Request for Information_SDN Enabled Transport Diversity_20250822 Final.docx

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

Software Defined Network (SDN) Enabled Transport Diversity Notice ID: RFI-SDN-082625-JJY

DESCRIPTION.

Project Manager Tactical Network in support of Transport resilience is conducting market research to identify potential sources capable of providing Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD WAN) solutions and product support/integration services that can successfully operate in Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) environments with the capability to automate network traffic routing and prioritize traffic over multiple links concurrently.

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes – it does not constitute a Request For Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the Army is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Respondents are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party’s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued. Please note, the information received from this RFI is used to help the Government refine the requirement and help identify areas of ambiguity so that, if released, the RFP is well defined. Any feedback/questions as a result of this RFI will not be responded to directly and will be addressed in the final RFP if the Government deems it necessary.

BACKGROUND.

The Army acquisition community is committed to providing soldiers resilient COMMS solutions that withstand the challenges of contested and hostile environments. In part, this is achieved through SD WAN solutions that can understand quality attributes of multiple transport paths and dynamically route traffic accordingly. Recent market research indicates that SD WAN capabilities are advancing and this RFI is meant to help the Army understand if industry can meet the Governments’ minimum requirements.

REQUESTED INFORMATION

STANDARD QUESTIONS.

1. If an RFP for simultaneous link automatic switching SD WAN software solutions is solicited will your Company propose on this effort? Yes or No?

0. If yes, please indicate the amount of time requested to develop a proposal, 7, 14 or 30 days.

0. If not, please explain why not.

1. Does your company have past corporate experience providing Engineering Services (i.e. Field Service Representatives, RDT&E, Cybersecurity and Compliance, Integration and Interoperability), Training & Documentation, Help Desk Services, and Software Management Support Services in support of SD WAN? Please describe how, whether you were successful or not and what program each effort was supporting, as well as the following information:

a. Contract Number (and task order number if applicable) and the Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) code, Data Universal Number System (DUNS) Number and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code.

b. Contract Type (Fixed-Price (FP), Cost Reimbursement (CR), Time & Material (T&M), etc.) and if providing a task order as an example of corporate performance, then specify the base Contract Type (definite quantity, indefinite quantity, or requirements).

c. Contract Performance Schedule and Actual Dates of Contract Performance.

d. The respondent shall briefly describe the specific work that was performed by itself or proposed significant subcontractors or joint venture or team agreement, noting whether the work was completed as the prime or subcontractor, in addition to providing the CAGE code for each contract or task order. A CAGE code is a five-character alpha-numeric, unique identifier assigned by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). CAGE codes are assigned to businesses, organizations, etc. that wish to pursue contracts or grants from the United States federal government.

1. This is an RFI to provide the government with a better understating of industry capabilities. To assist the government with planning, what are GENERAL estimates of cost for each year? This data WILL ONLY BE USED TO ASSIST IN DETERMINING ESTIMATED BUSGET AMOUNTS.

SD WAN SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

1. Link Aggregation and Flow Handling

0. Does your solution enable simultaneous use of multiple WAN links, to include but not limited to LEO, GEO, LTE, fiber, and tactical radios for a single Internet Protocol (IP) flow, while maintaining in-order packet delivery, Yes or No?

0. If no, please describe what aspect of your solution does not meet these capabilities.

0. Does your solution automatically adjust flow distribution across available WAN links based on real-time link quality metrics (latency, jitter, packet loss, bandwidth), Yes or No?

1. If no, please describe what aspect of your solution does not meet these capabilities.

0. Does your solution support the transmission of a single flow over diverse links with large latency differentials (e.g., >200ms), with mechanisms for automatic reordering and duplication handling, Yes or No?

2. If no, please describe what aspect of your solution do not meet these capabilities.

1. Multi-Site Virtualized Ethernet Fabric

1. Can your solution create a virtual Ethernet fabric (L2VPN) across multiple geographically dispersed nodes, enabling OSPF/BGP neighbor relationships and multicast traffic (e.g., PIM) over an abstracted L2 broadcast domain, yes or no?

0. If no, please describe what aspect of your solution does not meet these capabilities.

1. Does your solution support both L2VPN and L3VPN topologies simultaneously within a multi-site SDN deployment, Yes or No?

1. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

1. Does your solution support the creation of overlapping virtual networks to enable secure segmentation of traffic and isolation within the same physical infrastructure, Yes or No?

1. QOS Classification and Congestion Management

2. Describe your system QoS capabilities and the maximum number of supported queues, the flexibility in defining matching criteria for those queues, and the ability to modify DSCP values on incoming or outgoing traffic.

2. Explain how your platform schedules QoS flow across WAN transports using hybrid scheduling algorithms (e.g., Strict Priority, Weighted Fair Queuing, or a cross-site excess bandwidth scheduler).

2. Does your solution automatically prioritize mission-critical traffic based on application signatures or deep packet inspection (DPI), even in the absence of DSCP markings, yes or no?

2. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability and how does this compare to solutions utilizing standard DSCP-based prioritization.

1. Disconnected or Partial Mesh Routing

3. Can your SDN architecture support continued L2 or L3 adjacency between nodes if direct connections are lost, by automatically routing through a neighboring node without reconfiguration or operator action, Yes or no?

0. If not, describe what aspects of your solution do not meet this capability.

3. Describe how your system handles dynamic path restoration or re-routing through an alternate node when a spoke loses all its direct Wide Area Network(WAN) transport paths.

