RFI TIVOD Modernization Project.pdf

Request for Information for the TIVOD Modernization Project

This is a Request for Information (RFI) to determine available sources and their capability to provide the product or service described below and for such other purpose as described below. This request for information does not constitute a solicitation and is not an indication the Government will contract for any of the items and services discussed in this notice. Submission of a response to this RFI is entirely voluntary. The voluntary submissions of answers to this RFI shall not obligate FSA to pay or entitle the submitter of information to claim any direct or indirect costs, charges, or other compensation whatsoever.

Any information considered proprietary should be noted via appropriate markings. The Government and its support contractor, Guidehouse, will use such information only to inform and support any potential solicitation and contract or for such other purposes as described below.

Federal Student Aid (FSA), an office of the Department of Education (ED), serves over 43 million student customers with a loan portfolio more than $1.6 trillion. In FY 2022, Federal Student Aid delivered more than $111 billion to more than 9.8 million students attending approximately 5,500 postsecondary institutions.

FSA continues its Next Generation (Next Gen) FSA initiative. As part of this effort, FSA shall modernize its legacy processing systems improving operational flexibility; efficiently and effectively integrating new and existing capabilities and features; drive greater operational efficiency, reduce complexity; and improve the stability and cybersecurity of its systems.

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to gain information on current industry capabilities for creating and implementing systems supporting the processing of federal student aid applications.

FSA plans to modernize the Common Origination & Disbursement system (COD), the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS), the Enterprise Data Warehouse & Analytics (EDWA) & Enterprise Data Management and Analytics Platform Services (EDMAPS), the Federal Tax Information Datamart, and centralize Customer Service for partners.

When referenced in this document, partners include institutions of higher education, state grant agencies, eligible and approved Guarantee Agencies, Federal Loan Servicers, lenders and lender servicers, FSA Staff & contractors, third-party software providers, third-party services, and ED and its contractors.

This RFI is kept brief for ease of reading, but vendors may acquire more information via the Student Aid Data Center and FSA’s 2022 Annual Financial Report, linked below:

• https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student

• https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2022report/fsa-report.pdf

Background and Key Information

The new procurement, titled Title IV Origination and Disbursement (TIVOD) Modernization, intends to modernize and secure platforms and business processes, improve data accessibility and its strategic use, and transform partner customer service and engagement.

This work shall improve transparency and centralize project management tools, code repositories, and common development tools, providing standardization across teams and projects.

https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2022report/fsa-report.pdf

In this section, FSA provides a further description of the projects within the scope of the Program to aid contractors in responding to this RFI. Vendors are encouraged to ask additional questions to acquire clarifying information needed to confidently calculate expected costs, time, and complexity for this system modernization.

The Common Origination and Disbursement system (COD)

The Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System processes originations and disbursements for all Title IV programs, managed by the office of Federal Student Aid, and maintain borrower servicer relationships. The COD system also includes operations and service support as well as program management support.

Incoming data is supplied to COD from many different sources including other FSA systems and from thousands of schools across the country. The data and/or records are submitted via real time batch processing, direct web entries, or by paper. Batch submission contain an unlimited amount of data.

The goal of this project is to secure the services of a vendor to provide Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support for the COD System to implement an enhanced, more efficient solution. The modernized COD System should improve automation and system flexibility while also reducing operational complexity and inefficiency.

VENDOR REQUIREMENT

A vendor must be able to support the following:

• Accept and process Title IV federal student aid originations and disbursements for current and active Award Years (active award years include 2019 – 2025) for eligible students and schools and to support internal and external partners for repayment and forgiveness activities.

• Provide robust reporting capabilities for all stakeholders, including standard pre-defined reports and access to a data warehouse of production-level data and analytical tools for ad hoc analyses and reporting.

• Operate a COD Operations Portal covering the need for a central repository for all working documents, contract deliverables, and other operational products to ensure the efficient and effective operations of the COD environment and oversight by FSA.

The COD System contains the following capabilities:

• Partner Interface: COD allows partners to update records in real time through a secure logon via web interface or batch for current and active Award Years for eligible students and schools and to support internal and external partners for repayment and forgiveness activities.

