SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- NASA SUPERCOMPUTING SUPPORT SERVICES (NS3)
- Notice Date
- 11/21/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- NASA/Ames Research Center, JA:M/S 241-1, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000
- ZIP Code
- 94035-1000
- Solicitation Number
- NNA06125494R
- Response Due
- 12/13/2005
- Archive Date
- 11/21/2006
- Description
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center plans to procure services to support the efficient operation, high-impact utilization, and continual enhancement of NASA supercomputing resources to meet the growing, agency-wide requirements for large-scale computational modeling, simulation, and analysis, to support scientific and engineering excellence in NASA missions. The work will be performed primarily at Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, California. There could also be support at other NASA Centers during the performance period of the contract. In this synopsis, NASA ARC is soliciting information about potential sources and preferred contracting approaches for the above services, which are described in more detail in Appendix A (See separate Appendix A document posted November 21, 2005). CURRENT CONTRACT FEATURES: The current NASA Information Technology Research, Development and Operations in Support of Scientific Computing (ITRDO) task order NNA05AC20T has the following features: 1) Period of Performance: Basic: 4/1/05 - 3/31/06; Option 1: 4/1/06 - 3/31/07. 2) Task Order Type: Cost Plus Award Fee (CPAF). The task order was awarded under the General Services Administration Information Technology Omnibus Procurement II contract. I. PURPOSE OF THIS SYNOPSIS This notice has two purposes: 1) To request information on capabilities of potential offerors to provide the services described in Appendix A. Information received as a result of this notice will be considered by the Government and used for acquisition planning purposes only. 2) To request information from interested parties regarding their preferred contracting approach to providing the services described in Appendix A. >From this point forward, the follow-on procurement to the ITRDO task order will be known as the NASA Supercomputing Support Services (NS3) contract. II. SUMMARY OF PROPOSED WORK BACKGROUND: NASA?s challenging mission to explore and understand space and the Earth within it requires the agency to assertively leverage and advance humankind?s latest capabilities, technologies, and knowledge. Supercomputing is a powerful tool for meeting the agency?s challenges. Computing capability has advanced exponentially for decades, to the point that computational modeling and simulation has become an equal partner to experiment and theory in achieving scientific and engineering progress. Supercomputing now provides broad support in solving NASA?s greatest challenges, including high-fidelity modeling to design and improve aerospace vehicles, analysis of massive Earth systems data to understand potential near-term and long-term futures of our planet, and detailed astrophysical simulations to explore the history and future of our universe. To meet these and many other mission challenges, NASA operates two major supercomputing (a.k.a. high performance computing (HPC)) facilities. NASA?s primary HPC facility is the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Facility at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. NAS serves as the supercomputing pathfinder for the agency, maintaining a deep knowledge of HPC and related technologies and applications, and developing and operating some of the largest, most effective supercomputers in the world. NAS supports users from most NASA Centers, all Mission Directorates, and external organizations as well. To enable effective use of these strategic HPC resources, NAS provides integrated support to its users, including application code porting and optimization, data analysis and visualization, application pathfinding, and system engineering. The goal of this integrated support is to achieve dramatic reductions in time-to-solution, demonstrate breakthroughs in accuracy or scale of solution, and enable unprecedented rapid advances in scientific and engineering insight. NASA?s second major HPC facility is the NASA Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NCCS leverages the pathfinding of NAS to field and operate advanced and cost-effective production supercomputers. NCCS? user base comes primarily from the Science Mission Directorate. However, both NAS and NCCS are able to perform load-sharing or fail-over services for the other facility if necessary. The NS3 contract will support the NAS facility, its HPC projects, and its NASA-wide networking infrastructure. NS3 may also support the NCCS facility, and perhaps smaller NASA HPC facilities at other NASA Centers, during part or all of the period of performance of the contract. NASA is transforming its multi-facility supercomputing resources into a unified, strategically managed capability for the Agency. Thus, approaches are sought that support coordination, best practices sharing, and other synergies across the agency. TECHNICAL AREAS: The following lists the technical activities at the NAS and NCCS facilities that may require NS3 support during the period of performance. These activities are summarized in Appendix A. 1) Supercomputing and Storage Systems 2) Networking and Communications 3) User Services and IPT Management (IPT Management is NAS only) 4) Application Services and Tools (NAS only) 5) Visualization and Data Analysis (NAS only) 6) Pathfinding Modeling and Simulation Technologies (NAS only) 7) Facility Operations 8) NASA-Wide Architecture 9) Program Management III. RESPONSES REGARDING POTENTIAL SOURCES STATEMENT OF CAPABILITIES Interested Offerors having the required specialized capabilities/qualifications to support some or all of the work described in Appendix A are asked to submit a capability/qualification statement of 15 PAGES or less. The response must include the following: 1) Company name, address, point of contact, phone, fax, e-mail, and website (if applicable). 2) Whether your company is Large business, Small business, Small Disadvantaged Business, 8(a)set-aside small business, HUBZone small business, Woman-owned small business concern, Veteran-owned Service Disabled small business, HBCU/MI, Service-Disabled Veteran-owned small business for NAISC code 541519 size standard $21 million. 3) Your company?s capability in each of the technical areas. For each technical area, indicate what percentage of the technical area you would perform. 