SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- NWSTG Message Switching System
- Notice Date
- 3/2/2015
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 517210
— Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite)
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Eastern Region Acquisition Division, Norfolk Federal Building, 200 Granby Street, Norfolk, Virginia, 23510, United States
- ZIP Code
- 23510
- Solicitation Number
- EA133W-15-RFI-30215
- Point of Contact
- CLENTON A. SHANKS, Phone: 757-441-6881
- E-Mail Address
-
andy.shanks@noaa.gov
(andy.shanks@noaa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- 1 Introduction This request for information (RFI) is not a solicitation for a contract or grant award. This RFI notice is for information and planning purposes only, is not a request for proposal and is issued in accordance with FAR Provision 52.215-3 Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes (OCT 1997) provided at: http://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/52_215.html#wp1144503. No solicitation document exists at this time. Issuance of this notice does not constitute any obligation on the part of the Government to procure these items or services to issue a solicitation. In addition, the Government is under no obligation to pay for information submitted in response to this request for information, and responses to this notice cannot be accepted as offers. Any information that the vendor considers proprietary should be clearly marked as such. 2 Background The Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS), Integrated Dissemination Program (IDP) office is requesting information from industry and other organizations (e.g., non-profits, research laboratories, and universities) to determine whether capability and interest exists for establishing partnerships with NOAA for the purpose of re-architecting the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG) under the newly-formed Integrated Dissemination Program (IDP). A re-architected NWSTG capability will ensure a modern, scalable, extensible, and reliable dissemination and infrastructure services are constructed using current best practices. The NWSTG is the Nation's hub, operating on a 24x7 cycle for the collection and distribution of an extensive range of weather data and products (surface observations, models, radar imagery, satellite imagery, buoy data, watches and warnings, and forecasts). Additionally, customer's worldwide use of data distributed by NWSTG affects a wide range of economic and emergency management decisions. NWSTG is also the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Region IV Global Information System Center (GISC). The NWSTG provides national and global near real-time data exchange services using automated communication resources, transmitting a wide variety of environmental data types. The NWSTG is operated twenty four hours a day to acquire process observations, construct messages, and disseminate messages and files of observations, model analysis, and forecast products. The time-perishable products are disseminated cyclically according to fixed schedules. The NWSTG is committed to maintaining a timely and reliable transmission of products at the highest level. 2.1 System Background The mission of the NWSTG is to provide timely, efficient, and effective dissemination of all-weather products to all customers for the continuous protection of life, limb, and property. The NWSTG is a central collection center and communications switching system (via broadcast and/or web services) for millions of hydro-meteorological observations and products each day for the following user communities: • Internal NOAA (e.g. Weather Forecast Offices) • Federal Agencies (DoD, DHS, DoT, DoA) • International Community (e.g. World Meteorological Organization (WMO)) • WMO Global Information System Centre (GISC) Washington • WMO Regional Telecommunication Hub - Washington • Commercial Operational Partners (e.g. WeatherBug, AccuWeather) • Academia (e.g. University of Oklahoma, Penn State) • Public users The NWSTG has been identified as an essential government resource in Presidential Decision Directive 67 - Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations. The NWSTG receives / disseminates over 3.2 million watches, warnings, products, and observations per year, and 1,880 radar products every 5 minutes. The daily bandwidth averages 6+ terabytes for all weather products with an average latency of 55 seconds. 3 Purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) NOAA NWS is looking to replace the existing NWSTG message switching system, which is the core component of NWSTG. This RFI is intended to inform NOAA on the current status of industry sources, business practices, technical capacity, and operational capability of vendors providing message switching systems product/solution. NOAA is providing all industry stakeholders an opportunity to comment and respond to this RFI. The submission shall reflect the vendor's product/solution and approach to address product/solution capabilities, fit to meet the requirements and replace the existing message switching system while meeting all requirements for security, system scalability and efficiency, reliability and availability, data messaging frameworks, and an overall strategy for implementing the system. The response shall include as much details as possible for the government to understand the available products/solution, its capabilities in managing weather related data as and where applicable, and how the product will be able to replace the existing gateway switching system. 4 Scope NWS is looking at re-architecting the current NWSTG Message Switching System by replacing the current system with a more manageable, efficient, scalable and robust system. The NWS is looking for companies to respond to this RFI to inform us about their capabilities, experience, and knowledge in providing such enterprise grade switching system services for weather data. The enterprise grade switching system should be able to fully replace the current system capabilities and provide added scalability and efficiency without disrupting the overall operations. 