• Origination and Disbursement Processing for Title IV Programs: Process and disburse aid for all FSA Title IV programs, including William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program Loans, Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program Loans, Federal Pell Grants, Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants (IASG), Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grants, Children of Fallen Heroes Grants (CFH), and the three campus-based programs: Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), Federal Work Study (FWS), and Federal Perkins Loans, as well as any new programs established by Congress for the distribution of Title IV funding, to eligible schools for eligible students. The Contractor provides the following Origination and Disbursement Services: processing services, loan and grant management services, customer support services, reporting services, system and operations services, and program management support services.

Vendors may acquire more information through the COD Technical Reference via the FSA Partner Connect Knowledge Center below:

https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/system-technical-references/2022-10- 26/2023-2024-cod-technical-reference-march-2023-update

• Reports: provide the capability to create and deliver a wide array of reports in specified formats to partners, as well as support ad hoc requests and changes over time.

• Establishing and Maintaining Borrower-Servicer Relationships: includes a process for distributing student loans to eligible servicers, and for maintaining and reassigning those loans according to applicable policies and regulations as well as changes to servicer eligibility and contracts.

• Internal and External interfaces: the system shall establish and maintain effective and efficient interfaces with about 31 internal and external systems. These systems shall be identified in the requirements and updated in accordance with business needs, policies, and regulations.

• Program Management and Operational Support Staff: includes robust measures for ensuring the compliance and accuracy of financial transactions and reporting.

• Audit Support: audits and risk assessments are supported by a combination of audit logs, audit reports, Web, and database queries.

• User and Delivery Channels: leverages FSA’s identity and access management authentication and authorization controls to manage data access. Users who access records containing Personal Identifiable Information (PII) only have access to the minimum amount of PII, along with only those privileges (e.g., read, write, execute) necessary to perform their job duties.

Delivery channels enforce separation of duties for access to PII by preventing users of de-identified data to re-identify the data.

• Funds Management: includes robust measures for ensuring the compliance and accuracy of school reconciliation, financial transactions, audit capability, and reporting.

• Retrieving and processing archive data: for each existing federal student aid program and any new programs created by Congress.

• Notifications & Responses: includes the responses to schools to confirm receipt of appropriately formatted records for processing and to provide responses on the results of processing.

• Correspondence: includes letters and other notifications to applicants and schools provided in email and/or paper (mail) formats and in compliance with federal records management and accessibility (508, WCAG) standards. The paper correspondence is also available on Studentaid.gov in PDF format.

• System Documentation: includes Partner facing technical references, and support with electronic communications, handbooks, and training conferences.

• Batch Processing: Receive and process an unlimited amount of data in each batch submission.

https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/system-technical-references/2022-10-26/2023-2024-cod-technical-reference-march-2023-update https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/system-technical-references/2022-10-26/2023-2024-cod-technical-reference-march-2023-update

National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS)

The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) is the first comprehensive national database of information about the federal financial aid history of recipients of student financial assistance, authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. Information from NSLDS is used by stakeholders including the White House, Congress, General Accounting Office (GAO), Office of Inspector General (OIG), lenders, servicers, other federal agencies and most importantly, students and their parents, to provide a comprehensive resource on disbursed Title IV aid. Between 2019 – 2022 NSLDS was modernized and re-deployed within existing system boundaries.

As the central database for Title IV student financial aid, NSLDS contains nearly 39TB of data about loans, grants, students, borrowers, lenders, guaranty agencies (GAs), schools, and servicers. It provides an integrated view of Title IV loans and grants during all stages of their life cycle from aid approval through disbursement, repayment, default, and closure.

NSLDS data is used in real time to support borrower-specific features on StudentAid.gov as well as the "student view" of information for Financial Aid Professionals via the FSA Partner Connect website. It also maintains data exchanges with about two dozen internal and external (federal and state agencies) to support their student loan incentive programs. On average, NSLDS provides real time data for about 175 million calls per month.

Incoming data is supplied to NSLDS from many different sources, including other FSA systems, Guaranty Agencies, Federal Loan Servicers and from thousands of schools across the country. The data arrives in a variety of formats and according to schedules set for each reporting organization.

