Architecture Design Services (ADS) and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Support

Sources Sought Synopsis The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is issuing this sources sought synopsis as a means of conducting market research to identify parties having an interest in and the resources to support this requirement for Architecture Design Services (ADS) and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Support of incubating enterprise capabilities. The result of this market research will contribute to determining the method of procurement. The applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code assigned to this procurement is 541512 - Computer Systems Design Services. There is no solicitation at this time. This request for capability information does not constitute a request for proposals; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred. If your organization has the potential capacity to perform these contract services, please provide within 10 pages, a White Paper with the following information: Organization name, address, email address, website address, telephone number, and size and type of ownership for the organization. Do you have a federal Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) or GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract? If so, please identify specific GWAC contract type or MAS number (i.e. Alliant, 8(a) STARS, Schedule 70). Provide details on specific order types (i.e. Firm-Fixed Price, Time-and-Material), expended amounts, performances dates, and description of projects specific to Agile methods. For hybrid order types, describe successful and unsuccessful Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) projects as well as percentage of projects on order which is FFP. Tailored capability statements addressing the particulars of this effort, with appropriate documentation supporting claims of organizational and staff capability. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements. For projects, describe percentage of software development devoted to commercial software projects vs. custom software. Describe efforts in customizing agency specific requirements. What Agile tools and technology is your organization familiar with? Describe experience with Agile specific methods (i.e. Scrum, Kanban, Lean SaFe, etc.). Describe processes your organization applies Agile in development requirements. How does your organization manage and measure Agile development to meet objectives and maintain quality? Identify labor category and skills set for duties specific to tasks, including certification requirements. How does your customer feedback process manage changes during the development process? How does your process transfer estimating and capacity planning into cost estimates? How does your process breakdown work tasks into user stories and tasks? Describe necessary government travel to/from the DC area to/from your office to support effective team collaboration in the DC area. Describe lessons learned in projects with similar complexity to HUDs requirement? Provide any other feedback you believe HUD should consider in the upcoming requirement. The government will evaluate market information to ascertain potential market capacity to: 1) provide services consistent in scope and scale with those described in this notice and otherwise anticipated; 2) secure and apply human capital and technical resources required to successfully perform similar requirements; 3) implement a successful project management plan that includes: compliance with program schedules; cost containment; meeting and tracking performance; hiring and retention of personnel and risk mitigation; and 4) provide services under a performance based service acquisition contract. Based on the responses to this sources sought notice/market research, this requirement may be set-aside for small businesses or procured through full and open competition, and multiple awards may be made. Telephone inquiries will not be accepted or acknowledged, and no feedback or evaluations will be provided to companies regarding their submissions. Submission Instructions: Interested parties who consider themselves qualified to perform the above-listed services are invited to submit a response to this Sources Sought Notice by April 20, 2020. All responses under this Sources Sought Notice must be emailed to Sara.T.King@Hud.gov and Cynthia.S.Norman@hud.gov . Additional information on the required services is listed below. If you have any questions concerning this opportunity, please contact: Sara King. Background: Historically, HUD mission related systems application portfolio lead to over 290 systems implemented on a broad array of divergent platforms and often with little to no interoperability. Between 2015 and 2018, HUD acquired architecture design services to address these issues through the application of state-of-the-industry architectural practices including Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), microservices, increased use of Open Source Software (OSS), standardized design patterns operating (reference capability architectures) and reference implementation architectures utilizing pre-integrated and tested software stacks and cloud based resources. The initiative achieved significant results including: Introduction and adoption of OSS, Cloud-based architecture development and enablement, Implementation and successful adoption of enterprise, cloud-based capabilities/services: Enterprise Service Bus (MuleSoft) Document/Record Management Capability (Alfresco) Multi-tenant Workflow Capability (Activiti) Data Warehouse Capability using HD Insight Business Intelligence Capability (MicroStrategy, SAS, PowerBI) Common services (Intake, Notice generation, Audit, Error Handling, etc.) Development and introduction of capability maps as the basis for selecting enterprise capabilities, solutions and services, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for new development and O&M of enterprise capabilities, and Introduction and implementation of