SOLICITATION NOTICE
70 -- RFI for Data Storage Products and Architecture
- Notice Date
- 3/16/2004
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 334112
— Computer Storage Device Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Defense Information Systems Agency, Acquisition Directorate, DITCO-Scott, 2300 East Drive Bldg 3600, Scott AFB, IL, 62225-5406
- ZIP Code
- 62225-5406
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-RFISTORAGE1
- Response Due
- 4/16/2004
- Archive Date
- 5/1/2004
- Point of Contact
- Linda Goff, Contract Specialist, Phone 618-229-9486, Fax 618-229-9440,
- E-Mail Address
-
goffl@scott.disa.mil
- Description
- The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is considering the introduction of state of the art Storage Area Network (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Direct Access Storage (DAS), storage architectures, and products that support high-speed Fiber Channel, SCSI, iSCSI connections into the Global Information Grid (GIG) infrastructure including but not limited to storage services, archiving and content staging. This is a request for information (RFI). DISA is seeking information from industry on state of the art Storage Area Network (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Direct Access Storage (DAS), storage architectures, and products that support high-speed Fiber Channel, SCSI, iSCSI connections for but not limited to storage services, archiving and content staging to ensure that it has considered all available commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products that provide this capability. This RFI includes but is not limited to: SAN, NAS and DAS hardware, hardware specifications, SAN, NAS and DAS software to include: data management tools, interface software, etc., metrics such as mean time between failures, data rates, throughput, storage services, storage architectures, etc. All equipment manufacturers and suppliers of SAN, NAS and DAS technology are offered this opportunity to show how to best employ their equipment in the GIG infrastructure. THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT INTEND TO AWARD A CONTRACT ON THE BASIS OF THIS RFI OR TO OTHERWISE PAY FOR INFORMATION RECEIVED IN RESPONSE TO THIS RFI. This RFI is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. All information received in response to this RFI that is marked Proprietary will be handled accordingly. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with the applicable Government regulations. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. Whatever information is provided in response to this RFI will be used to assess tradeoffs and alternatives available for determining how to proceed in the acquisition process for the SAN products. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this RFI are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. 1. Introduction: Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) provides the foundation for network-centric operations by creating a set of nine core services for joint and service systems to use. NCES is part of the larger Global Information Grid (GIG) Enterprise Services (ES). The GIG ES supports the entire Department of Defense?s Information Technology (IT) requirements, including the Business and Warfighting domains, as well as interfaces with the national Intelligence Community (IC) domain. As the enterprise services component of the Global Information Grid, NCES is the infrastructure on which Department of Defense (DoD) computer applications (e.g., C2, Combat Support, and Medical) rely. This new environment must (1) support posting data to common storage spaces as early as possible; (2) alert edge users to changes in relevant DoD information or time-critical events affecting their survival or threatening their mission; (3) provide users, down to the last tactical mile, with the capability to pull whatever they want, whenever they want, from wherever they are and limited only by the commander?s information management policy; (4) ensure information assurance (IA)/security; and (5) support interoperability among allies, coalition, and multinational partners. NCES relies upon the GIG transport services and tactical communications systems for the exchange between the Core Enterprise Services (CES) and the Community of Interest (CoI) capabilities. Transport is not an inherent component of NCES; however, the CES are dependent upon adequate bandwidth and availability of the GIG infrastructure to support the domains and CoIs. Data has grown in value to become the primary asset of most industries today, causing the data-centric model to be accepted by most enterprises including the DoD. The CES Storage Services architecture (SSA) will offer Enterprise and Communities of Interest (COI) users a 24x7 service that is completely shareable by heterogeneous computers from a single logical data image, anywhere in the GIG, at any time, with consistent centralized management. The SSA will also provide reliable and persistent data storage. The Storage Services architecture amalgamates 3 basic Storage paradigms: Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS), and Storage Area Networks (SAN). 