Amendment 2 INFRA QA Dated 2 20 09.doc

Request for Proposal (RFP) No.: RFP-CMS-2009-8A-PMBR-01

Title: Program Management and Business Requirement (PMBR)

Amendment 2: Dated 12/23/2008 Questions and Answers

Department of Health & Human Services

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

7500 Security Boulevard, Mail Stop C2-21-15

Baltimore, Maryland 21244-1850

OFFICE OF ACQUISITION AND GRANTS MANAGEMENT

February 20, 2009 To:

Interested Parties

Subject:

Amendment Number 2

Request for Proposal (RFP) No.: RFP-CMS- 2009-8A-INFRA-02 Title: Healthcare Quality Information Systems (HCQIS) Infrastructure Support Amendment Number 2 is issued to transmit Industry Questions and Government Responses and delete Section M.3, Basis for Award Based on Best Value (Alternate I).

The date and time for submission of proposals remains unchanged: March 3, 2009 at 12pm (noon) local prevailing time (Baltimore).

If you have any questions, only contact the Contracting Officer or the Contract Specialist. Do not contact any other individuals that may be listed in the RFP.

General

1. In the section entitled “Special Requirements” which states that “The minimum contractor requirements are written proof of a CMMI Level II Certification (SCAMPI Report), at time of contract award.” Industry standard considered ISO9001:2000 certification without any exclusion as equivalent to a CMMI Level II rating. Is this acceptable to the Government?

Answer: No

2. We would like to know if there is an incumbent in place, if so, are they eligible to bid on this request?

Answer: Yes, the incumbent is eligible to bid. Please see Amendment 1.

3. Would CMS consider a joint bid with the 8(a) firm as the prime, working with a team of other minority, small disadvantaged, and main-line private industry firms to provide an IT Solution?

Answer: Yes.

4. Due to the nature of the request are there multiple data centers? If so, will they remain as stand alone locations or is there some consolidation and centralization of services planned?

Answer: Currently, there is only one primary data center located at the infrastructure contractor. However, there is a small network footprint at other data centers, ie., CMS Baltimore Complex and Development Contractor in West Des Moines, Iowa.

5. Is the driver for this request to satisfy minority participation or identify industry best practices and competency?

Answer: The Governments intent is to find the best qualified contractor for the work.

6. Can you share the current in-place workforce composition? Is it civil service, contractor, or some combination?

Answer: The current work is being performed by a contractor.

7. Will these resources be retained under the new award or replaced?

Answer: New award.

Section C.2.5, Security

8. The first paragraph and 4th bullet state that Security Testing and Evaluation (ST&E) will be a contractor responsibility. Is it CMS’s intention to have the ST&E work be performed independently by a subcontractor and the prime contractor facilitate that testing? If so, what is the scope of that testing (expected number of applications and amount of infrastructure per year to be testes)? Will the contractor need to budget for that independent testing?

Answer: Yes, you will be expected to budget for these engagements. – CMS expects the prime contractor to sub-contract with an independent third party to perform the testing. The scope spans from individual application testing to a full engagement that can support up to 1/3 of the existing HCQIS applications and HCQIS Infrastructure General Support Systems (GSS) for annual testing requirements. Currently, there are about 70 applications and that spans over 600 plus severs within the HCQIS environment. Please note that the application & infrastructure environment will increase over time. The contractor should plan for up to 8 ST&E engagements on various applications that should be planned and performed per year under this contract.

Section C.2.6, Testing

9. Question concerning “Use CMS approved standard 508 compliancy or government approved vendor to validate all products during QA/Validation prior to production.” What are the CMS approved 508 compliance assessment applications and venders?

Answer: CMS has elected to allow the contractor to select a 508 vendor but has to be approved by CMS prior to engagement. Whatever avenue that is chosen the Product Assessment Template (PAT) must be followed which is located on the CMS.gov website.

Section C.2.19, Procurement

10. This section discusses the need to procure equipment and services to support the QualityNet program. It is unclear if CMS or the offeror will hold the budget for these expenditures. Should the offeror budget for these procurements? If so, will the Government provide a budget number to be used in the cost proposal?

Answer: Contract modification will be issued when procurement needs to be identified by CMS. The contractor shall submit a proposal at that time.

Section C.2.23, System Development Life Cycle

11. This section states that the SDLC Guidance Document and all of the referenced document forms are included as attachment 2 to the Statement of Work. The SDLC document was not included as an attachment to the SOW. Will the Government provide this document?

Answer: Yes, this will be provided by CMS. Please see Attachment J-3: SDLC Policy attached.

Section C.3.3, Earned Value Management

12. The second bullet in this section references an “attached Contract Performance Report (CPR).” The CPR was not provided with the RFP. Will the Government provide this document?