architectural governance at acquisition using the Service Layered Architecture Profile (SLAP). HUD seeks to build on these past successful established practices to continuously advance the actionable capability architecture and provide O&M support for incubating enterprise capabilities until they mature sufficiently to award separate O&M contract(s). General Description of Work: The ADS support services sought by the agency will require a vendor to maintain and mature existing enterprise Information Technology (IT) capabilities and services to increase functionality and support of new and legacy applications. Support services include: Project Management Planning and Reporting Top-Level Capability Model and Investment Review Support Capability Reference Architecture Enterprise Reference Implementation Architecture Proofs of Concept (PoC), Prototyping, and Pilots Service Layered Architecture Profiles IT Management Process Improvement Operations and Maintenance Support HUDs objective is to develop the standards, guidelines and reference architectures that link the HUD Enterprise Architecture (EA) to the projects and IT systems portfolios. The purpose is to establish "actionable architecture. A HUD actionable architecture capability will allow top-level architecture decisions to manifest within the HUD operating environment through a framework of architecture and IT management practices that will influence the design of new applications and maintenance releases of current applications. The architecture practices and frameworks will enable HUD to act as a more effective IT steward by enabling architectural considerations to be included early on during the acquisition process. The influence of these practices and their impact on the overall HUD portfolio will grow over time. The enterprise capabilities and reusable assets will be turn-key and may include process change packages. The process change packages will include extensions to the Project Portfolio Management and other IT management processes so that architecture best practice will become an intrinsic element of HUD IT Management. The Contractor shall support the Capabilities Maturation Process, including: Investment portfolio review and analysis Capability modeling Enterprise Capability Reference Architecture development Enterprise Reference Implementation Architecture (RIA) development Solution Architecture Support IT Management Process Improvement Enterprise Capability Operations and Maintenance Approximately 25 solution development initiatives use components of the HUDs Target Solution Architecture Framework (TSAF) currently underway. Each component of the TSAF has its own Reference Implementation Architecture (RIA): Solution Framework Enterprise Service Bus Enterprise Document/Records Management Enterprise Workflow Business Rules Management Correspondence Management Service Reference Code Management Enterprise Data Management Intake and Ingestion Service Tasks involve: Applying Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) best practices in developing and implementing scalable architectures for the systems, applications and services, Using the products and technologies in the HUD Technology Profile, most particularly Mulesoft Alfresco suite ForgeRock Linux Java Springboot Docker Agile development using CI/CD pipelines, Developing automated test scripts Tools and Scripting languages like Liquibase, Maven, Powershell Developing detailed documentation, and Supporting development teams in consuming enterprise assets. New reference implementations currently in design and development include: Identity Credential Access Management (ICAM) capability (ForgeRock), Dynamic Role Based Access Utility which will integrate with the ICAM capability allowing centralized configuration of roles and rights to applications based on the applications Document Object Model, Alfresco Developer Framework (ADF), and Ingest capability for optical character recognition, forms recognition, metadata extraction and routing to appropriate record series within Alfresco. The following enhancements to existing RIA are under consideration for implementation during the performance period of the contract. Enterprise Document/Records Management Capability Maturation (EDRM) Implementing high-availability architecture for Alfresco Migrating from SQLServer to high availability PostgreSQL back end Developing a RIA for Alfresco Developer Framework Enterprise Service Bus Integrating with HUD ICAM capabilities Containerize all ESB components facilitating the move from a virtual machine architecture to a docker architecture. Enhancing common services, including auditing and security services, offered via the ESB. Enterprise Workflow & Business Rules Capability Maturation Establish a multi-tenant environment for Alfresco Activiti and Redhat Business Rules Management System (BRMS) Develop a capability reference architecture to guide onboarding for projects requiring this capability standard use of the environment versioning and management of workflows Enterprise Intake Service Maturation Secure upload of documents and data Enable system to system bulk upload Extend with eforms develop capability Establish Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) compliant Application Program Interface (API) to support system to system transactions with external organizations. Enhance integration with Enterprise Document and Records Management Integrate with ICAM Correspondence Management Service Maturation Create and/or improve functionality of: Official notice generation service Notification services SMS notifications Integrate with Enterprise Document and Records Management Integrate with ICAM SpringBoot Application Framework and Supporting Common Services Maturation Create and/or improve functionality of: Error handling and logging Audit logging Caching Integrate authentication and authorization with HUD ICAM Integrate for use with Dynamic Role Based Access Utility Contemplated place of performance: Services to be performed under this contract will be performed at a contractor's facility.