RFI 47QFRA22K0015 _ .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services.pdf

Market Research

Request for Information (RFI) – .gov Top Level Domain (TLD) Registry and DNS Services.

Agency - Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Market Research Agency - General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), Region 8.

Notice Type- Request for Information (RFI)

GSA Reference- 47QFRA22K0015 Posting Date – March 31, 2022

I. General Information

The General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), Region 8, is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) on behalf of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure

Security Agency (CISA).

II. RFI Objective

The purpose of this RFI is to assist the Government in conducting market research focused on identifying potential offerors as well as to gain technical feedback from industry that will assist in the development of an effective and productive solicitation for a potential contract for .gov Top -

Level Domain (TLD) Registry and DNS Services.

These services may include but are not limited to what is provided in Attachment A .gov TLD

Registry and DNS Services Statement of Objectives. The Government retains the right to change the Statement of Objectives (SOO) draft and any information contained in this RFI or the attachments, and any information therein may be changed or omitted in any resultant solicitation.

The information provided in response to this RFI will be used for market research only. The

Government is not obligated to release a future solicitation based on this market research. The

Government does currently anticipate a solicitation release in quarter three of Government fiscal year 2022.

III. Background

The DOTGOV Act of 2020 appointed CISA as the policy and management authority for the .gov

TLD. .gov domains (e.g., whitehouse.gov) are only available to bona fide U.S.-based government organizations and publicly controlled entities. Since they signal being official and trusted, .gov domains are actively used by each branch of the federal government, every state in the nation, hundreds of counties and cities, and many tribes and territories to serve the public on the internet.

The current instantiation of the .gov TLD service, combines the key functions for administering and operating the .gov TLD, specifically the registrar and registry. Following extensive market research, CISA has decided to strategically separate these functions through a registry and DNS specific acquisition (.gov TLD Registry and DNS Services) and by CISA developing a new .gov registrar apart from this acquisition.

This RFI provides industry with the current drafted requirements for the .gov TLD Registry and

DNS Services acquisition.

IV. Potential Scope

See Attachment A: .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services Statement of Objectives.

V. RFI Response

GSA asks for interested parties to respond to the questions in this RFI along with providing any additional feedback seen as necessary regarding the project for the Government’s consideration.

Format: Please ensure response documents are compatible with Microsoft Word for Office 2010.

Please limit responses that are not input into the Attachment B to a total of 4 pages.

CONTENTS

Section 1: The cover page shall provide administrative information, and shall include the following as a minimum:

A. Contractor name and facility address

B. DUNS or UEI number

C. Socio-economic status (HUBZone, Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned, Woman-

Owned, 8(a), Small Business, Large Business) for NAICS code 541715- Research and

Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology).

D. POC name, phone, and email

E. Website URL

Please do not use more than 1 page for this information.

Section 2: GSA seeks your responses, input and feedback regarding the following:

1. Does your company have experience providing TLD registry and DNS services similar to that listed in the SOO? If so, can you please provide (1) a list of those contracts or task orders demonstrating your capabilities performing similar work to this draft SOO; and (2) a narrative as to how or why you are confident that your listed example is similar to the attached draft SOO? Examples could include task orders against your GSA schedule contract or other contract vehicles such as GSA OASIS, GSA Alliant 2 or open market contracts.

2. Review Attachment A - .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services Statement of Objectives and provide any questions, comments, or technical recommendations in the Attachment B

- TLD Registry and DNS Services Feedback Form. If areas of the SOO are unclear or lacking, please provide a recommended update to fix the ambiguity in Attachment B.

3. Attachment C - .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services Price Schedule provides the anticipated template that will be used for pricing, with narrative details around the approach on the “CLIN Summary” tab and “CLIN x002” tab. Please provide feedback on the ability of your company to price its service according to this approach.

4. CISA anticipates consistent growth (+20% yearly) in the .gov zone over the next few years, with the strongest growth among non-federal agencies. For instance, CISA anticipates approximately 8,000 second-level domains in the zone by October 2022 and approximately 10,000 by October 2023. For a hosted DNS offering, CISA anticipates immediate adoption by new registrants and smaller organizations, while larger organizations like major federal agencies will have a slower uptake. CISA expects these larger organizations to have an initial interest in CISA hosting a secondary service for them. With this in mind, please review the Attachment D - .gov Domain List (see above for description) and provide any feedback on additional considerations the Government can provide to facilitate pricing estimates for authoritative DNS services as .gov grows.

5. What evaluation factors should the Government consider to ensure the registry services provider is the most qualified to deliver on the technical requirements? Are there any additional recommendations to ensure the Government can effectively differentiate between potential registry service providers?

6. Is use of a Statement of Objectives (SOO) considered by the respondent to be the best method of procuring these services? Should the Government consider a solicitation with a

PWS and would that result in stronger proposals?

7. Would your company require a teaming arrangement to bid on this work? If so, which portions of the work would require a teaming arrangement?

8. Using the scale at the end of this question, how likely is your company to submit a Quote if a solicitation is published based on the information contained in this RFI. Rating scale

1=not-likely, 2=likely if additional information were provided or a change were made, or

3=very likely.

9. If you responded with a “1” or a “2” to question 3 above, please tell us what could GSA do to make your company a “3” or very likely to submit a quote?

10. Please provide any other information you deem relevant for the Government’s consideration for this RFI.

Please try to keep any responses that are not input into the Attachment B to 4 pages or less.

VI. Contractor Notification and Submittal Instructions

This RFI is for market research information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a

Request for Quote (RFQ) and is not to be construed as a commitment by the U. S. Government.

NO AWARD WILL BE MADE AS A RESULT OF THIS RFI.

All information is to be submitted at no cost or obligation to the Government. Any information that the Contractor considers proprietary should be removed from their submission. DO NOT

INCLUDE PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

The Government may consider additional communications with submitting companies utilizing the contact information provided in the Corporate Overview to further the Government’s market research for .gov Top Level Domain (TLD) Registry and DNS Services. At the Government’s discretion, one-on-one meetings may be scheduled with industry to discuss responses to this RFI.

If a follow-up meeting is required, the Government will reach out directly to the industry partner point of contact.

All information submitted shall be UNCLASSIFIED

Please submit RFI responses by 11:00AM ET on April 11, 2022 via email to both jessica.conway-ellis@gsa.gov and elaine.holloway@gsa.gov. RFI Responses must have the email

Subject Line of “47QFRA22K0015 - CISA .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services RFI

Response.”

VII. Attachments:

This RFI includes the following attachments:

• Attachment A - .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services Statement of Objectives

• Attachment B - .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services Feedback Form

• Attachment C - .gov TLD Registry and DNS Services Price Schedule

• Attachment D - .gov Domain List

Attachment D identifies the .gov domains that were represented in the 16 March 2022 version of the Tranco list a publicly available list of the 1 million “top” domains. On this day, there were 7,611 second-level .gov domain names in the .gov zone. 2,114 .gov domains were represented in the list, though only 2,033 were active in the .gov zone on that day.

https://tranco-list.eu/assets/tranco-ndss19.pdf https://github.com/cisagov/dotgov-data/blob/78e2e4c34a84acbaef8995a45a69ec797118e652/current-full.csv