SOLICITATION NOTICE
99 -- Common Support Services (CSS) Infrastructure Solution
- Notice Date
- 9/26/2012
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- Contracting Office
- FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, AAQ-330 HQ - FAA Headquarters (Washington, DC)
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- 12385
- Response Due
- 12/31/2012
- Archive Date
- 1/15/2013
- Point of Contact
- Kathy StHill, 202-385-6136
- E-Mail Address
-
kathy.sthill@faa.gov
(kathy.sthill@faa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This announcement provides a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Market Survey for the Common Support Services (CSS) Infrastructure Solution. The purpose of this Market Survey is to (1) collect information about the market for cloud computing services; (2) identify potential approaches for meeting the CSS's cloud computing needs; (3) obtain vendors' comments and recommendations regarding the draft Descriptions of Potential Cloud Tenant Application; and (4) obtain additional industry insight regarding cloud computing. This announcement is NOT A SCREENING INFORMATION REQUEST (SIR) OR REQUEST FOR OFFER (RFO). The FAA may or may not consider a solicitation. The FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. I.Background The FAA is considering opportunities to use new technology and new service delivery models to improve the quality and efficiency of common support services. In order to obtain some operational efficiency at two data centers, the FAA has decided to migrate certain legacy systems (e.g. Weather Message Switching Center Replacement) to use common hardware, common user interfaces, common support tools and common documentation. An Integrated Enterprise Service Platform (IESP) concept has been developed to support programs located at the NAS Enterprise Management Centers (NEMCs). The IESP takes advantage of virtualization and in-house (organic) maintenance. The potential benefits of virtualization and in-house maintenance include decreased system complexity; centralized knowledge base and documentation; single maintenance and logistics philosophy; reduced training requirements and costs; increased scalability; and centralized monitoring. The FAA may be interested in a cloud-based solution for common support services (CSS) infrastructure in the operational domain. The FAA may consider using IaaS to host the operational CSS to be deployed in the National Airspace System (NAS). In the future, the CSS infrastructure could become a cloud service provider for other programs in the NAS. The FAA may also be open to evolving to other service models such as PaaS for CSS in the future. II.Description A CSS Infrastructure solution may host programs such as Common Support Services for Weather (CSS-Wx) and Aeronautical Information Management Modernization (AIMM), which will manage aviation weather and aeronautical information, respectively. The FAA considers the following as key objectives for cloud infrastructure: (1) Efficient use of hardware through resource pooling across multiple programs; (2) Efficient scalability to accommodate new programs, expanded programs, or additional users that are geographically dispersed; (3) Faster deployment of software and capabilities through standardization, interoperability, and potential IaaS; and (4) Ability to monitor, measure, and report program usage during initial deployment with an option to integrate this feature into back-end systems in order to charge programs for usage of the infrastructure. Common Support Services for Weather (CSS-Wx) CSS-Wx, formerly known as NextGen Network Enabled Weather (NNEW), will be part of a common support services capability. CSS-Wx will establish an aviation weather publishing capability for the NAS. It will enable access and the standardization of weather information for dissemination to users by System Wide Information Management (SWIM), a data management system the FAA is implementing for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). CSS-Wx will filter weather information geospatially and temporally to provide its service consumers only the specific data requested. Consumers of the information published by CSS-Wx will include air traffic control and traffic management systems users, commercial aviation, general aviation, and the flying public. CSS-Wx will also make weather information available for NextGen enhanced decision support tools. CSS-Wx will be the FAA's single provider of aviation weather data, consolidating several legacy weather information systems. CSS-Wx will also be scalable to facilitate the addition of new users and new systems. The system will be implemented over multiple work packages, and is scheduled to achieve initial operating capability in 2016. The CSS-Wx program may consider using a CSS Cloud to provide infrastructure services for processing capacity and storage. Aeronautical Information Management Modernization (AIMM) The scope of the AIMM effort is divided into two segments and future work packages. AIMM Segment 1 (S1) focuses on improvements to the Central Altitude Reservation Function (CARF) and the Federal Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) System (FNS). The AIMM S1 system is not considered as a tenant application of a CSS Cloud. AIMM Segment 2 (S2) will expand user access to aeronautical information using SWIM infrastructure. AIMM S2 will make aeronautical information available to all NAS users through web-based, system-to-system interfaces and a web-based, human-to-system interface. Users will include the Department of Defense (DoD), air traffic control facilities, airlines, and general aviation. As part of AIMM S2, the information available through AIMM will be expanded to include Special Activity Airspace (SAA) and airport configuration data. AIMM S2 will also expand the distribution of NOTAMs through the FNS. The AIMM S2 program may consider using a CSS Cloud to provide infrastructure services for processing capacity and storage. III.Attachments The following files are attached to this Market Survey: (1) Attachment #1: