Mainframe Computer Services

Added: Jan 24, 2014 5:51 pm Please review the attached document for more details and response directions.

 The BLS of the U.S Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy. Its mission is to collect, analyze, and disseminate essential economic information to support public and private decision making. BLS has historically used a mainframe service center to support a variety of data processing requirements. In recent years, most of that processing has migrated to UNIX and/or Windows systems. One BLS program, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program, continues to use mainframe processing for some of its data processing. QCEW is expected to continue with a mainframe workload similar to its recent usage for the next four years, before it begins to migrate production to other platforms.

The QCEW program produces a comprehensive series of employment and wage data for workers covered by State unemployment insurance (UI) laws and is a virtual census of payroll employment. The program produces data on establishments, monthly employment, and quarterly wages by industry, county, and ownership.
The QCEW program is a Federal/State cooperative program, with the cooperating state agencies (50 states, D.C, and two territories) performing most of the data collection and editing, and performing aggregation and analysis of data for their own states and areas. The state-edited data is accessed by the BLS national office to produce and publish data at the national, state, and county levels, as well as for other areas. At the state level, the activities begin with input files created by state UI agencies. These files are processed by one of two purpose built systems. The mainframe system, known collectively as EXPO, is used by 39 of the agencies, 36 of whom use it at the BLS contracted service center, and 3 of them use it on state operated mainframes. The remaining 14 agencies use a PC and network based system to perform the similar function.
The EXPO system uses a combination of batch processing and a CICS started task to meet the programs' needs. TSO sessions are used for variety of purposes, including, but not limited to: job submission, job monitoring, print routing, file transmission, and source code and system maintenance. The EXPO system uses a variety of standard z/OS utilities, and the program specific code for both the batch jobs and the CICS system is COBOL - typically the most current and widely available version, but only using widely available language features so that the system can be used at both the service center facility and those used by the three states that run it separately.
Currently, almost all data enters or leaves the EXPO hosting service center via FTP file transmission. A small and declining number of files is sent in by tape cartridge (via common carrier - FedEx, UPS, etc.). The states upload and/or read the UI system provided files, edit and analyze them via EXPO batch and interactive sessions, and make files available for downloading to BLS users and for other purposes as needed by the states.

The contract with the current BLS mainframe service provider will expire in the coming year, and BLS is seeking information from vendors that can provide this service. The current vendor provides BLS an LPAR of a size and capacity that was required to meet the significantly larger BLS workload of prior years. A somewhat smaller capacity may be adequate to meet the anticipated workload going forward. That said, the following details of the current service provider's environment should help potential respondents determine if the BLS workload is suitable for their capabilities.