineering Network (SEN) LAN core, border, and access points.

The goals of this area are to provide advanced networking solutions for NASA’s advanced computing systems and applications, and to provide remote and local NASA HPC customers with the most efficient and seamless means for accessing shared advanced computing and data resources. The outcomes for Networking and Communications are to enhance:

Customer Impact: Utilize emerging networking technologies in order to enable new science discoveries and engineering solutions.

Network Performance: Dramatically increase network performance available for use in meeting NASA mission requirements.

Reliability: Improve the reliability of user-requested events executing on high-performance communications systems available for use in meeting NASA mission requirements.

Customer Usability: Improve the usability of HPC and communications tools and techniques available for use in meeting NASA mission requirements.

Security: Ensure that network hardware is updated and validated per NASA specification, and enhance network usability where specifically impacted by NASA security guidance.

Specific activities include:

Network management, including on-call services, troubleshooting, network and port reconfiguration, monitoring and analysis, system administration, metrics capture and reporting, and producing network diagrams.

Engineering design related to the LAN core, LAN interconnects, building access switches, HEC enclave LAN, routing, switching, and external peering.

Determining network requirements and solutions that result in end-to-end solutions (from system to user), cost planning, development and testing of proposed solutions, and integration.

Evaluation of current and future technology, regression analysis after configuration changes, and configuration management.

Tool development, including network monitoring and reporting, troubleshooting, assessing network health and usage, as well as efficient data transfer software and protocols for users and operations.

Requirements:

The contractor shall:

Existing Networks (Operations) o Support and operate the existing NACS network resources.

o Maintain and update documentation as needed for the NACS network systems.

o Provide networking support for advanced computing systems at all NACS facilities.

o Support network monitoring using network flow tools, SNMP, and other technologies, gather statistics, and generate reports.

o Provide regular testing of network performance between designated network end points that may have significant impact on NACS’ mission.

Enhance Networks o Support enhancements to network performance, reliability, and customer usability.

o Ensure high-speed external network connectivity for large data distribution and real-time interactive use.

o Facilitate performance upgrades to every increasing network performance (e.g., 40 Gigabits/sec, 100 Gigabits/sec, and beyond), as needed to meet advanced computing networking requirements.

o Support the development and implementation of the NACS LAN and advanced computing WAN border.

o Support advanced computing access by the NASA research and engineering communities, based on user requirements.

o Maintain currency with the state of the art, investigate new technologies, work with vendors to evaluate products, write white papers, and perform technology demonstrations.

External NACS o Support outreach to other NASA networking and network security projects (such as other science groups within NASA, either local or remote to the NACS facilities, universities, national laboratories, and potentially industry partners) to promote technology infusion and coordinate technology integration.

o Support advanced computing access to federal and academic entities via peering with the NASA Integrated Services Network (NISN), the NREN Metropolitan-Area Network (MAN), and the Mid Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) for connectivity to CENIC, Internet2, and other high performance research and engineering networks.

o Support various entities, including NASA LAN managers, advanced computing users, and NACS personnel, to develop end-to-end communication solutions that enable science and engineering advances.

Security o Provide an integrated, secure network border with a zoned architecture that, in conjunction with NASA, SOC, and local network security resources, meets all NASA, SOC, and DHS TIC network security requirements, and also meets advanced computing performance and external connectivity requirements.

4.6 User Services

User Services activities will maintain highly effective and efficient information exchange between users, NACS facilities, and Mission Directorate sponsors about all aspects of the systems and services through a variety of outlets. User Services integrates data gathered from users and other technical areas to provide relevant information to the Government about the users’ experience which may include such items as user requirements, usage reports, achieved and potential scientific accomplishments, and suggestions for optimizing the performance and mix of resources and services. The intent is to provide an increasingly more efficient set of user services to create a highly productive user experience and maximize the impact of NACS services for NASA.

NACS may provide advanced computing services to other non-NASA organizations by hosting their systems at specific sites, such as at NAS or at non-NASA locations.

Therefore, User Services may be required to support non-NASA customers, such as the NASA Security Operations Center (SOC), which may require 24x7 initial and primary help desk contact support for their users.

Control Room Operation/Help Desk

The contractor shall:

Provide a single point of contact for users to obtain information and request access to the NACS services at each site.

Be responsible for communicating with the user community through the use of electronic mail, websites, teleconferences, meetings, and social media.

Provide timely and succinct communications to the user community about system status, availability, system load, downtimes, news, announcements, and relevant changes to the environment that may affect systems and services.

Provide systems monitoring and basic user support. This includes constantly monitoring the NACS services, associated support systems, and the physical facility.

Be available to answer help desk phone calls, take initial emails through the ticketing system and provide Level 1 support for the users, such as basic trouble shooting, and resolving issues with user accounts.

o NAS requires their control room to be staffed 24x7.

o NCCS required their help desk to be staffed from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.