4.1 Current Telecommunication Gateway Switching System overview: The Telecommunication Gateway Message Switching system is considered to be the core of the NWSTG operation. There are three primary components of the NWSTG; 1) Data Ingest, 2) Message Switching and, 3) Data Dissemination. It is at the center of a 24x7, highly critical NWS operations service which ultimately factors in the savings of life, limb, and property through the timely and accurate delivery of weather warnings and watches to the general public. It is imperative we are running 24x7x365 days, with the expectation of availability being at 100%. 4.1.1 Data Ingest: Currently, the NWS collects data from a wide range of weather observing systems which includes surface weather, radar weather, oceanic weather, etc., The NWS also has a wide range of partners, both nationally and internationally who provide and collect NWS weather data products. The partners and stakeholders include external Government agencies (FAA, DOD, etc.,) commercial stakeholders (WSI, DTN, etc.,), International Weather agencies and a number of Research communities located at Universities across the country. To collect and disseminate this data, the NWS uses a large variety of communications interfaces to collect and disseminate data with our various stakeholders and customers. These interfaces include FTP, HTTP, Socket, etc., across a complement of more than 150 circuits. The types of data handled by the NWSTG is primarily text based, but does include a wide range of binary and gridded weather products. The role of the switching system in our view is to properly identify and validate each product/message arriving at the NWSTG, determine its role and ultimate destination. This can include a delivery process of a "one-to-many" or "many-to-one" to support NWSTG customers. It may also include stripping down the product/message and recreating it as a new product in order to meet customer requirements. Once the delivery requirements are identified for each weather product, the switching system will verify and validate the proper delivery of each product. 4.1.2 Message Switching: The current NWSTG message switching system is running on IBM AIX systems using WebSphere MQ (WMQ) and WebSphere MQ Integrator (WMQI). The message system uses the WMQ and WMQI to identify new data for processing from within local repositories and processes them using pre-defined rule sets. In certain cases as per the set rules or header information the Switching system parses the data files and sends components of the file to other applications systems for further processing. These systems/applications will then take the data and produce various data products (specific sources, data, information etc.) The new products and data files are then placed in their own respective repositories. The new data products can be completely new files or same data files with a new WMO header. The switching system then takes the new data files/products and hands them to their respective systems and repositories for dissemination to NWS customers. This switching process will use pre-defined rule sets for handling the routing system switches this data to the respective dissemination repository based on the WMO headers and/or rules set with the system. The data is also stored in databases for further processing and archiving. There are various background processes associated with the switching system that are used to process the data, which includes parsing data files, cleaning data files, storing data, reading WMO headers from files, creating and combining various weather products under new WMO headers for further processing and dissemination. The current switching system provides management tools used to create new rule sets for data processing, data flow, format updates and changes, request reply features, and setting priority between various data files, and data flows for processing. Once the switching system hands over the new products and/or the data files into their respective systems repositories, the dissemination systems then take over to send out the files. 4.1.3 Data Dissemination: There are various systems and local applications which send or hosts data for partners and customers both nationally and internationally. The dissemination of weather products takes place through various mechanisms and protocols such as FTP, Sockets, LDM, DBnet, http, email, etc. The disseminating of the data to all customers in a timely manner is an element we cannot stress upon enough - the element of safety when you are sending weather warnings to protect life, limb, and property requires immediate delivery within our 24x7x365 operations environment. 4.1.4 Snapshot of Current Switching System: The current message switching system is setup for high availability and efficiency. The current switching system daily averages include: • Number of Ingested weather products: 3,451,025 • Number of switched messages per day: 12,678,602 • Number of switched messages per minute: 8,804 4.2 Requirements: NOAA NWS is looking for vendors to provide information and provide details of their products and/or solution that can replace the existing message switching system at NWSTG. NOAA NWS is looking for as much detail as possible that will enable us to understand the product, its capabilities for catering to the current and future growth of weather data and products. The following list describes some of the key objectives NOAA NWS desires from the new system. Please provide a detailed response to each of the specific objectives describing your experience and approach for providing a comprehensive and robust switching system. 1. Solution Capabilities: a. NWS is steering towards an open source solution; however we would like to hear the industry views of existing product/solution capabilities in comparison to a custom open-source solution and why the NWS should choose one over the other, keeping in mind the growth, additional functionality changes and technology evolution. b. The solution should be highly flexible, scalable, and capable of supporting the managing, prioritization, switching, storage and transactions of a wide range of weather data products on various network interfaces and connections. Must also include the building and deconstruction of weather products to meet customer requirements. c. An operations and management solution to monitor all transactions, manage and rectify issues to meet daily service requirements is also essential. 