Document Review Template (2) Attachment #2: Descriptions of Potential Cloud Tenant Applications (3) Attachment #3: FAA Cloud Computing Strategy (4) Attachment #4: Business Declaration Form The FAA requests comments on Attachment #2: Descriptions of Potential Cloud Tenant Applications, which is in draft form and subject to revision. Please follow the instructions below when providing comments on this document: (1) Provide comments and recommendations using Attachment #1: Document Review Template. The Government will only review the comments and recommendations provided in the template. (2) Electronic submission of Attachment #1 should be provided in the Microsoft Excel format file. (3) There is no page limit for your comments; however, individual incoming messages are limited to 10 MB. The FAA is providing Attachment #3: FAA Cloud Computing Strategy for industry reference. The FAA does not wish to receive comments on this document. IV.Business Declaration and Small Business Certification To assist in the FAA's analysis of the market for cloud computing services, all respondents are requested to complete Attachment #4: Business Declaration Form as part of their submission. The FAA also requests that small and disadvantaged businesses responding to this market survey provide copies of certification letters indicating that they are certified for participation in the 8(a) program. V.Capability Statement The FAA is interested in vendor knowledge, capability, and experience in the following areas: (1) Hardware virtualization (2) Implementation and operation of cloud computing services, as defined by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (3) Knowledge of data encryption (4) Knowledge of the federal information security standards The FAA requires a capability statement from all responders that addresses the following (in order): (1) Type of services provided by your firm (including teammates or subcontractors) that demonstrate the knowledge, capability, and experience described above. (2) Cloud computing services (substantially corresponding to the NIST definition) provided under previous contracts that are similar in size, scope and complexity to the FAA's needs as described in this Market Survey and attachments. (3) Experience in developing and/or acquiring private cloud capabilities for users, and recommended development, integration and acquisition strategies. (4) Knowledge, capabilities and experience in providing integrated and centralized management platforms integrating and providing system and network information. Please limit your capability statement to five pages. VI.Cloud Computing Approach The FAA requests the respondents to describe a potential approach to providing the CSS capability via cloud computing, including security and continuity of operations (COOP) that is consistent with the description above, Attachment #2: Descriptions of Potential Cloud Tenant Application, and Attachment #3: FAA Cloud Computing Strategy. Please also limit your Cloud Computing Approach response to ten pages. VII.Questions The FAA requests responses to the following questions. A complete response to all questions listed is appreciated, but not required. Please limit your response to the questions to a total of 35 pages. Deployment Model (1) Based on information provided in the Market Survey, would you recommend extending an FAA existing platform (e.g., IESP) to meet the needs of FAA programs? (2) Would an IaaS or other model be most suitable for the needs of FAA programs while the FAA develops an overall NAS cloud? What risks could be avoided or what advantages could be gained from using another deployment model? What information should the FAA consider in determining the best model to use? (3) What are your thoughts on where the cloud computing assets would need to be located based on the performance information in attachment 2, in order to meet the FAA programs needs? (4) What levels of service availability are feasible for cloud computing services, and what are the associated cost factors? (5) How quickly can industry provide private IaaS Cloud services, once ordered? In-Service Management (6) What is your strategy for providing continuous service updates to maintain technology and high-performance computing? Provide examples of where you have previously implemented this strategy and lessons learned from the effort(s). What contract structures and incentives do you recommend to assure continuous service enhancement to keep pace with cloud computing offerings in the commercial marketplace? (7) How do you support adding applications to the cloud in the future? What characteristics and capabilities would need to be determined for each application? How would you support software application performance testing? (8) How do you define and address different types of service outages? Describe your diagnostic tools, problem resolution, customer credit or compensation, alternative access options, etc. in the event of a service outage. (9) Would your cloud solution require scheduled downtime? If so, please provide details. (10) What kind of incident reporting system would your service include (such as logging and audit capabilities that shares raw incident data with the customer)? (11) What types of access, usage, or other metric reports can be provided by a cloud service provider? (12) What type of network monitoring and management capability can be provided by a cloud service provider? (13) What model would you recommend for provisioning accounts to users? Procurement (14) What program requirements and at what level of detail, Government Furnished Information (GFI), or Government Furnished Equipment (GFE), or other information would a vendor need to propose the best cloud solution? (15) What service level performance measures would you recommend for a cloud provider? (16) If your company has provided cloud services to the government, what contract approach was used (i.e., acquisition method, contract type, line items, and period of performance)? What contracting incentives do you recommend? (17) What would be some of the challenges, concerns, or