Output from NSLDS is determined by business functionality, and includes but is not limited to, web data displays, letters to school officials, and batch files (reports, confirmations, error files) which are provided in a variety of electronic formats. The NSLDS website supports over 50,000 users in their roles as financial aid professionals, who retrieve aid data for over 20 million borrower per month.

NSLDS processes and maintains data pertaining to the three campus-based programs, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), Federal Work Study (FWS), and Federal Perkins Loans, and the Federal Direct Loan Program, Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), and Federal Grants.

The solution also includes operations, service support and program management.

VENDOR REQUIREMENT

A vendor must be able to support the following:

The goal of this project is to secure the services of a vendor to provide Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support for the NSLDS program enabling FSA to effectively collect and integrate customer Title IV aid data to support aid delivery and Title IV program management and oversight. The contract needs to accommodate all the current functionality of NSLDS as well as:

• Establishing a tenant in the FSA cloud system including all logical infrastructures and security requirements.

• Interface with other FSA IT systems including FSA Cloud hosted components and external systems/tools with established connections over the internet for web services and batch processing. FSA Cloud provides the network boundary for NSLDS and other tenant applications, while networking for external systems exists separately.

• Maintain about 20 internal and external interfaces with systems and entities to support NSLDS business requirements.

• Communicate via real-time Representational State Transfer (REST API) with external systems.

• Receive and store student and borrower loan, grant, and enrollment data from Data Providers.

Perform calculations using NSLDS data to support operations and continuous monitoring of the Title IV programs.

• Maintain the NSLDS Professional Access website, including the ability for users to request NSLDS data-driven reports.

• Maintain a data monitoring and resolution group to ensure the quality of data in NSLDS meets minimum required standards, and to aid Education users with data requests and provide training for analyzing NSLDS data via the User Database.

The National Student Loan Database Systems (NSLDS) contains the following capabilities:

• Audit Support: Audits and risk assessments are supported by a combination of audit logs, audit reports, Web, and database queries.

• Batch Processing: NSLDS allows Data Providers to report data to NSLDS according to the specified data provider instructions provided to these groups. The vendor must be able to receive and process an unlimited amount of data in these batches.

• Calculations: NSLDS stores and displays data for calculating cohort default status, Gainful Employment, and school level data for the College Scorecard. NSLDS also calculates and distributes files for Public Service Loan Forgiveness Servicers.

• Credit Reform Act Support: The Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 Act (CRA) Support and related OMB circulars require the Department to identify loans by loan program, cohort year, and risk category. NSLDS is the Department’s only source of this loan-level data. NSLDS makes available the data the Department’s Budget Services requires for this purpose.

• Enrollment Reporting: NSLDS generates and sends Enrollment Reporting Rosters to schools.

Schools or their servicers (often the National Student Clearinghouse) respond to and can update the reports by batch submission or by entering data online. Statistics of the compiled data are available on the NSLDS Web site.

• Financial Aid History (FAH) Information: NSLDS generates FAH information and forwards a borrower’s history to internal systems and partners via an ad hoc process.

• Electronic Loan Application Reporting: NSLDS processes and stores information about electronic applications by internal systems and Federal Loan Servicers. This information is used to create summary-level report extracts available for download by authorized users on the NSLDS Professional Access Web site.

• Loan Purchase Program (PUT): NSLDS matches FFEL records purchased by ED to a Federal Loan Servicer. NSLDS applies the servicers’ loan identifier to the record to facilitate continued reporting and updating by the servicer. NSLDS also provides online match resolution options to allow the servicer to indicate loans for which they now have reporting responsibility but were not updated based on data provided from the servicer.

• Post screening for Title IV Aid Eligibility: For each award year, NSLDS post screens for default, overpayment, and fraud convictions, as well as loan eligibility criteria.

• Prescreening for Title IV Aid Eligibility: NSLDS prescreens to identify applicants who go into/out of default on an existing Title IV loan; who owe/paid overpayments on Pell, ACG, National SMART Grants, TEACH Grants, FSEOGs, IASG, or Perkins loans; or who have come close, exceeded, or resolved aggregate loan limits, or other changes in aid impacting a borrower’s eligibility.

• Reaffirmation Information: NSLDS processes, stores, and displays reaffirmation information reported by FFEL Program lender/lender servicers and Federal Loan Servicers (FLS) on the NSLDS Professional Access Website.