Answer: Section C.3.3, Earned Value Management has been revised to remove a Contract Performance Report as a reference. Bullet #2 is hereby deleted and replaced with the following:

· Provides the project status information at an agreed upon level of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), on a monthly basis, or more often as directed by the project officer, in Microsoft Excel format.

Section C.3.5, Contractor Limitation

13. Are subcontractors for Phase I: Program Management Business Requirements eligible for Phase IV: Development?

Answer: No, refer to Section C.1, Award Provisions Section C.4, Staffing, Organizational Structure and Key Personnel

14. There is a discrepancy between Section C.4, which lists 13 key positions, and M.5(c)B, which limits the number of key personnel resumes to 8 individuals. Section C.4 lists 13 key personnel positions along with the requirement to submit resumes on “each key staff as part of the technical proposal.” However, Section M.5(c)B on page 102 limits the number of key personnel resumes to eight individuals. Is the offeror expected to submit resumes for each key staff (13 positions) or a maximum of 8 resumes? Are all 13 positions listed in Section C.4 considered key or should offerors select 8 key positions from the list of 13?

Answer: Section C.4 has been revised to reflect required personnel versus key personnel. Section C.4 is hereby deleted and replaced with the following: (M.5(c)B remains unchanged) C.4 Staffing, Organizational Structurexe "Organizational Structure", and Key Personnel

C.4.1 Required Staffing

To be successful on this project, the contractor and its staff will require the following qualifications:

· Strong project management skills to manage changes that will come from different CMS and contractor organizations.

· Diverse engineering and systems administration skills in the areas of local and wide area networks, Windows Database Servers, and Office 2007 operating systems, advanced storage systems, high availability and backup and recovery methodologies, and video teleconferencing.

· Diverse engineering and systems administration skills in wide area network and local area networking technologies (preferred CISCO background).

· A verifiable and successful track record on this type of work, preferably at CMS.

· Strong application stress and usability testing knowledge and background.

The following required personnel need the identified skill sets and experience:

· Project Manager – At least 10 years of progressive experience managing successful technology design, implementation, and support tasks and leadership through the full system development life cycle;

· Senior Network Architect – At least 10 years of progressive experience and team leadership in the design and implementation of large, complex networks. CCNP certification preferred for support of CISCO based systems;

· Senior File and Print/Desktop Support Engineer – At least 5 years of progressive experience in the applicable technologies (Imaging, AD, security settings and application modification); MCSE certification preferred for support of NT systems;

· Senior Network Engineers – At least 5 years of progressive experience in the applicable technologies (E-mail, AD, etc.); MCSE certification preferred for support of NT systems;

· Senior UNIX Engineers – At least 5 years of progressive experience in the direct design, implementation, and strong support of Sun Solaris, Veritas and EMC based technology;

· Senior Level Resource – At least two years ‘hands on’ experience with PVCS Dimensions and two years with Remedy. This resource will provide assistance in interviewing CMS system owners for specifications for the purpose of placing the systems under configuration management in Dimensions and/or Remedy. Responsibilities will include, but not be limited to:

Identifying configuration items (CIs) for each system;

Supporting the change management efforts for those CIs to include version control of code and other artifacts;

Provide status of CIs throughout the system development life cycle (SDLC);

Perform auditing functions for those CIs;

Assist in maintaining the Dimensions and Remedy releases and patches.

· Configuration Management Specialist - At least 5 years of progressive experience in the controlled development and implementation of technology into existing environments. Must have at least 1 year of experience developing configuration management processes and working with automated configuration management tools.

· Information Systems Security Engineer – At least 5 years of progressive experience in the field of technology security policy, procedure, risk assessment and system security plan development. CISSP required in good standing throughout the contract.

· Senior Software Quality Assurance Tester – At least 2 years experience performing quality assurance testing on GOTS software specific to the health care industry; preferred health care background. Must have working knowledge of Mercury products.

· Senior Oracle Database Administrator – At least 5 years experience performing database administration on enterprise Oracle systems. Working knowledge of MS SQL Server is also preferred.

· Data Center Manager – At least 5 years of progressive experience managing the overall operation of a medium to large sized data center. This resource will have responsibility to ensure the operations of the data center are in compliance with government standard policies and procedures. Major responsibilities will include, but not limited to:

· Setting priorities and coordinating daily work flow for the data center, ensuring quality of work and timely completion of assignments during production and non-production hours

· Overall responsibilities of upgrades, installations, maintenance, troubleshooting and removal of equipment and cabling

· Check and respond to data center alarms and notifications

· Perform and verify backups

· Support 24x7 data center operation activities

· Enforce and audit security procedures to control access to the data center

· Maintain and asset tracking database and control all equipment located within the data center

· Work with vendor technical support personnel related to escalated incidents

· Maintain industry standards and provide recommendations for emerging technologies related to the data center

· Senior Stress/Load testing Manager – At least 2 years experience performing stress/load testing on GOTS software specific to the health care industry; preferred health care background. Must have working knowledge of Mercury products.

