SOURCES SOUGHT
70 -- COTS software solution for data replication
- Notice Date
- 3/22/2011
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 511210
— Software Publishers
- Contracting Office
- Social Security Administration, Office of Budget, Finance, and Management, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1st Floor, Rear Entrance, 7111 Security Blvd., Baltimore, Maryland, 21244
- ZIP Code
- 21244
- Solicitation Number
- SSA-RFI-11-0322
- Archive Date
- 4/6/2011
- Point of Contact
- Rick Bolt, Phone: 410-966-8765
- E-Mail Address
-
rick.bolt@ssa.gov
(rick.bolt@ssa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Request for Information This request for information (RFI) announcement is for information and planning purposes only; vendors should not construe it as a commitment by the Government. The Government may or may not award a contract based upon responses to this RFI. The Social Security Administration (SSA) intends to procure a Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) software solution for data replication that will operate on IBM iSeries Systems at multiple locations. SSA's IT Operations Assurance (ITOA) project provides for the protection of the critical Information Technology (IT) infrastructure assets of the Agency. The protection of these critical infrastructure assets, including hardware, software, telecommunications, building and physical plant and personnel, is required under Homeland Security Presidential Declaration 7, Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization and Protection, dated December 17, 2003. The ITOA project has mitigated the internally identified risks associated with single points of failure at the National Computer Center (NCC) located in Baltimore, Maryland by establishing a second, fully functional, co-processing data center, the Second Support Center (SSC) located in Durham, North Carolina. Each center currently processes a portion of SSA's critical and non-critical workloads. Upon completion in 2012, each center will back up the data assets of the other. SSA designed the centers so that in the event of a disaster, one center can assume the critical workloads of the other center. Recognizing that establishment of a second computing facility is a major investment of time and resources; SSA has identified critical stages of development (and resulting risk mitigation) for this project. SSA is currently implementing a disaster recovery strategy between the NCC and the SSC that will employ remote mirroring of data between the NCC and SSC. This effort will ensure that in the event of a disaster, the amount of data loss will be less than 1 hour (recovery point objective or RPO), and the recovery time (recovery time objective or RTO) will be 24 hours or less. A key portion of SSA's IT infrastructure assets consist of IBM iSeries Systems, which provide the bulk of the business processing for the Disability Determination Services (DDS). SSA seeks a COTS solution to replicate data between the NCC and SSC iSeries. SSA has identified mandatory requirements for the COTS for this implementation. The vendor must demonstrate that the software solution has been implemented as a disaster recovery solution for organizations that have a similar size and scope to the SSA IBM iSeries implementation to include: • All interested parties must provide a COTS solution that will support data replication between systems at a distance greater than 300 miles. • The sites consist of two(2) IBM Power 570 systems, Type 9117 Model MMA, using System i operating systems. The operating level of the systems is IBM i OS V6R1. The proposed solution must be able to run on that platform and be upgradable to future operating system releases. • The primary complex consists of five (5) logical partitions with six (6) processing units currently activated. Due to possible expansion of the workload, all interested parties should be able to support a minimum of eight processing units. The system has 192 Gigabytes of memory. The internal DASD is composed of IBM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) DASD technology. The disks are a combination of IBM Type 433C, Model 050 and 433C Model 099. The active partitions are using four(4) Terabytes of storage. The proposed solution must be able to run within this DASD environment and not require external DASD. • Two (2) of the current partitions are using mirrored DASD protection, two (2) are under RAID5 parity, and the fifth is a disaster recovery partition that can use either technology. • The Capacity Backup Unit (CBU) system consists of 32 activated processors, 128 Gigabytes of memory and 15.4 Terabytes of mirrored internal DASD. • Communication between sites is supported by a 10-Gigabit interface. • Data replication should be able to support all System i file structures (e.g. the System i library file structure, the Integrated File System (IFS), and the Open Systems Structure). • Interested parties should demonstrate a controlling feature within their product. This will provide SSA with the ability to monitor and modify the performance of their system functionality. • The COTS system will allow SSA to perform temporary switches to the CBU facility to validate fallback capabilities. These exercises should occur without harming the data on either complex or require an extended set up period to prepare for the test. • Exercises on the secondary system should not affect the workload on the primary complex. The system should be able to store any modification to the primary complex. At the completion of these exercises, the COTS solution will apply all transactions that occurred on the primary complex, to the secondary complex until both complexes have returned to an in-sync condition. • The system must perform within the guidelines prescribed by the ITOA project (RTO of 24 hours or less and RPO of 1 hour or less) for an actual fallback. • Additionally, the vendor should demonstrate past performance and relevant experience in IBM iSeries Disaster Recovery contracts that include: o Providing two(2) site and multi-site configurations o Providing operating system platform analysis o Providing pilot strategy o Providing configuration of test and production environment including site connectivity o Providing plans for site-to-site connectivity o Providing problem reporting process changes/updates o Providing capacity and performance analysis o Providing I/O analysis of production environment o Providing change control processes o Providing installation and customization of automation routines o Providing implementation of data replication o Providing management of data replication product Any firm that feels they have the COTS solution that meets the requirements listed above must respond, in writing, via e-mail to the Contract Specialist by the response due date posted. Vendor submissions of simple marketing materials or brochures, incomplete responses that do not conform to the elements of this request for information, or references to vendor websites will not be considered by the Government. This is not a request for proposal. NO FORMAL SOLICITATION IS BEING ISSUED AT THIS TIME. Requests for copies of a solicitation at this time will not be acknowledged. The Government will not return any information submitted in response to this notice, nor will the Government pay for any information submitted in reply to this notice. Information submitted in response to this notice will be used in SSA's market research efforts and for procurement planning purposes. The Government reserves the right to contact, or not contact, any party responding to this notice in order to obtain further information for market research purposes. All responses must be submitted in an electronic format (compatible with MS Office 2007) via e-mail to the Contract Specialist by the due date specified. Faxed information will not be considered. The file size limitation for e-mail attachments is five (5) Megabytes. Electronic responses must be received by 5:00PM ET April 5, 2011.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/SSA/DCFIAM/OAG/SSA-RFI-11-0322/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: National Computer Center, Social Security Administration, 6201 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland, 21235, United States
- Zip Code: 21235
- Zip Code: 21235
- Record
- SN02406305-W 20110324/110322234321-52363cca8e13edc921ddb47ee2f102e4 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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