4) Any experience that your company has in operating or providing primary support for a major supercomputing (a.k.a. HPC or high-end computing) facility. 5) A list of relevant work performed in the past five (5) years, including contract type, contract number, technical description, dollar amount, period of performance, and a customer reference name and telephone number. Please include relevant work in collaboration with any high performance computing organization. The Government reserves the right to consider a small business or 8(a) set-aside based on responses. IV. RESPONSES REGARDING THE CONTRACTING APPROACH The Government is soliciting contracting approaches to the NASA Supercomputing Support Services contract that will enhance competition and provide business opportunities. Therefore, the Government is requesting feedback on the following areas for consideration during acquisition planning: a) Socio-economic considerations: ARC is interested in your comments on establishing subcontracting goals for Small Business, Service-Disabled Veteran-owned small business, Small-Disadvantaged Business, or Women-owned small business concern, Veteran-owned Service Disabled small business, Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI), and HUBZone small business. The prior task order subcontracting goals were as follows: Small Business 12% Small Disadvantaged Business 10% Women-Owned Small Business 3% HUBZone 0% Total Small Business Concerns 25% b) Performance-Based Contracting (PBC): ARC is interested in your comments on Performance-Based Contracting (PBC). If you have specific experience with PBC in support of similar contracts, please include your experience and opinion of measurable performance standards as it relates to the technical areas described in Appendix A. c) Contract Period of Performance Duration: ARC is interested in your comments on how long the total contract period of performance should be based on your ability to provide cost estimate information. ARC is considering a contract performance period longer than five (5) years. d) Use of Cost Plus Award Fee/Award Term: ARC is considering the use of a cost plus award fee/award term structure to evaluate technical performance, schedule, and cost. ARC is interested in motivating contractors to provide excellent performance during the life of a contract through a new incentive plan called "award term." Award term is considered a non-monetary incentive that can stand alone or be used in combination with other contract incentives. It is a disciplined process used to determine whether to continue a longer-term business relationship with a contractor. The award term evaluation process mirrors that of award fee; however, award term evaluations are based, to a greater extent, on objective metrics. NASA has utilized this new contracting approach in several cases under a pilot program. In an attempt to determine the feasibility of a cost plus award fee/award term approach for this particular procurement, the Government is soliciting input from interested parties and asks that responses include answers to the following questions: 1) Performance incentives: Please provide your view regarding award fee, award term, and/or other appropriate incentives for contractor performance. 2) Here are some sample incentive evaluation factors. How would you propose to measure factors such as the technical/cost/schedule performance, risk mitigation, employee and asset safety and security, innovative best practices, quality of service to users, extraordinary mission impacts, multi-facility synergy, bringing in new customers and users, responsiveness to changing requirements and budget, partnering with HPC vendors for new system development, or identifying opportunities for technical and administrative improvement? 3) What type of award fee evaluation factors would you recommend for this type of procurement? 4) What type award term factors would you recommend for this type of procurement? 5) Would use of an award term incentive properly motivate contractor performance on the follow-on contract and why? 6) Would you submit a proposal if a solicitation is issued for the follow-on contract with the award term incentive and why? 7) Have you had experience with Award Term Contracting? If yes, please provide the name of the Government agency who awarded the contract, the contract number, a brief description of the work, the Contracting Officer's contact information, and your perception of whether this did or did not incentivize performance. e) Data: What type of technical information along with the Statement of Work would you like to see with a potential solicitation (e.g., sample tasks, information on the computer systems and other major resources currently being supported, best practices questions)? f) Contract Content/Structure: Do you have any suggestions or examples of restructuring, simplifications, and clarity in the description of technical areas (Appendix A) as well as other types of additional information that would improve understanding or clarity of requirements and terms and conditions? There is no limit on the page length to your response to PART IV. RESPONSES REGARDING THE CONTRACTING APPROACH. V. YOUR RESPONSE TO THE SYNOPSIS All responses to 1) the Statement of Capabilities and 2) Contracting Approach shall be received no later than December 13, 2005. You may respond via electronic mail (e-mail) to the Contracting Officer, Jill Willard, at the following address: Jill.Willard-1@nasa.gov. Written questions should also be directed to the Contracting Officer, Jill Willard, at the following address: Jill.Willard-1@nasa.gov. In all responses, please reference solicitation number NNA06125494. Verbal questions will not be accepted. This synopsis is for information and planning purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will the Government pay for information solicited. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is the potential offeror?s responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. An ombudsman has been appointed -- See NASA Specific Note "B". Any referenced notes may be viewed at the following URLs linked below.
- Web Link
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Click here for the latest information about this notice
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- Record
- SN00935800-W 20051123/051121212226 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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