3. What is the maximum convergence time for path restoration in a partial mesh or disconnect scenario, and how is this convergence time measured and verified?

1. Transport Over Public Networks

4. Does your solution support logical connections between nodes behind Network Address Translations (NAT) or with non-routable IP addresses without requiring manual port forwarding or static IPs, yes or no?

0. If not, describe how your solution executes this capability.

4. Describe any mechanisms your system uses to facilitate plug-and-play WAN integration behind Carrier-Grade NAT or private LTE/SATCOM devices.

1. Transport Modes and Resiliency

5. What transport modes does your system support, such as pure aggregation, low-latency first, replication, or Forward Error Correction-based (FEC) hitless failover.

5. Does your system allow per-flow or per-transport selection of transmission mode?

5. Does your solution support adaptive FEC coding rates based on real-time link conditions to optimize bandwidth utilization and error correction, yes or no?

2. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

1. Link-Aware Traffic Steering

6. Does your platform support intelligent traffic steering to designate certain transports as last resort” or “preferred” based on bandwidth, latency, or cost attributes, yes or no?

0. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

6. Can flows be policy-routed based on destination, DSCP, or five-tuple characteristics, including excluding certain transports from specific traffic types, yes or no?

1. If not, describe what aspects of your solution do not meet this capability.

1. Support for Variable Capacity Links

7. Does your solution adapt to variable-bandwidth transports such as TDMA SATCOM, LTE, or ACM-based radios?

7. Does your system support dynamic capacity estimation techniques like TCP-based scaling and UDP-based probing to prevent oversubscription or underutilization, yes or no?

1. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

1. Integrated Management and Visualization

8. Does your solution provide a web-based dashboard with real-time visualization of site-to-site transport, QoS queue occupancy, traffic patterns, and top talkers, Yes or no?

0. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

8. Does your solution provide native support for GUI-based configuration without requiring CLI access or third-party tools, Yes or no?

1. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

8. Does the management interface provide automated diagnostics and troubleshooting tools to identify and resolve network performance issues, and how does this compare to manual troubleshooting method, Yes or no?

2. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

1. Redundancy and High Availability

9. Does your solution support redundancy with stateful failover, including synchronized configuration and automatic control/data plane election between nodes, yes or no?

9. Does your system provide any multicast-based synchronization or failover signaling mechanisms, yes or no?

1. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

1. Security and Encryption

10. Does your solution perform per-tunnel AES-256 encryption and authenticate peers using PKI with RSA key pairs, yes or no?

0. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

10. Does your solution support dynamic key negotiation using challenge/response rather than relying solely on pre-shared keys, Yes or no?

1. If not, describe how your solution executes this capability.

1. Container and Platform Support

11. Is your solution deployable as a container (e.g., Docker) or on COTS platforms and Operating Systems (OS) (e.g., Linux, Raspberry Pi, Oracle/RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu), yes or no?

0. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

11. Can you provide a chart that shows minimum compute requirements (CPU (cores and speed), RAM) based on traffic throughput levels, sessions, number of nodes, number of tunnels/connections, yes or no?

1. If so, provide the chart.

1. Operation in DDIL Environments

12. Does your solution require a centralized control plane, Yes or no?

0. If so, describe the operational behavior of network nodes when connectivity to the centralized control plane is interrupted or unavailable.

12. Describe the level of autonomous operation that is supported during a control plane outage (e.g., continued routing based on the last known good configuration, limited policy enforcement).

12. How long can nodes operate autonomously before requiring re-synchronization with the control plane?

12. Are there any limitations on functionality or performance when operating in a disconnected mode, yes or no?

3. If so, describe the limitations on functoriality or performance

12. Does the system provide any mechanisms for logging or reporting events that occur during a control plane outage, yes or no?

4. If so, describe how your solution executes this capability.

RESPONSES.

Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI. Responses shall provide the following minimum administrative information: Name, mailing address, phone number, Unique Entity Identified (UEID)/CAGE Code, and e-mail of designated point of contact.

Responses are due no later than 1600 hour Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 09 SEP 2025. Responses shall be limited to twenty (20) pages. Responses shall be in Times New Roman or Arial font, with no less than 11-point font size. Left & right margins will be 1 inch, with the header & footer being .5 inches.

Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. To aid the Government, please segregate proprietary information (included in the page limit). Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

Respondents may provide supplemental information such as product brochures, specification sheets, photographs, illustration, and technical descriptions that describe your company’s current products that most closely match the capabilities described above. Contractors are encouraged not to include marketing informational materials that do not relate to the products recommended for consideration, as they will be discarded. However, responses may include universal resource locater (URL) links to technical documentation materials (i.e., technical data sheet).

QUESTIONS.

Questions regarding this RFI shall be submitted in Attachment – Questions Template by e-mail to the Contracting Officer. Thomas E. Lynn Jr. at thomas.e.lynn23.civ@army.mil, and the Contract Specialists, John J. Ye at jianhua.j.ye.civ@army.mil. Verbal questions will NOT be accepted. Accordingly, questions shall NOT contain proprietary or classified information. The Government does not guarantee that the questions received will be answered. The timeline to submit questions is due no later than 1600 hour EST on 01 SEP 2025.

SUMMARY.

THIS IS AN RFI ONLY to identify sources that can provide Transport Diversity ELA, Engineering Services, Training & Documentation, Help Desk, and Management Support Services. The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. The Army has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

RFI – SDN Transport Diversity