1.1. DISA is specifically interested in products and services for Storage Area Network (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS) Direct Access Storage (DAS), storage architectures, and products that support high-speed Fiber Channel connections. In addition to the classical SAN architecture employing a storage Fiber Channel network between hosts and storage devices, an all-IP data and storage network using the iSCSI protocol should be considered. A network incorporating iSCSI SANs need use only a single network infrastructure (Ethernet) for both data and storage traffic, allows shared access to storage, allows exploitation of IP-based protocols such as IPSec, allows standard off-the-shelf network components (Ethernet) and is consistent with the Global Grid all-IP architecture. Full interoperability across different vendor platforms using Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP, a future SAN-based standard) should be considered. Any products should be categorized using the following classification (these are listed in preferred order of priority): 1.1.1. Current state of the art hardware and software, services in use today. As used here, current refers to a system, hardware, or software that is installed and operational for at least one customer. 1.1.2. Imminent release system, hardware and software, services (available today, but not necessarily fielded in an operational network to date) 1.1.3. Announced products and other forward-looking statements or documents. 1.2. Storage Area Network (SAN) Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices that support high-speed Fiber Channel connections: DISA is interested in state of the art SAN and NAS products that support high-speed Fiber Channel, SCSI, iSCSI connections. All types of SAN and NAS products shall be considered that support high-speed Fiber Channel connections. 2. Requirements/Capabilities: 2.1. Storage Information Assurance & Security: Network Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) Storage Services shall provide the capability to protect the information stored from unauthorized disclosure, modification, and denial of access in accordance with DoD and/or DCI IA requirements, as appropriate. The storage service relies on IA to provide storage level authentication, confidentiality, and access control. 2.2. Protected Storage Environments: NCES Storage Services shall provide protected storage environments that support the day-to-day and long-term data and information access, archiving, retrieving, staging, and delivery of Core Enterprise Services (CES) and Community of Interests (CoIs) in multiple locations and operational environments as needed to support DoD data and information requirements. CES storages services shall provide availability, integrity, and confidentiality for all information stored. Establish end-to-end protected storage environments to support all nine Core Enterprise Services (CESs). Establish end-to-end protected storage environments to support all nine CESs and one or more Increment I CoI services. 2.3. Storage Service Availability: NCES Storage Services shall provide access to and visibility of all data and information based upon the GIG user?s privileges, access, and the GIG digital security policy. Demonstrated ability to provide available storage services to the war-fighter or decision maker on demand and shall be responsive to the criticality of the information to be exchanged. CES shall only provide visibility to the information that authorized users can access. 2.4. Storage Service Data Retention & Archiving: NCES data and information shall be stored in a manner that meets required mission and regulatory retention and archival requirements and does not violate the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of the information stored. The storage process shall be transparent to the user. The storage system must provide back-up capability to retain data and information for legacy systems and one or more CoI services in accordance with Operational and Service Level Agreements (OLAs/SLAs). Retention shall meet all legal or other regulatory requirements for legacy systems and all defined CoI services in accordance with OLAs/SLAs. 2.5. Storage Service Infrastructure Management: NCES Storage Services shall provide ESM with the capability to manage the storage infrastructure and the visibility needed for management in near real-time. CES ESM shall manage the storage infrastructure to support near real-time changes in response to validated user requirements. Retention shall meet all legal or other regulatory requirements for legacy systems and all defined CoI services in accordance with OLAs/SLAs 2.6. Storage Service Integrity: NCES Storage Services shall not alter stored data and information in any manner that compromises the integrity of the data and information. Storage services shall have the capability to detect when information has been modified. The integrity of data and information stored shall not be compromised by the technologies and techniques employed. 2.7. Storage Service Interoperability: NCES Storage Services shall be standards based and provide clearly defined and documented interfaces, which can be utilized by non-NCES data and information processing environments. Demonstrate interoperability with non-NCES DoD storage environments. CES shall use standards for storage service. Demonstrate interoperability with other government storage environments. 