SOO - Summit Data Platform Solution-Draft.docx

SOO for new Summit Contract Background:

The Summit Data Platform (Summit) is the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) enterprise cloud-based data and analytics solution. The platform offers self-service analytics, providing customers (data practitioners across VA) with data storage, tools, integrations, and governance empowering its customers. It also supports advanced use cases, such as data science, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI), enabling VA teams to make evidence-based decisions that improve services, operational efficiencies, and outcomes for Veterans, families, and caregivers.

Summit is designed to modernize VA’s Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) by migrating CDW data products and workloads into the cloud, improving data freshness and governance, in addition to enabling advanced analytics and AI capabilities. Summit enables program offices across the agency to host their own data analytics platforms, providing security, infrastructure, some shared services, etc. It currently provides the underlying technical architecture for VA's curated data platforms, Advanced Health Insights (AHI) and Customer Experience Insights (CXI).

Currently, Summit supports over 2,500 active users and has migrated 160 workgroups from CDW. However, there is increased demand across the enterprise and over 1,400 CDW workgroups remain to be migrated. In addition, Summit faces the following challenges:

· Intake processes are slow and inconsistent (2 weeks to 6 months)

· Limited post-handoff support and unclear documentation

· Resource constraints and coordination gaps

· Delayed CDW migration and feature integration These issues limit adoption and utilization of the data platform, which in turn, limit VA’s ability to deliver timely insights and scale AI capabilities.

Statement of Need:

Summit Data Platform must evolve past its current state to deliver a secure, reliable, and customer-centric environment at scale, addressing operational inefficiencies and leveraging resources strategically. To achieve this, the following needs must be met:

1. Streamlined customer onboarding & intake

a. Publish and communicate clear requirements, expectations, and obligations to customers for intake, onboarding, and use case definition.

b. Reduce intake time from the current 2-6 months to under 2 weeks for standard requests.

c. Implement structured intake workflows with automated tracking and status visibility.

d. Establish a unified model that routes requests intelligently across Summit, AHI, CXI, or to other data platforms, where appropriate.

2. Migration & data architecture modernization

a. Establish and execute a structured migration strategy for CDW workgroups and data products.

b. Provide tool and data model parity to ensure continuity for CDW users.

c. Develop reusable ingestion and integration pipelines for batch and streaming sources.

d. Standardize data modeling practices to ensure consistency across domains.

3. Governance, security, & compliance

a. Enable and enforce VA-wide governance policies for fine-grained, policy-based access control.

b. Expand metadata coverage and improve usability of the Enterprise Data Catalog to increase data discoverability.

c. Implement automated data quality checks and observability dashboards to monitor pipeline health.

d. Maintain compliance with federal security and privacy standards across all environments

e. Ensure cloud resources are sized, provisioned, designed, and managed efficiently to reduce cost.

4. Data science & AI enablement

a. Provide scalable infrastructure and tooling for AI/ML workloads.

b. Develop reusable templates and patterns for predictive modeling, NLP, and generative AI use cases.

c. Support integration of AI-driven solutions for clinical decision support, risk prediction, and operational optimization.

5. Customer experience & support

a. Create centralized documentation, FAQs, and self-service resources for common tasks to increase adoption.

b. Establish robust post-handoff support processes to ensure customers can effectively use provisioned environments.

c. Develop CRM to track customer engagement history, ensuring consistent and context-aware responses across Summit teams.

d. Track and report key metrics, such as adoption rates and utilization.

e. Implement feedback loops and satisfaction surveys across key customer touchpoints to identify pain points and opportunities.

6. Change management & training

a. Deliver structured real-time and async training programs for VA data customers on Summit tools, governance, and best practices.

b. Provide targeted end-to-end enablement for high priority use cases.

c. Develop change management strategy to track, measure, and ensure long-term adoption.

Technical Environment:

Summit is built on a cloud-native architecture primarily leveraging Azure and with a smaller AWS footprint

· Data ingestion – Synapse Pipelines, Azure Data Factory, Synapse Link (batch); Oracle Golden Gate, Azure Function Apps, Event Hubs, Mulesoft (streaming)

· Big Data ELT & data wrangling – Azure Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, Databricks, Starburst,

· Data storage & format – Azure Data Lake Service, Delta Parquet

· SQL & NoSQL query engines – Databricks, Starburst, Synapse Analytics, Cosmos DB, Cockroach DB, SQL Managed Instance

· Data catalog – VA’s Enterprise Data Catalog (Collibra)

· AI/ML – Azure ML, Azure AI (Cognitive) Services, Azure Open AI, Databricks

· Visualization & BI – Pyramid Analytics, PowerBI (SSAS and SSRS legacy functionality to be migrated)

· Applications – COTS products hosted on OpenShift

· Data governance & security – Immuta

· Customer Resource Management – Microsoft D365 Application

Approach:

The work will follow modern digital service delivery principles, following practices described in the “Digital Services Playbook” (https://playbook.cio.gov). Specifically, the contractor shall:

· Agile Delivery: Execute in two-week sprints with clear sprint goals and demos.

· Quarterly Planning: Align priorities and roadmap with stakeholders every quarter.

· User-centered Design: Focus on customer experience, transparency, and iterative improvement.

· Open Collaboration: Maintain continuous communication with VA teams and partners, which may include individual contributors from VA or other vendors.

· Compliance by Design: Integrate security, privacy, and governance into all workflows.

Location and Period of Performance:

Efforts under this task order can be performed at any location within the United States. Work shall be performed at the Contractor’s facilities, using Government‑furnished equipment and credentials, and VA‑approved tools/services.

The period of performance is 1 12-month Base, plus 2 12-month option periods.

Operating Constraints:

Data Governance & Privacy: All activities must comply with federal privacy regulations and VA data and AI governance requirements.

Accessibility: Ensure all user-facing artifacts (documentation, dashboards, etc.) meet Section 508 standards.