2. Data Management/Infrastructure a. Provide architectural information and diagrams representing the intended role for any described capability (e.g., data switching, data storage, data ingest, data processing, analytics, archiving). Identify support services for scaling user capacity and experience (look and feel). Input should include underlying open source technology and/or standard(s) or other standards (such as ISO, IEEE, industry) to which each capability or product adheres to in a production environment (including data and metadata standards). 3. Data Security a. Identify or propose methods that are available in your solution for hardening the capability and/or security features that are intrinsic to your capability to meet FISMA security standards. 4. Development a. Describe the methods and approach for managing future enhancements and integration with other products as needed by the Government. 5. Organization Capabilities and Experience a. Describe your experience with managing Weather data. b. Describe your understanding of weather data and WMO standards and header formats. c. Provide information on what Federal agencies and/or private entities have benefited from your capabilities and how your company is prepared to deliver and service capabilities for a Federal agency that must comply with IT laws, regulations and policies. d. Describe your experience in implementing such solutions and the approach you have implemented in the past to transition such critical live systems without any downtime. Describe your approach or your existing support model to meet Governments 24x7 support requirements to ensure system uptime and peak efficiency is obtained. 6. Value Proposition Include consideration of NOAA's responsibilities by virtue of Executive Order 13642 and OMB M-13-13: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-05-14/pdf/2013-11533.pdf http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-13.pdf a. Describe your vision of potential innovations, products, or opportunities that may become viable if NOAA utilizes your solution. b. Provide metrics that should be considered to measure the level of impact or success from this effort. 5 Questions Concerning this RFI Any questions concerning this RFI should be provided in writing to the following point of contact: Shanks, Clenton A 200 Granby Street, Suite 800 Norfolk, VA 23510 Phone: 757-441-6881 Fax: 757-664-3611 andy.shanks@noaa.gov 6 Response Format Interested sources shall submit a copy of their Capability Statement to Clenton A. Shanks, Contract Specialist, via email at Andy.Shanks@noaa.gov or by mail no later than 4:00 p.m. local time on March 17, 2015. Standard brochures will not be considered a sufficient response to this notice. Submitted Capability Statements shall include the following: (1) Company name and address (2) DUNS number (3) Type of business (e.g., large business, small business, 8(a), veteran-owned small business, service-disabled veteran owned small business, HUBZone small business, small disadvantaged business, and/or women owned small business) as validated via the System for Award Management (SAM) (4) Company point of contact - name, phone, and e-mail address (5) Demonstrate capabilities as follows: All requests for information in all sections of this document must be answered as concisely as possible while providing all information necessary to understand the outsourcing proposed solution. Any deviations from requirements, or requirements that cannot be satisfied by the vendor, must be clearly identified. The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code is 517210, Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except satellite). The small business size standard for this NAICS code is 1,500 employees. All types of business concerns, large businesses, small businesses, and nonprofit and educational institutions are encouraged to submit a brief, typed Capability Statement in response to this sources sought announcement. Responses must include a statement that indicates that the vendor understands the requirements of the RFI and accepts the terms and conditions under which the RFI was issued to the vendor. The original response must be signed under the corporate seal by an authorized officer. Any information of a confidential or proprietary nature contained in a vendor response should be clearly marked ‘PROPRIETARY' or ‘CONFIDENTIAL' by item or at the top of each page. Reasonable precautions will be taken to safeguard any part of the response identified by a vendor as being confidential or proprietary. This RFI remains the property of the Government. Vendors not submitting a response must immediately return all printed, graphic and electronic documentation to the point of contact. 7 Disclaimer This RFI is issued solely for information gathering purposes; this RFI does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals. 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. NOAA will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred in responding to this RFI. Respondents are advised that NOAA is under no obligation to provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this RFI. Response to this RFI is strictly voluntary and is not required to participate in any future potential solicitations on this topic. Submissions may be reviewed by the Government, including NOAA, and partner Federal Agencies and their immediate staff. The initial implementation of the NSEM is not currently funded to procure commercial models. The Federal Government may issue a follow-on Request for Proposal for commercial models as funding becomes available. NOTE: This RFI is being issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids (IFB), a Request for Proposals (RFP), a Request for Quotes (RFQ) or an indication that the Government will contract for any of the items and/or services contained in this notice. All information received in response to this notice that is marked Proprietary will be handled accordingly. Responses to this notice will not be returned. In submitting a response, you are solely responsible and accountable for all of the expenses associated with your response.
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