Eastern Time (U.S.) Monday through Friday.

Maintain the documentation (including call lists) for operational and disaster recovery procedures.

User Liaisons

The contractor shall:

Maintain liaisons, build relationships, and regularly interact with key user communities to ensure that the NACS systems are meeting both the existing user requirements and have plans to fulfill future requirements.

Report back to NACS Government management about the interactions with users and provide recommendations for how to better serve the user community and increase mission impacts.

Provide impact assessments of potential changes to the operational environment and assist in coordinating those changes with the user community.

Support user outreach activities including but not limited to, user forums, brown bags, electronic communications, social media, webinars and teleconferences.

Attend relevant scientific meetings and conferences to be a liaison between NACS and the broader scientific and engineering community and write a trip report about the information learned and potential impacts on the NACS environment.

Discuss the capabilities of NACS with potential users, understand user requirements and workflows, and make recommendations for how NACS may be able to assist new users.

Allocation and Management Process for NACS Resources

The contractor shall:

Document the process for users to request and receive user accounts, which include processes for granting, continuing, and terminating user accounts (for all users including foreign nationals).

Develop and implement processes that follow current NASA policies and procedures for establishing NASA identities and granting access to information system resources, with special emphasis on IT security requirements

Develop and implement processes that are consistent, when appropriate, between NACS facilities.

Provide end-to-end management and implementation of the process for accessing resources at each site, which includes account creations, interfacing with relevant NASA systems (such as IdMAX and NAMS), site specific processes, tracking the completion of IT security training, deletions, modifications, and password resets.

Work with the HEC Program manager to determine the allocations to the Mission Directorates and the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC).

Work with the HEC Program manager to communicate the allocations to these organizations, explain the e-Books-based allocation request process to users, collect requests for computer time, format them for Mission Directorate and NESC review and approval, communicate decisions to the users, and implement the approved allocations.

Report on utilization of allocated resources and on the status of user accounts. This includes maintaining web-based information and forms pertaining to access to and utilization of NACS resources.

Problem/Incident Resolution

The contractor shall:

Maintain and operate a state-of-the-art help ticket system for each facility (NAS and NCCS), to manage, track, and coordinate completion of tasks and resolution of problems or issues reported by users and facility personnel.

Provide end-to-end problem/incident resolution that begins with the first contact regarding a request for information or help in addressing an issue (incident).

Log all problems, requests, and inquiries in the center’s ticketing system.

Resolve basic incidents as soon as the ticket is logged, which may include, but not be limited to, bringing up, rebooting, and shutting down systems; providing systems’ status information; setting or resetting passwords; activating SecurID fobs; resolving file permission problems; increasing allocations and quotas; archiving and restoring user data; and answering basic questions on getting allocations and accounts, logging on, submitting jobs, and transferring data.

Evaluate more complex issues to determine the priority and the group to which the ticket should be assigned, and assign the ticket to the appropriate group.

Track resolution of all incidents and, when appropriate, the underlying problems that cause the incidents.

Coordinate the resolution of incidents and problems that are complex and/or involve multiple groups.

Documentation and Training

The contractor shall:

Increase the self-sufficiency of the NACS user community, thereby reducing the user need for and dependency on User Services.

Present informational briefings and training classes, provide on-line and/or hardcopy documentation, conduct workshops, webinars, and seminars, and capture and disseminate knowledge.

Document best practices for how to use NACS resources, generate relevant white papers, studies, and success stories.

Develop and provide web-based and other information about each sites system components, configuration, capabilities, and their effective and appropriate use.

Service Management

The contractor shall:

Prepare monthly highlights and a monthly report for each NACS facility summarizing usage by project, mission directorate, and as a whole.

Prepare a monthly Operational Analysis for each NACS facility.

Review ticket logs to assure that tickets are addressed in a timely manner, look for trends that might identify recurring or emerging issues or problems, report on these trends, and recommend corrective actions if necessary.

Gather user feedback though trouble ticket analysis, teleconferences, site visits, phone calls, annual surveys, and other appropriate methods, and use the information to measure systems, services, and user behavior; to collect user feedback on systems' performance and services; and to identify issues and trends that affect services.

Inform NACS management in a timely manner regarding critical feedback from users, including both major successes/highlights and major concerns/problems.

Inform NACS management regarding how well the facility resources and services are meeting user needs and interests.

Provide recommendations on how to improve overall services, which may involve following activities o Supporting the integration of new technology through testing, evaluation, and development of new/modified documentation, o Tracking and evaluating developments in user services at peer HPC facilities, o Maintaining currency and evaluating developments across the general IT industry.

Development Tasks

As necessary, the contractor shall:

Support or complete development tasks required to support ongoing activities.

