70 -- NOTICE OF GOVERNMENT INTENT TO ESTABLISH AN AGENCY STANDARD

PURPOSE: The purpose of this notice is to inform the vendor community of the Social Security Administrations (SSA) intention to establish Sun servers and the Solaris operating system as the Agency UNIX standard for the distributed Web systems environment for Websphere applications, Web content serving and Domain Name Systems (DNS) through Fiscal Year 2007. SCOPE: As required by the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, SSA has established infrastructure architecture with the goal of providing a supportable, sustainable environment for life cycle application support. The architecture was defined both to support an effective IT technology environment and to promote cost effective business practices. SSAs approved architecture supports all facets of the IT environment - from mainframe to client/server, from database support to electronic messaging, as well as the numerous other facets. This notice is limited to the Internet/Intranet infrastructure. BACKGROUND/ISSUES: OMB Circular A-130 requires Agencies to establish policies and procedures for efficient management of information technology and its resources. In addition, the Federal Standardization Manual, FSPM-0001, includes guidance to Agencies on establishing standards to meet Agency needs. Standards help ensure that Agency organizations produce applications and information assets that are consistent and compatible with the Agencys IT infrastructure and in turn help promote more cost-effective business practices. The Office of Telecommunications and Systems Operations (OTSO) is responsible for acquiring and maintaining servers to support SSAs Internet/Intranet applications. Initially Sun obviated as the preferred Unix infrastructure due to compatibility issues with alternative platforms for projects such as: - Retrieval Ware Search Engine; - Team Connect software (NDMIS); - Livelink (ACT); - Cold Fusion MX for Websphere; and - Gelco Travel Manager. In 2001, the Office of Systems Electronic Services prepared a Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) for the Office of Systems Internet/Intranet Environment. In September 2001 SSAs Senior Procurement Executive approved the aforesaid JOFOC with the concurrence of SSAs Competition Advocate. This JOFOC established Sun servers and the Solaris operating system as the UNIX infrastructure platform for the WebSphere Internet/Intranet environment and established a spending cap of $1.1 million for the servers. Since that time, SSA has rapidly expanded its Internet Customer Services initiatives and continues to roll out additional applications. SSA must be prepared to provide hardware and software components to support each additional application. Without managed capacity increases to support new requirements, SSA must acquire the requisite additional hardware and software for each application planned for migration to production. Each acquisition requires new justification and documentation as prescribed in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). CONCLUSION: SSA has a large investment in not only the hardware and software components of the network infrastructure for the web systems environment, but also in the OTSO staff that manages and maintains this infrastructure. OTSO has staff dedicated to configuring, integration testing, monitoring workloads, and maintaining Sun Servers for the distributed WebSphere infrastructure. SSA has also invested a significant amount of money and resources in training this staff. Similarly, the development staff has also invested personnel and training to perfect the use of this platform. This trend is anticipated to significantly increase (more than doubling resource requirements) during the next several years with approved initiatives. The intention to establish the Sun servers and the Solaris operating system as the Agencys standard platform for the distributed Websphere infrastructure servers serves two purposes. It avoids costs associated with acquiring, training and retaining additional staff to manage and maintain other vendor equipment and software; and, it establishes a homogenous, distributed Websphere Web systems environment for the Enterprise Information Technology framework as outlined in OMB Circular A-130. The Sun infrastructure currently being purchased is scalable, with capacity that can be upgraded, and should have a 4 to 5-year useful life. At the end of that period, and with an analysis of the Agencys progress in implementing a mainframe-based Websphere environment, SSA will review its requirements for the distributed Websphere application infrastructure. If appropriate, as time and budget for technology upgrade of the entire cluster permit, SSA will conduct a competitive acquisition upgrade of the infrastructure hardware and software. Organizations that wish to disagree with SSAs intent to establish the aforesaid Agency standard must submit their responses within 15 days of this publication. Responses must present clear and convincing rationale in order for them to be considered (i.e., simple marketing information will not be considered a valid response). Pricing data is not requested or required. This document does not constitute a solicitation for offers. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not be honored or acknowledged. No contract award will be made on the basis of responses received; however, submitted information will be used in SSAs final assessment of its decision to establish this standard. Respondents will not be notified of the results of any Government evaluation of submitted information. Responses to this notice should be submitted electronically to contact@example.gov and refer to SSA Sun Server Standard.