D -- ETWORKING AND COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES FOR IJPS

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FOR NETWORKING AND COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES FOR IJPS This request for information (RFI) is for planning purposes in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clause 52.215 3 (OCT 1997) is published for market research purposes only to identify interested Small Business parties capable of providing cost and schedule technical support for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Systems (NESDIS) Office of Satellite Operations. The Government does not presently intend to award a contract, but wants to obtain price, delivery, other market information, or capabilities for planning purposes. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. All interested, capable, and responsible sources that wish to respond to this RFI are encouraged to submit documentation of their specific capabilities. The capability documentation must address, as a minimum, the following: 1) Corporate Experience: provide prior/current corporate experience of similar size and scope, including contract number, organization supported, indicate whether a prime or subcontractor, contract value, and Government or commercial point of contact with current telephone number and e-mail address. 2) Company Profile: provide office location, annual revenue history, include number of employees, statement indicating business size and if company is small, small disadvantaged, minority, woman-owned, or 8(a) business. 3) Title Page: The capability package must be assembled with a title page containing the following information: Company name, address, point of contact, phone number, cage code, DUNS number, and business size. Responses to this RFI will not be returned. ALL INTERESTED AND QUALIFIED RESPONSES WILL BE CONSIDERED Capability statements should not exceed 25 pages and must also include the following information: the name, address, point of contact, phone/fax/email. Responses to this notice are requested by 3:00 p.m. on January 31, 2008 via email to Walt.Schleicher@noaa.gov A. INTRODUCTION The Office of Satellite Operations (OSO) of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) currently operates a joint Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) program in conjunction with the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). This joint system consists of two fully coordinated independent polar satellite systems that are referred to as the Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS). As part of their IJPS operations, OSO currently provides telecommunications, networking, and Network Operating Center (NOC) capabilities to support the mission. As part of a new contract for the existing services provided to support the mission, OSO is looking for information and innovative capabilities from industry that will enable it to continue its current mission and enhance the service offerings for telecommunications and NOC services. B. PURPOSE The goal of this RFI is to gather industry responses to desired requests in the following section, referred to as the Scope. The industry responses will be used by OSO to refine the scope of future requirements for described services. The Government will not be liable for any costs in preparing or submitting a response. In reviewing the responses, NOAA/OSO may request a meeting or teleconference with one or more respondent?s to gain further insight into the respondent?s capabilities. The Government will not be liable for any costs incurred by the respondent?s in these follow-up activities. The respondent?s are encouraged not to include marketing informational material as it will be discarded by the reviewers. OSO also requests that the respondent?s address at least the following itemized list: - A description of a high availability network that the respondent has maintained and how this can be relevant to the IJPS network - Previous experience where the respondent was able to balance compliance for requirements of a high security system against overall needs for operation - Explanation on how the respondent?s solutions and experience with Network Operation Center (NOC) Services with other programs the scalability to add additional OSO programs in the future - Experience and lessons learned from previous projects where service transitions did not impact operations C. SCOPE OSO is looking for the following types of services to support IJPS operations Communications Services: The respondent shall be able to operate an IJPS Network that will provide commercial-grade data communications capabilities within the network using industry standard network components and protocols. The IJPS network will consist of a communications link between Suitland (Maryland) and Darmstadt (Germany) that can handle a data throughput rate of at least 45 Mbps. The IJPS Network will also provide a backup link from Darmstadt to Suitland to handle telemetry and command data flows between Wallops Island (Virginia) and Darmstadt (Germany). In addition, the IJPS Network will consist of out-of-band communication links to handle the network management capabilities of the NOC. NOC Services: The respondent shall provide managed security services to monitor on a 24/7/365 basis IJPS Network and OSO enterprise networking equipment, such as spanning servers, switches/routers, firewall, servers, and network intrusion detection in Suitland (Maryland) , Darmstadt (Germany), Wallops Island (Virginia), and Fairbanks (Alaska). The NOC shall provide rapid notification and reporting of both system operational availability and/or system security issues following detection of a component failure or security intrusion incident. The overall security categorization for the IJPS Ground System is SC IJPS = {(confidentiality, Low), (integrity, High), (availability, High)} Therefore, the respondent shall meet Federal Security Information Security Management Act (FISMA) 800-53-A controls for high security system at the NOC. The NOC service features shall also include, but are not limited to, Event Correlation across devices, Automated Inventory Audit and Reporting, Patch Management, and Vulnerability and Penetration Testing. The NOC services will be required to provide backup NOC operations at another location. Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Support Services: The respondent shall provide O&M services for the OSO enterprise networking infrastructure that supports IJPS operations. The infrastructure includes but is not limited to networking switching, routers, intrusion detection devices, firewalls, and telecommunications devices. The services will include, at a minimum, staging, configuration, updates, firewall rules changes and management. The respondent will also be responsible for preventative maintenance and equipment lifecycle management. The OSO enterprise networking infrastructure is operating in Suitland (Maryland), Darmstadt (Germany), Wallops Island (Virginia), and Fairbanks (Alaska). In addition, the respondent shall provide O&M service to software applications for NOAA servers in Darmstadt that receive and forward satellite data and products from Darmstadt to Suitland. Services to be provided include modification of a Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) software application product to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a modified environment. D. DESIRED INFORMATION The respondent will provide a turnkey fully integrated IJPS system to support requested services. Since solutions provided may require transition from existing operational capabilities, OSO is interested in innovative and flexible solutions in the respondent?s response that will address both the transition planning and how to minimize service disruption risks for telecommunications services. The respondent is also encouraged to share previous experience in services transition; references should be provided. The IJPS operations have an international dimension with OSO supporting enterprise infrastructure in Darmstadt (Germany). With the stringent performance requirements to respond to outages within four hours, the respondent will be required to identify their capabilities to support operations and maintenance in Germany. Previous response times from existing customers, with a reference, must be shared with OSO to verify the response time information. The categorization of the IJPS system as a FISMA High system requires that the respondent provide a clear understanding to OSO as to the cost impact of this compliance. Also, OSO is asking the respondent to present efficiencies that they have gained from previous deployments. In particular, OSO is interested in learning about balancing the FISMA High compliance and the needs to have an operational, reliable, and cost effective system. The respondent shall elaborate on how the technologies they propose would provide the monitoring tools, structured processes, and experienced security analysis through event correlation to keep pace with evolving security threats. OSO is also considering expanding the NOC services provided for IJPS to cover monitoring services for other programs and missions it supports. OSO is considering the implementation of a centralized NOC operated from its Satellite Operations facility in Suitland providing OSO the ability to quickly develop support for future programs. Therefore, the respondent is encouraged to share their experience with this type of implementation and address how their managed services tier structure would provide efficiencies that may enhance these services in Suitland. The respondent will address how they have integrated an information management security process with other government agencies. The Respondent will also address training that has been provided to ensure that the agency has sufficient trained personnel. Reporting requirements, which will be specified, are also critical for OSO. The respondent shall describe the flexibility of customization and automated capabilities for monitoring their workstation and dashboard views. OSO is also keen on the respondent?s experience with insightful performance metrics that are gathered from network devices and included in their reporting. The respondent is asked to share their O&M experience in support of a wide range of enterprise networking platforms (including hardware, software, and operating systems). OSO is interested in how the respondent?s services scale to meet service requirements and growth as well future technology upgrades. Lifecycle management is also important to OSO and the respondent must demonstrate their knowledge, processes, and lessons learned from equipment phase in to the end of equipment operational life. The respondent will also provide their management and staffing plans which describes their organization, assignment of functions, duties, responsibilities, and reporting requirements for the conduct of the services requested by OSO.