Amendment_02 _Questions_and_Answers.docx

AMENDMENT 02, SOLICITATION NUMBER W15QKN-17-Q-0003

The purpose of this amendment 02 is to extend the response due date from 14 November 2016 3PM EST to 17 November 2016, 3PM EST. Quotes are to be emailed to Emelda Long, Contract Specialist, at emelda.long.civ@mail.mil with the solicitation number in the subject line. Questions concerning this solicitation should be addressed to Emelda Long, Contract Specialist, via email at the address provided above. All questions or inquiries must be submitted in writing. Quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

Questions and Answers Pertaining to Solicitation Number: W15QKN-17-Q-0003- Hardware Refresh of Government Furnished Equipment and Technical and Maintenance Support

1. Question: Under Quantity (Units) for blades you list 19 but in the description section it notes 16 total Blades. Is the correct number of blades 19 or 16?

Answer: Total quantity should be 19 both in the quantity and the description.

Switches

2. Question: The Description ask for Qty 25 (twinax copper cable) 5m cables and for Qty 25 (twinax copper cable) 3M cables. Each switch supports a maximum of 48 cables total. The listed quantities seem to be "per switch". The request seems to indicate you need more (twinax copper cables) than is supported on the switch. Is this correct? Please double check the quantities.

Answer: Please just quote the total quantity of Twinax Direct Attach cables is 25-3M and 25-5M. There are also additional cables of other specs in the requirement.

Tape Library

3. Question: The Description ask for 4 LTO-7 Ultrium Non Custom Lbl 20 Pks. These are labels. No media (tape cassettes) was requested. Is this correct?

Answer: No. We don't need labels, we need 4-20 packs of LTO-7 tapes.

Blades

4. Question: 19 blades requested but the Blade Description say 16 blades. Each Chassis supports 16 blades. The Chassis QTY of 3 does no correspond with the number of blades. 3 fully populated chassis would support 48 total blades. Please clarify how many blades are needed.

Answer: One of the 3 Chassis will contain only 3 blades, one will contain 8 blades and the other will also contain 8 blades. Total of 19 blades.

SAN

5. Question: The Description ask for both 8GB and 16GB Fiber Channel as well as 1G and 10GB ISCSI ports. On an array of this size, support for both Fiber Channel and ISCSI can be costly. The Blades and Chassis all appear to point to a Fiber Channel environment. Please verify if both Fiber Channel and ISCSI port are needed. There are arrays that have the ability to add ISCSI at a later date if necessary? Will this meet the requirement?

Answer: Both fiber channel and iSCSI ports are needed. The fiber is for between the SAN and the Chassis and the iSCSI is between the Chassis and the switch upstream. Because it uses standard Ethernet, iSCSI does not require expensive and sometimes complex switches and cards that are needed to run Fiber Channel (FC) networks. That makes it cheaper to adopt and easier to manage.

6. Question: In response to solicitation W15QKN-17-Q-0003, is the Department of Army opened to receiving quotes for equivalent hardware, meeting the same functionality requirements or does it have to be the same equipment as requested?

Answer: Technically equivalent equipment may be acceptable.