SAM.gov Pre-Solicitation NICHD-23-167.pdf

NICHD-23-167

INTRODUCTION

THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) SYNOPSIS TO AWARD A

CONTRACT OR PURCHASE ORDER WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION.

The National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) intends to award a firm-fixed price purchase order to UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO for Globus High Assurance Software Subscription Renewal without providing for full and open competition.

JUSTIFICATION

Globus software is currently used for the intramural NIH campus and is managed by the High- Performance Computation Biowulf Cluster as a centralized service for the NIH scientific community.

Many NICHD scientists in the intramural NICHD community routinely transfer data to and from Helix/Biowulf and other major computational centers on campus, and it is vital for them to have appropriate, secure, and user-friendly tools such as Globus to support their research goals.

Research Data is transferred directly between the source and destination systems while Globus tunes performance parameters, while maintaining security, monitoring progress, and validating correctness. This requirement is a continuation of previous subscription services to maintain current and previous research data. NICHD has a need to renew its current Globus High Assurance subscription so we may continue to perform fundamental duties.

Globus software offers the following features that are important for the NICHD scientific research community:

• Collaborating and automating research tasks at scale

• Protected and sensitive data management

• Data transfer and sharing

• Real-time activity monitoring

• Data sharing with collaborators

• Historical usage tracking

• Priority support

• No limit on storage systems

• Data and compute automation

• Upload/download via HTTPS

• Metadata indexing and search

• Higher authentication assurance for data access

• Isolation of applications and devices

• Forced encryption of protected data during transit

• Audit logging

Based on market research results, Globus is proprietary software that is only available as a yearly subscription by the University of Chicago. It is the only commercially available product that can properly maintain all the essential functionalities required in support of the intramural scientists need to transfer data to and from Helix/Biowulf. There is no other compatible software that can

PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) SYNOPSIS

NICHD-23-167

properly and adequately support the NICHD with this need and no known third-party providers that can provide the software, add-on features and support required.

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE

The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 513210 - Software Publishers with a Size standards in millions of dollars: $41.5

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2023-04 effective 06/02/2023. This acquisition is conducted under the procedures as prescribed in FAR Part 13 - Simplified Acquisition Procedures at an amount not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold ($250,000), and FAR Part 12 - Acquisition of Commercial Items.

STATUTORY AUTHORITY

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of FAR 13.106(b)(1) Soliciting from a single source - For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold.

PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

NIH/NICHD

6710B ROCKLEDGE DRIVE

RM 3403C

BETHESDA MD 20817

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

Globus High Assurance Subscription Renewal. The planned period of performance is 9/30/23 - 9/29/24.

CLOSING STATEMENT

This synopsis is not a request for competitive proposals. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability in response to this notice and may submit a capability statement, which shall be considered by the agency. Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties’ bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the requirement that includes management, technical data and cost information in sufficient detail and with convincing evidence that clearly demonstrates the capability to perform the required work. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement.

All respondents must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov. All responses to this notice shall be submitted electronically by 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, on June, 17th, 2023 to jacob.balenson@nih.gov and shall include pre-solicitation # NICHD-23-167 in the subject line.

http://www.sam.gov/ mailto:jacob.balenson@nih.gov