recommendations that the FAA might experience for deploying cloud solutions that have high availability requirements and exchange large amounts of data? (18) What may the FAA need to be concerned with as it relates to interoperability, scalability, and performance for cloud computing? How do we maximize cloud solution portability and minimize dependence on proprietary solutions? Service Model (19) What level and type of testing is sufficient to demonstrate that a cloud platform is functioning properly? (20) Should the FAA use a CSS Cloud solution as a vendor-owned or vendor-developed and maintained contract service? (21) What type of service level agreement (SLA) do you recommend for a potential FAA private cloud? (22) What challenges or risks could be introduced by the expansion of an initial CSS Cloud to a larger cloud serving other NAS systems? What policy, security, or other considerations would the FAA need to address to execute such a strategy? What lessons learned from industry should we apply? (23) What are the elements of your pricing algorithm for a cloud solution? How are they applied to determine a service cost? Provide examples. (24) Do you use any open source or proprietary sources for software, technologies or APIs? If so, what certification processes, if any, are in place? (25) What is the impact of application level standards (e.g. development environment) on your ability to provide infrastructure services? (26) Do you provide resources that allow the user to easily port the virtual machines to other cloud providers? Are there costs for moving applications and data from your cloud services to another cloud service? Security Challenges (27) The FAA's Cloud Computing Strategy (Attachment #3) identifies security challenges involved with providing cloud computing solutions in the NAS environment. NAS systems are all connected to the FTI network (Attachment #2), which has no direct connectivity to the Internet. All external communications to the NAS must traverse approved boundary protection systems, provided by the FAA (Attachment #2). Explain how these challenges could be overcome for a solution that meets the essential characteristics of cloud computing, as defined by NIST. (28) How would a cloud provider ensure proper application memory, storage, and network isolation between cloud tenants that have different application security levels? What are the elements of an effective approach to ensure information security in a shared environment (e.g., shared virtual hosts and shared system administrator)? (29) What are your thoughts on an effective approach to protect consumers' data against cloning, making snapshots, etc? What mechanisms could be used to monitor the movement of unauthorized data into and out of a private cloud? (30) How would a cloud provider mitigate performance and data latency issues introduced by security controls? (31) How would a cloud provider ensure security protocol interoperability with existing systems, such as those described in Attachment #2? (32) If you are currently providing cloud computing capability, what is the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) security classification for your cloud infrastructure? Please describe your experience with FedRamp. (33) How would you address new security threats and new compliance requirements (e.g., threats that require security patches to the hypervisor)? (34) What are your thoughts on an effective approach to providing a centralized integrated management platform correlating system information from applications, systems and network infrastructure into a common operating picture for network and security operations? VIII.Responses In order to be considered responsive to the market survey, respondents must provide the following: (1) Capability Statement (per Section III) (2) Completed Business Declaration form (Attachment #4) (3) Copy of SBA 8(a) certification form and/or proof of service-disabled veteran-owned small business status (if applicable) Respondents are requested to provide responses as directed below. You are encouraged to submit nonproprietary information to the greatest extent possible; however, if you do submit proprietary information, please mark all proprietary information included in the response as such. As a follow-up to this Market Survey, the contracting officer (CO) may contact some, all, or none of the respondents for one-on-one meetings to obtain additional information regarding their response. SUBMISSION FORMAT: One (1) Electronic copy to: kathy.sthill@faa.gov One (1) Hard Copy to: Kathy St. Hill Wilbur Wright Bldg. (FOB10B) FAA National Headquarters 600 Independence Ave., SW Suite 4W100, Column G (4W42GN) Washington, DC 20597 The front cover of any submission must include responder's point of contact information, including name, telephone number, email, and mailing address. NOTES: Electronic submission is preferred. Electronic submission of comments on Attachment #2 should be provided in a Microsoft Excel format file using Attachment #1. Electronic submission of all other components of the response should be in either Microsoft Word format or portable document format (PDF). Please note that the FAA email server restricts file size to 10MB per email message; therefore, responses may have to be submitted in more than one e-mail in order to be received. All submissions must be received by 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on October 12, 2012. For questions, requests for additional information, etc. regarding this market survey, contact Kathy St. Hill, Contracting Officer, via email: kathy.sthill@faa.gov. Submissions must include company point(s) of contact, telephone number(s), FAX number(s), email address(es), and mailing address. This announcement is NOT A SCREENING INFORMATION REQUEST (SIR) OR REQUEST FOR OFFER (RFO). The FAA may or may not consider a solicitation. The FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. The FAA will not pay for any information received or costs incurred in preparing responses to this announcement.
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