· Senior Helpdesk Manager – At least 5 years experience managing and administrating an enterprise helpdesk operation.

Other qualified personnel will be required as needed to support specific activities on the task.

C.4.2 Organizational Structure and Key Personnel

Key personnel include the project director, senior technical managers, and senior program/project management. These key personnel require CMS PO approval.

CMS shall be notified of any vacancies of key personnel within 3 business days of the contractor becoming knowledgeable of the vacancy.

The Contractor shall submit an organizational chart along with the resumes of each key staff as part of the technical proposal. The organizational chart shall include the lowest organizational management unit along with a description of the function of that unit. The contractor will include the name of each individual assigned to each unit along with a brief description of their duties. The contractor shall describe the management structure and reporting relationships within the Infrastructure contract. The contractor shall have the organizational structure along with all key personnel in place within 30 days of contract start date. CMS shall be notified of any changes to the proposed organizational structure 30 days prior to implementation.

Section F.8, Schedule of Deliverables

15. The “IP V6 analysis and conversion plan (Phase I)” has a due date of “By the End of Contract.” The “IP V6 implementation complete sign off checklist (Phase II)” has a due date of December 23, 2009. Is Phase II intended to be due before Phase I as shown in Section F.8?

Answer: The Schedule of Deliverables for this section has been modified to reflect the dates. Please see the attached revised Section F, Schedule of Deliverables with track changes.

16. Several of the deliverables due dates are noted as “COB Last Friday of every month.” Submitting monthly reports, such as Monthly Network Utilization Report, by “COB Last Friday of every month” would not allow the contractor to include stat from the complete month in the report. Even if a particular month happened to end on a Friday, the contractor would still need time to create and review the deliverable before submission to CMS. Will CMS revise Section F.8 and change the due dates for all the reports that are due “COB Last Friday of every month: to read “within 10 business days of the end of the previous month” as appropriate?

Answer: We will modify the schedule of deliverables Section F. to reflect the suggested changes that will require the monthly deliverable by the 10th business day of the month for the previous months reporting. Please see the attached revised Section F, Schedule of Deliverables with track changes.

Section H.14, Approval of Contract Acquired Information Technology (IT)

17. The paragraph states that the contractor must obtain the CO’s written approval prior to the acquisition of any IT investments. Is there a minimum dollar threshold under which the administrative costs involved with the approval process would not be cost-effective for the Government and therefore this process would not be invoked?

Answer: No, there is no minimum dollar threshold for the acquisition of any IT investments. Offerors must propose $10,000 for Miscellaneous Expendable IT acquisitions (i.e. Cables, memory, software, etc.). Only allowable exceptions will be those procurements explicitly spelled out in option year 1 and therefore after per section C.2.19 Procurement, to be identified after the base year, see answer 10 for budgeting purposes.

Section L.18.i.4, Business Proposal Instructions, Other Administration Data

18. This section states “Offerors shall have a Government approved accounting and estimating systems…” The subsequent paragraphs describe requirements in the event that the contractor does not have a Government approved accounting system or if the contractor has never has a cost reimbursement type contract, but does not describe what is required for the cost estimating system. What information is required for the cost estimating system in the event the contractor does not have an approved cost estimating system?

Answer: An Offeror’s estimating system is what their policy, procedures, and practices are for generating cost estimates which forecast cost based on information available at that time. This information is used for accumulating, segregating and reporting costs. Also, see FAR 15.407-5, Estimating Systems.

If the Offeror does not have an approved accounting system they should provide the information requested in L.18.i.4.

Section M.4, Indirect Cost Ceilings

19. This section indicates offerors are required to propose indirect cost ceilings and that the Government will evaluate the offeror’s cost proposal accordingly. Please clarify if it is the Government’s intent to adjust proposals to the ceiling rates, versus the indirect rates that may be contained in the build-up of proposed costs.

Answer: The Government does not intend to adjust proposals to the ceiling rates.

Section M.5, Evaluation Factors for Award

20. An offeror’s ability to conduct the phase-in upon contract award in a manner that effectively minimizes disruptions and inefficiencies while maintaining uninterrupted services to CMS is critical, yet Section M does not mention the evaluation of this critical component of offeror’s proposals. Please clarify, within the Section M Evaluation Factors, how the Government will evaluate the Transition Plan.

Answer: Section M.5.A, Evaluation Factors for Award has been modified to include the Transition Plan. Bullet #5 is hereby added as the following:

5.

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