• Real Time Data Inquiries: NSLDS generates financial aid information in response to “real time” requests from ED applications.

• Repayment (Notional) Information: NSLDS provides schools summary and detail student repayment data for informational purposes.

• Security Monitoring: NSLDS provides monitoring tools an organization can use to ensure users are compliant with the NSLDS rules of access. NSLDS systematically monitors and provides email notifications alerting partners to take the appropriate and necessary actions. NSLDS provides an ad hoc Adobe PDF reporting capability to help monitor user activities, as well as reports delivered via the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailboxes.

• Web Inquiries: NSLDS provides the NSLDS Professional Access Website for schools, state grant agencies, eligible and approved Guarantee Agencies’ (GA), Federal Loan Servicers, lenders and lender servicers, and ED and its contractors to view NSLDS data. Depending on user access, the Web site also allows for data updates and provides a list of ad hoc or scheduled reports requested to receive organization-specific data from NSLDS.

• User and Delivery Channels: NSLDS leverages FSA’s identity and access management authentication and authorization controls to manage data access. Users who access records containing PII only have access to the minimum amount of PII, along with only those privileges (e.g., read, write, execute) necessary to perform their job duties. Delivery channels enforces separation of duties for access to PII by preventing users of de-identified data to re-identify the data.

Enterprise Data Warehouse & Analytics (EDWA) & Enterprise Data Management and Analytics Platform Services (EDMAPS), the Federal Tax Information Datamart

EDMAPS is FSA’s unified data platform to centralize, integrate, and manage student aid, customer, school, and partner data. EDMAPS has established several key data systems, databases, and support components.

EDMAPS hosts two mission-critical data systems:

• EDWA is FSA’s data warehouse, used for analytics, departmental dashboards, reports, views, visualizations, fulfilling data requests, research, analysis, and statistical modeling. EDWA utilizes machine learning models in Title IV system operations to create better outcomes for our customers and to prevent fraud.

• Person Master Data Management (pMDM) is a database of master customer records interfacing with other FSA systems and software.

EDMAPS also contains three standalone repositories: Debt Relief, which is intended to be the backend repository of applicants who applied for student loan debt relief; a Private Collection Agency (PCA) repository utilized for analytics and audit reviews; and retired servicer repositories utilized for analytics.

In addition to these, EDMAPS has a data lake utilized for capturing incoming data files and an archive zone for inactive data. There’s also a Metadata repository containing data dictionaries, lineage, a business glossary, and field-level rules.

Dashboards, reports, querying, research, and modeling are supported by a suite of software, including Cognos, SAS, Python, R, Tableau, and Alation.

EDMAPS interfaces with other systems, security, access management, and produces interactive self-service internal and public facing data sets/products. EDMAPS limits access to personally identifiable information while maintaining the ability to join disparate data sets containing customer information.

VENDOR REQUIREMENT

A vendor must be able to support the following:

The goal of this project is to secure the services of a vendor to provide O&M support for the Enterprise Data Warehouse & Analytics (EDWA) & Enterprise Data Management and Analytics Platform Services (EDMAPS), the Federal Tax Information Datamart. The contract needs to include all the current functionality as well as:

• Backend functionality to cleanse and conform data to the databases, web services and APIs, and distribution of data to other systems operating on custom code, not configurable Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products.

• COTS products to realize a low- to no-code environment, yielding to a more streamlined approach to data acquisition, cleansing and conforming, processing business rules, capturing metadata, and faster response times.

• Data structures supporting the growth of EDMAPS analytics and capabilities.

• Architecture supporting the ability to expand the data lake and utilize publish-subscribe functionality.

• Dynamic and scalable platforms deployed and then removed as needed by users.

• Tenants operating within other major FedRAMP compliant platforms.

EDMAPS has the following capabilities:

• Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDWA): delivers functionality, analytics, and interactive self-service to data, reports, and research.

• Master Data Management (MDM): borrower, student, award, and partner data

• Operational data store (ODS): multiple ODS’s storing transactional level data for offloading reporting from mission-critical transactional systems.

• Online Transaction Processing (OLTP): multiple OLTP databases serve as the core database for

FSA’s transactional systems.