Be a part of an Integrated Product Team (IPT) with other groups either within a single center or across multiple centers. Examples of past development tasks have included the following:

o Developing an on-line account request form, o Transitioning to the Remedy ticketing system, o Implementing additional Remedy capabilities and enhancements (such as providing weekly Point of Contact information for groups), o Implementing common user identification numbers and group identifiers across NACS centers, and o Implementing a common Standard Billing Unit.

4.7 Facility Operations

The Facility Operations technical area includes support for physical plant operations and maintenance (O&M), property control, computer system administration for facility staff, website maintenance, and facility multimedia and communications. The goal of this task is to operate and maintain a safe, efficient, and productive supercomputing facility. The desired outcomes are an improved working environment for facility staff, and enhanced value to users, sponsors, and the public. The activities of this technical area fall into three sub-areas, as described below.

Facilities and Plant Engineering

This sub-area includes managing the complex subsystems of the physical computing facility, ensuring that all associated safety codes are met, and providing engineering solutions to meet the expanding needs of the facility. These subsystems include electrical power, chillers and HPC cooling (air and chilled water), heating/ventilation/air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing, fire alarms and emergency systems, telecommunication and audio-visual cabling and connections, flooring, lighting, elevators, restrooms, and building structures. Additionally, this sub-area includes handling the facility’s physical security system to limit and control access to the facility, performing property management in adherence to federal regulations, and relocating office contents, equipment, and other items within the facility as well as into and out of the facility.

The contractor shall:

Operations o Coordinate all aspects of NACS related facilities with the appropriate facility operations managers and facility management divisions at each site.

o Provide 24x7 monitoring of the operational status of all NACS facilities through automated monitoring, including but not limited to, power, cooling, environment conditions, and leaks.

o Provide regular reports on the status of all related facilities, coordinated planned outages, and support the root cause analysis of unplanned outages.

o Document, maintain, and manage all aspects of the NACS facilities, including but not limited to, facility configuration diagrams, power and cooling distribution, and floor diagrams for all NACS manages spaces.

o Coordinate and ensure completion of maintenance and repairs, as necessary.

o Ensure facility compliance with all safety and environmental codes.

o Maintain and safely operate the facility machine shop, if applicable.

o Provide property management services (stewardship, management, and documentation) of all NACS assets using the NASA property database, consistent with federal regulations and NASA Property Management policies for shipping, receiving, excessing equipment, trade-ins, equipment transfers, and periodic reporting.

o Support property audits, as necessary to track the lifecycle of capital assets.

o Provide support to coordinate and support office moves including logistics, furniture, telephones, and other facility equipment and materials.

o Provide shipping and receiving services and coordinating all deliveries and pickups, including the operation of a loading dock, forklift truck, hand trucks, and associated equipment.

Site Preparation o Provide input into capacity planning to meet future facility requirements.

o Coordinate and ensure completion of modifications to all NACS facility subsystems, and ensure efficient and effective operation of these subsystems.

o Coordinate and ensure completion of any new construction requested by the Government. Provide site preparation for new HPC systems.

o Coordinate all deliveries and pickups as required.

General Server and Desktop Support

This sub-area includes providing general data center services and support, including server and user system procurement, administration, and software installation. Specific activities include providing Lead System Administrator (LSA)-certified system and user support for facility desktop computer systems and Unix computer services (printing, file servers, backups, email, web, etc.), 8x5 POC (point of contact) support for desktop computers, and 24x7 support for critical servers (e.g., file, email, web, fail-over DNS systems and resource usage accounting). The objective is to provide excellent support to users with minimal staffing through the use of automation, configuration control, and clearly defined processes. Standard systems and builds, minimizing the number of operating systems, effective administrative tools, and automated web processes have been implemented to ensure continual achievement of this objective.

Desktop system support includes new system deployments, regular OS and security patching, OS upgrades, user data backup, general application support, and hardware maintenance. Server support is provided for printing (including printers and print servers), file servers, backups, email, patching, web servers, Concurrent Version System (CVS), FTP, trouble ticketing, databases, account management and system administrative services, as well as OS support for servers utilized by other groups for their services.

Server support includes regular OS and security patching, OS upgrades and hardware maintenance and upgrades.

Requirements:

The contractor shall:

Coordinate, order, track, provide cost analyses, and invoice auditing for services obtained through NASA managed services (e.g., NASA Agency Consolidated End- User systems or ACES) for such things as personal computing, hardware, software, and mobile platforms.

Provide LSA-certified system and user support for facility desktop systems.

Provide LSA-certified system and user support for facility internal computer servers and services.

Maintain IT security for facility desktop and server computers, consistent with NASA, Center, and NAS standards.

Provide 8x5 POC support for desktops and servers, and 24x7 POC support for identified critical services.

Provide support for web content design and development for facility internal and public web servers.

Provide web programming as requested to facilitate development of web content.

Provide development of automated tools and services to enhance the mobile computing model used for laptops.

Technical Writing and Multimedia Production

This…