2.8. Storage Service Retrieval and Distribution: NCES data and information shall be stored in a manner that facilitates its timely retrieval, recovery, real-time information management, and distribution in accordance with entity processing, storage needs, and access control criteria. The ability to retrieve, recover and make data and information available to entities, legacy systems, and one or more Increment I CoI services in accordance with Operational and Service Level Agreements (OLAs/SLAs) without compromising the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of the information. The ability to retrieve, recover and make data and information available to entities, legacy systems, and all Increment I CoI services in accordance with OLAs/SLAs without compromising the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of the information. 2.9. Storage Service Survivability: NCES Storage Services shall prevent the loss and/or corruption of stored enterprise data. The ability to fully restore and/or recover lost data and information both stored and in transit for all nine Core Enterprise Services (CESs) in accordance with Operational and Service Level Agreements (OLAs/SLAs). The ability to fully restore and/or recover lost data and information for all nine Core Enterprise Services (CESs) and one or more increment I CoI services in accordance with Operational and Service Level Agreements (OLAs/SLAs). 2.10. Storage Load/Capacity/Throughput: Storage load/capacity/throughput performance is often expressed in data units per period of time (i.e. a measure of the amount of work performed by a system over a period of time). In communication systems this can be measured in bits or bytes, while in a services context this can be measured in terms of requests for service or transactions over a period of time. The ad-hoc storage throughput I/O rate shall be XXXK / XXXK accesses / per second (e.g. one XXXK access per concurrent user/second) to support all NCES capabilities that have a dependency to the storage capabilities. The ad-hoc storage throughput data rate shall be X Mb / second / per XXK concurrent users to support all NCES capabilities that have a dependency to the storage capabilities. 2.11. Storage Response Time: Response time refers to the elapsed time between the end of a service request or demand on a service provider and the beginning of a response. In other words, it is the time a system takes to react to a given input. For example, in a data oriented service, the system response time is the interval between the receipt of the end of transmission of an inquiry message and the beginning of the transmission of a response message to the station originating the inquiry. The ad-hoc storage response time shall be XX seconds for retrieval to support all NCES capabilities that have a dependency on the storage capabilities. 2.12. Storage Availability: Storage service availability is defined as the degree to which the service is operable and in a committable state (e.g. ready to be used at any given time). It is the ratio of the total time a service is capable of being used during a given interval (e.g. one year) to the length of the interval. The ad-hoc storage shall be available (up and operable) XX% as measured over a period of a year to support all NCES capabilities that have a dependency to the storage capabilities. 2.13. Storage Accuracy: Storage accuracy is the degree to which the service provider?s actual output or response conforms to its service specifications for a given request or input value. The ad-hoc storage accuracy shall be XX from storage point to receipt point to support all NCES capabilities that have a dependency to the storage capabilities. Percentage/Total 2.14. Storage Services: Security, availability, scalability, manageability and disaster recovery are key. 1. A Storage service shall enforce location transparency. (The physical location of a resource shall not be visible to requesting components.) 2. A Storage service shall enforce implementation transparency. (The means of managing and storing information shall not be visible to requesting components.) 3. A Storage service shall ensure that the information that it is handing will not be lost due to system or human error. 4. Storage services shall conform to a standard interface for local information discovery 5. Storage services shall conform to a standard interface for information retrieval. 6. Storage services shall conform to a standard interface for information update and insertion. 7. A Storage service shall be classified as one of more of these types: File Server (discrete files), Data Server (seamless data store, e.g., relational DB), Streaming Data Server (data in a continuous stream e.g., video), Interactive Streaming Data Server (data in a stream that can be client controlled, e.g., JPEG 2000, Real-time data Server 8. Where a Storage Service functions as more than one of the types above, that service shall expose each type as a separate interface and register them as separate services for discovery. 