• Real-time Data Exchanges and Data Virtualization: real-time batch processing and data virtualization techniques

• Data lake: includes “consumer”, “curated” and Archive zones.

• Data Marts: serve various departmental analytics and reporting needs.

• Enterprise-wide Metadata and business glossary: captures FSA-wide metadata providing governance over data quality, timeliness, and use of consistent format and meaning across systems.

• Machine learning: shall expand with more data in EDMAPS to learn from and leverage more effective modeling in areas of the student aid lifecycle in real time operations.

• Document repository: centralized document, form and application repository collecting, storing, and indexing unstructured data.

• Federal Taxpayer Information Data Mart: operations and maintenance support for the Federal Taxpayer Information Data Mart hosted in a 1075-compliant General Support System (GSS) maintained by FSA outside of the EDMAPS environment.

• Title IV servicing model: EDMAPS shall be the future home of a single consolidated Title IV servicing model leveraged by our contractors to service borrower accounts.

• Target state vision: EDMAPS shall grow to host all operational system data – with data to be de-coupled from operational code base.

Responder’s Capabilities

Please provide the following in any capability statement submission for the proposed TIVOD Modernization Program acquisition requirements:

• General Information to include the following: Company name, mailing address, overnight delivery address (if different from mailing address), phone number, fax number, company website, and e-mail of designated point(s) of contact

• Business Type

• Proposed North American Industry Classification System (NAICS): 541512 – Computer Systems

Design Services

• Small Business status

To be considered for a Small Business set-aside, at least 50 % of the cost of contract performance incurred for personnel shall be expended for employees of the responder. (FAR 52.219-14, Limitation of Subcontracting)

RESPONSE

Are you a Small Business? (FAR 19.102), If so, which type:

☐ YES ☐ NO

Small Disadvantaged small business? (FAR 19.304)

☐ YES ☐ NO

Service-Disabled small business? (FAR 19.14)

☐ YES ☐ NO

8(a) Small Disadvantaged small business? (FAR 19.8)

☐ YES ☐ NO

HUBZone small business? (FAR 19.13)

☐ YES ☐ NO

Woman-Owned Small Business? (FAR 19.15)

☐ YES ☐ NO

Involved in a mentor and/or protégé program? (DFARS 219.71)

☐ YES ☐ NO

• The proposed North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for any proposed solicitation is 541512 – Computer Systems Design Services. What NAICS code do you believe this work sits under, and why?

• What is your Unique Entity ID?

• Defense facility security clearance? What type? What level?

• Accounting system, if applicable? Date of last audit? Audit performed by. Determined adequate/inadequate?

• Purchasing system? Date determined adequate or inadequate.

• Timekeeping system? Date of last audit? Who performed? Determined adequate/inadequate?

• Do you hold a GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract applicable to the NAICS code (s) identified above? If yes, provide contract number(s).

• Are you registered in SAM.gov?

• Are you interested in: Prime contract? Teaming to include Joint Venture? Subcontractor opportunities?

• Include additional details not already requested based on the constraints of the information requests.

The responder is to provide answers to the following questions as part of their submission:

1. Relevant and pertinent experience in production of system upgrades consistent with FSA’s business needs:

a. Description of project requirement capabilities, including experience within the past five years on similar projects. Responses should include staff requirements specifying skills, experience, number of employees for team, labor categories and security clearances employees currently possess in performing these services.

b. Detail the service capabilities the responder does not possess required to meet program needs.

c. Description of experience and methodologies used with transitioning large databases from one vendor to another. Describe working in a multi-vendor environment where other vendors are the legacy owners, and you have the modernization task.

i. Communication

ii. Process to comprehend system understanding.

iii. How to work with the parameters of existing SLAs.

d. Methodologies for determining/mapping/flowing system design and requirements.

e. Experience with implementing in an Agile project management framework with a methodology approach such as Scrum, Kanban, the appropriate scaling of SAFe.

f. System testing processes.

2. Both O&D and NSLDS are operational systems performing critical business functions for FSA, what is your experience in developing and managing loan and grant systems and processes in a critical process and high security environment? Briefly and concisely discuss the process constraints and dependencies of loan and grant regulations.

3. EDMAPS is FSA’s Unified Data Platform (UDP), what is your experience in managing continually evolving UDPs with similar data and processing volume.

4. What is the industry best approach (best practices) to manage and validate legacy and modernize system data processes. Describe industry standards for security, including experience working with similar projects with federal entities. What practices do respondents employ to protect Government information?

5. Extent to which the responder is aware of any potential Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) issues in accordance with FAR Part 9.5 or any non-mitigable OCI related to current development work at FSA.

6. Respondent’s approach to managing release trains (ART) or scrum release planning for multi-system modernization.

7. Notional schedule and type of plan for transition-in and transition-out (based on previous or similar work efforts).

8. What tools and processes would you recommend capturing and track business and technical requirements?

Process Improvements

1. Describe any industry best practices and lessons learned you have encountered from hands-on experiences entailing large scale IT system modernizations in the public and private sectors.

Please provide specific examples.

2. Describe how a vendor may utilize our cloud environment and the cost associated with this approach.

3. What other questions do you believe are critical for properly planning and executing this system modernization that have not yet been asked?

COD

1. Implementation Vision:

a. Scrum, SAFe, and Waterfall are the most recognized lifecycle methodologies, which would you recommend as the implementation approach and detail reason and benefit from the selection.

b. This is a large-scale initiative, with multiple layers of processing from dependent systems and a transition to a new platform and architecture, what are the key roles you would identify as mission critical and briefly explain why.

c. If an agile approach supporting modular release to production is adopted, how would your team determine the order of high-level requirements based on the information gathered from the RFI?

d. Are there any specific sections to be included in the solicitation pricing template imperative for pricing this type of work?

e. FSA operates in an Amazon Cloud environment with multiple vendors managing different tenants. What is your experience in managing or developing multiple cloud or tenant environments? Discuss a recent (5 years or less) initiative comparing this scenario to the COD modernization.

f. Having identified the top 3 cloud providers, for COD would you recommend using your previous selection or would you suggest a different provider. Detail the specifics of your decision.

g. In a brief and concise step-by-step outline, describe the approach to establish transaction accuracy. Do you establish a comparison of the legacy to the new?

h. What are the known issues and risks associated to cloud conversion when the transition is to concurrently establish a new platform environment? In addition to the industry identified precautions, what has your organization’s hands on experience encountered and resolved?

2. Communication and Collaboration:

a. FSA has multiple stakeholders establishing various levels of ownership and impact associated to the modernization effort; what approach has your team executed in similar large modernization efforts where there are multiple interests at varied levels and strategically different impacts.

b. How would your team institute and ensure WBS management and reporting is transparent with FSA? How proficient is your team with AWS cloud analytics or other cloud supported tools to provide clear and concise information of key data interactions with FSA? Provide concise examples of recent utilization of tools, the results and how you established transparency.

c. What data tracking tools would you employ to monitor, measure and report on system/process progress both quantitively and qualitatively?

d. What industry standard tools do you use for gathering and housing requirements, design, and project information for FSA to easily access, (ensuring no user licenses will be required for FSA’s use) understand and use for validation of the system? How would you ensure FSA’s needs and preferences are prioritized throughout this process?

e. How would you ensure critical project activities are effectively documented and easy to audit?

f. What suite of knowledge management tools do you use for large scale efforts comparable to this FSA modernization? Does the tool support matrixed communication across your SMES and the varied FSA staff and stakeholders?

3. Process Improvement

a. After reviewing the supplied documentation, can you identify immediate GRCs as FSA data and associated processing must adhere to PII, GAAP, and additional audit and compliance standards. What is your preliminary assessment?

b. What is your recent experience working in a multi-vendor environment where dependencies and constraints of your portion of the transition work is controlled or impacted by other FSA vendors?

c. What is your process to establish data and processes validation?

d. What off the shelf auditability tools or processes would you employ to ensure the systems and data can be queried and tested for accuracy?

e. Do the data tools you plan to employ meet all current federal Government data auditing requirements such as the federal enterprise data strategy? If so, briefly, and concisely detail how the tool addresses the key concepts of the federal enterprise strategy.