3. Definitions. The following definitions are provided: 3.1. Storage Area Network (SAN): A SAN is also referred to as a storage-area network. A SAN connects multiple servers and different storage devices on a single network. SANs use technologies such as Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and Fiber Channel to provide fast and reliable connectivity between the storage devices and the servers that use them. 3.2. Network Attached Storage (NAS): Network-attached storage is a disk storage system in which the NAS server is attached to another server through the network redirector by using a file sharing protocol (such as server message block [SMB], Common Internet File System [CIFS], or network file system [NFS]). You can access the network resource if you map a drive to the network share, or by using a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path (for example, \\ServerName\ShareName). 3.3. High-speed Fiber Channel: A channel provides a direct or switched point-to-point connection between the communicating devices. A channel is typically hardware-intensive and transports data at the high speed with low overhead. Fiber Channel (FC) was to develop practical, inexpensive, yet expendable means of quickly transferring data between workstations, mainframes, supercomputers, desktop computers, storage devices, displays and other peripherals. Fiber Channel is the general name of an integrated set of standards [1] being developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Fiber channel is a high performance serial link supporting its own, as well as higher-level protocols such as the FDDI, SCSI, HIPPI and IPI (see chapter 7). The Fiber Channel standard addresses the need for very fast transfers of large amounts of information. 3.4. Direct Access Storage: The "direct access" means that all data can be accessed directly in about the same amount of time rather than having to progress sequentially through the data. 4. Questions. Responses to the following questions should address the Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) products that support high-speed Fiber Channel connections. 4.1. What is the technology life expectancy of the product/s? 4.2. What is the storage capacity of the product/s in petabytes? 4.3. What are the metrics of the product/s to include but not be limited to data exchange rates, seek time, mean time between failures, etc.? 4.4. What are the technical specifications, operating parameters, and network design specifications for each product/s? 4.5. What are the configuration options available for each product/s? 4.6. Describe the scalability of each product/s to include but not be limited to hardware and software upgrades? 4.7. What optical and transport standards do product/s comply with? Which ones do they not? 4.8. What is the product/s and services corporate support policy? 4.9. What data types does each product/s support? 4.10. What interfaces and protocols does each product/s support? a. Ethernet (10/100/1000) b. SONET (T1 through OC(n)(c)) c. ATM d. IP e. OIF-UNI f. NNI g. MPLS/GMPLS h. TL1 i. SNMPv1 j. SNMPv3 k. Others as available 4.11. What is the corporate 5-year evolution strategy for each product/s and services? 4.12. What ancillary devices (interfaces, HVAC) are necessary for a fully capable deployment of the product/s and services? 4.13. What security and information assurance capabilities will be provided to ensure secure and reliable management and operation of the SAN, NAS, DAS product/s and services? 4.14. What are the costs associated with the product/s? 4.15. What software licenses are necessary for software product/s and what features do each provide? 4.16. What integration engineering services are included with the product/s? 4.17. What additional integration engineering product/s and services are provided and at what cost? 4.18. What are the costs or rates for all product/s including integration engineering discussed in your response to this RFI? 5. CONTACT/ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. 5.1. The following is the technical Point of Contact (POC) for this RFI. Name: Mr. John Nichols, Telephone: (703) 882-1579 5.2. The following is the Acquisition Liaison Point of Contact (POC) for this RFI. Name: Mrs. Martie Dunnett, Telephone: (703) 882-1286 5.3. Please submit one original hard copy & one soft copy (preferably on compact disks (CD)) in MS Word format, DISA, Code GE43221, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3801 5.4. Respondents shall also submit one copy of supplemental materials such as brochures, etc. to the Acquisition Liaison, Mrs. Dunnett, DISA, Code GE4311, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3801. 5.5. In order to be evaluated and considered in time to influence a potential near-term acquisition effort, submission should occur within thirty days of the posting date of the RFI. 5.6. The Government may request additional information or discuss information received in responses to this RFI with individual responders. DISA shall consider meeting individually with interested respondents. Such meetings shall be constrained to one hour for presentation and discussion. Firms who wish to respond to this should send responses NLT 16 Apr 2004.
- Place of Performance
- Address: Various/Falls Church/VA
- Zip Code: 22041
- Country: USA
- Zip Code: 22041
- Record
- SN00546429-W 20040318/040317071655 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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