Please refer to the OMB Bulletin M13-13 Managing Information as an Asses; Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA); Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act).

f. What standard protocols has your team previously implemented to ensure 99% uptime:

swift backup retrieval – less than 4 hours downtime in regaining pertinent access to back up data/processing functionality. Describe your cloud redundancy protocols, how would you configure and right size it for large processing systems? For cloud data redundancy what are your security data protocols?

g. What cybersecurity standards have you identified as applicable and essential to adhering to managing COD data sources and inputs?

h. This system has batch processing and real-time processing requirements. What backup and disaster recovery protocols would you put into place to sufficiently protect the two modes of processing?

NSLDS

1. Implementation Vision:

a. Understanding EDWA is FSA’s legacy data repository, FTI is the existing Datamart and

EDMAPS is slated to be the new data repository in the modernization effort. What SDLC is most stable to concurrently manage transition, decommission, and development efforts? Briefly outline reasoning for your selection.

b. What is your assessment process to determine the most appropriate staffing for executing a modernization effort managing 1 terabyte of data, varied user community and multiple laws and regulations governing the handling of data inclusive of security?

What roles would you deem essential and onboard immediately? Provide a sample of an abbreviated resource plan detailing key staff necessary to execute the transition efforts of EDMAPS, EDWA, and the FIT Data Mart.

c. If an agile approach supporting modular release to production is adopted, how would your team determine the order of high-level requirements based on the information gathered from the RFI?

d. Are there any specific sections to be included in the solicitation pricing template imperative for pricing this type of work?

e. FSA operates in an Amazon Cloud environment with multiple vendors managing different tenants. What is your experience in managing or developing multiple cloud or tenant environments? Discuss a recent (5 years or less) initiative comparing this scenario to the NSLDS modernization.

f. Having identified the top 3 cloud providers, for NSLDS would you recommend using your previous selection or would you suggest a different provider. Detail the specifics of your decision.

g. In a brief and concise step-by-step outline, describe the approach to establish transaction accuracy. Do you establish a comparison of the legacy to the new?

h. The three industry giants in cloud computing are Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. Acknowledging NSLDS as a vast multiple user community and secured data processing system please discuss which cloud platform you identify as the most suitable for the modernization. Provide 5 comparative points supporting your recommendation.

2. Communication and Collaboration:

a. FSA has multiple stakeholders establishing various levels of ownership and impact associated to the modernization effort; what approach has your team executed in similar large modernization efforts where there are multiple interests at varied levels and strategically different impacts.

b. How would your team institute and ensure WBS management and reporting is transparent with FSA? How proficient is your team with AWS cloud analytics or other cloud supported tools to provide clear and concise information of key data interactions with FSA? Provide concise examples of recent utilization of tools, the results and how you established transparency.

c. What data governance framework and applicable suite of tools are the most applicable for not only NSLDS modernization but also applicable to the entire FSA system modernization initiative?

d. What ITSM/PPM tools provide the most robust functionality providing an easier user interface with access level security applicable for the vast FSA user community?

e. What suite of knowledge management tools do you use for large scale efforts comparable to this FSA modernization? Does the tool support matrixed communication across your SMES and the varied FSA staff and stakeholders?

3. Process Improvement

a. After reviewing the supplied documentation, can you identify immediate GRCs as FSA data and associated processing must adhere to PII, GAAP, and additional audit and compliance standards. What is your preliminary assessment? What risks have you encountered when executing an initiative at this magnitude?

b. What is your recent experience working in a multi-vendor environment where dependencies and constraints of your portion of the transition work is controlled or impacted by other FSA vendors?

c. What is your process to establish data and process validation?

d. What off the shelf auditability tools, or processes would you employ to ensure the systems and data can be queried and tested for accuracy? What cloud auditing tools have you recently implemented for a comparable transition effort consisting of large data volume?

e. Referring to question 1.h., the identification of an appropriate cloud platform, what are the inherent backup protocols associated to your selection? Due to the volume of NSLDS data, would the standard backup/recover/restoration process from your identified cloud platform require customization to fit FSA’s needs or will out of the box be fully supportive of NSLDS? Please concisely explain.

f. What cybersecurity standards have you identified as applicable and essential to adhering to managing NSLDS data sources and inputs?

g. This system has batch processing and real-time processing requirements. What backup and disaster recovery protocols would you put into place to sufficiently protect the two modes of processing?

EDMAPS/EDWA/FTI Datamart

1. Implementation Vision:

a. What System Development Lifecycle Methodology would you employ to develop the solution and describe your approach?

b. What recommendations do you have for the level and size of human resources and subject matter expertise required for implementing and operating the EDMAPS solutions? Who would be identified as key personnel and why?

c. If an agile approach supporting modular release to production is adopted, how would your team determine the order of high-level requirements based on the information gathered from the RFI?

d. Are there any specific sections to be included in the solicitation pricing template imperative for pricing this type of work?

e. What are the best practices for managing a document repository and are there COTS products available to accomplish them?

f. What data governance do you view as essential? Within the cloud environment what are some process efficiencies of data lakes?

g. FSA operates in an Amazon Cloud environment with multiple vendors managing different tenants. What is your experience with managing or developing large processing systems in a multiple cloud or tenant environment? Discuss a recent (5 years or less) initiative comparing this scenario to the EDMAPS modernization.

h. How have you solved latency issues between tenants on the same cloud platform when the application code is in a different tenant than its data?

i. Having identified the top 3 cloud providers, for EDMAPS would you recommend using your previous selection or would you suggest a different provider. Detail the specifics of your decision.

j. What data governance and data management best practice would you identify as more applicable to EDMAPS functionality and why?

2. Communication and Collaboration:

a. FSA has multiple stakeholders establishing various levels of ownership and impact associated to the modernization effort; what approach has your team executed in similar large modernization efforts where there are multiple interests at varied levels and strategically different impacts.

b. How would your team institute and ensure WBS management and reporting is transparent with FSA? How proficient is your team with AWS cloud analytics or other cloud supported tools to provide clear and concise information of key data interactions with FSA? Provide concise examples of recent utilization of tools, the results how you established transparency.

c. What is your standard process for gathering and storing requirements and all other project documentation supporting FSA’s easy access and retrieval?

d. What tools do you use for project activity tracking for a complex system with varied data and broad user community?

e. FSA believes it is important to promote the agency’s technical/software independence and its own knowledge management. How would you ensure proper instruction and knowledge transfer between contractor Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and FSA staff?

f. How would you approach data migration and validation?

3. Process Improvement

a. After reviewing the supplied documentation, can you identify immediate GRCs as FSA data and associated processing must adhere to PII, GAAP, and additional audit and compliance standards. What is your preliminary assessment? What risks have you encountered when executing an initiative at this magnitude?

b. Do you have any further recommendations concerning successful strategies for implementing EDMAPS/EDWA/FTI Datamart? Provide examples demonstrating your ability to communicate and adapt to uncertain structural conditions with FSA and other contractors.

c. What approach do you employ to achieve an architecture providing 99% transaction accuracy? Provide an example within the last 5 years.

d. What off the shelf auditability tools, or processes would you employ to ensure the systems and data can be queried and tested for accuracy? What cloud auditing tools have you recently implemented for a comparable transition effort consisting of large data volume?

e. This system has batch processing and real-time processing requirements. What backup and disaster recovery protocols would you put into place to sufficiently protect the two modes of processing?

f. How would you approach the necessary Government requirements for security and measure adherence to cybersecurity standards and practices.

Responses

Questions about RFI content are due no later than 12:00pm EST on Wednesday, September 6, 2023.

All questions shall be submitted, via email, to Myria Carpenter, Myria.Carpenter@ed.gov and Jason Dyer, Jason.Dyer@ed.gov. The required subject line is RFI TIVOD Modernization Project Questions.

Please refer any questions or comments to the individuals listed below:

Myria Carpenter Executive Business Advisor Contracting Officer Email: Myria.Carpenter@ed.gov

Jason Dyer Contracting Specialist Email: Jason.Dyer@ed.gov

Federal Student Aid Headquarters Address:

Federal Student Aid Union Plaza 830 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20202

Responses to this RFI shall be in Adobe PDF format. Responses are due no later than 12:00pm EST on Monday, October 13, 2023, and shall not exceed 15 pages (12-point font minimum). All responses shall be submitted, via email, to Myria Carpenter, Myria.Carpenter@ed.gov and Jason Dyer, Jason.Dyer@ed.gov. The required subject line is RFI TIVOD Modernization Project.