D--VISN LAN Circuits

C.1.1 GENERAL The contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, materials, supervision, and tools to install and maintain local data communication services at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities in Veterans Integrated Services Network 9 (VISN 9). C.1.2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION. VISN 9 is made up of 6 medical facilities and 40 outpatient clinics and facilities located throughout Tennessee, Kentucky. Western West Virginia and other contiguous areas. The 6 medical facilities are in Huntington, WV, Lexington, Kentucky (with campuses on Cooper Drive and Leestown Road), Louisville, KY, Memphis, TN, Mountain Home (Johnson City), TN, and TN Valley Healthcare System that has campuses at both Murfreesboro and Nashville, TN. Attachment A lists the address of the medical facilities and current outpatient clinics. Growth is expected in the outpatient clinics as well as expansion at the medical facilities to meet changing veteran population needs. The VISN 9 infrastructure is a collaboration of numerous PRI, T1, DS3 and trunk circuits for its data communications. VISN 9 medical facilities also utilize Ethernet and Sonet Ring service. Service Types: Switched and Dedicated Service Ethernet Service must be available as a Switched (Shared) or Dedicated service. Switched service supports traffic between multiple locations in a many-to-one or any-to-any configuration. Dedicated service only supports a point-to-point dedicated connection between two customer locations. Dedicated service is also referred to as Ethernet private line. Classes of Service Switched Ethernet should offer different Class & Service (COS) levels. The classes of service must support different features and Quality of Service (QoS) functionality. Basic Service: Basic service provides a "best effort" Ethernet service that supports customers basic data transport requirements. Advanced Service: Advanced Service must offer improved bandwidth throughput and lower latency than is available using a best effort service. Advanced Service must provide guaranteed bandwidth in specified bandwidth increments ranging from 10 Mbps up to 500 Mbps, with the ability to burst up to the physical port speed. Service Level Agreement (SLAs) must be available. The ability to support delay-sensitive applications such as VOIP and video must be available. Application should have the ability to obtain the highest priority transport across the core network. C.2.1.22 Dedicated T1: A digital transport service delivering a signal at 1.544 Megabits per second (Mbps); on a link basis or as an end-to-end service. It is suited for customers with multiple locations and 12 or more of any combination of private lines and analog data circuits. C.2.1.23 Self Healing Fiber Routes: Transport to the VA locations via redundant and diverse routes. C.2.1.24 Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Service provides high speed digital internet service. Home DSL provides telecommunication service from the home with speeds up to 3M bps/384 Kbps. Business DSL provides telecommunication service from the business with speeds up to 3Mx384Kbps. C.2.1.25 The contractor will provide Managed Network VPN Service designed to support intranet, Internet, extranet and remote access applications. This service will provide a comprehensive solution for secure site-to-site and remote-user connectivity. The contractor will provide the ability to differentiate traffic types, using Class of Service (CoS), is inherent in the product suite, providing businesses with the additional flexibility to support advanced voice and data applications over a single network. C.2.1.26 The contractor will provide a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) enabled private IP backbone. MPLS is a standard for switching packets over an IP network using labels or tags that combines the security, privacy, and reliability of Layer 2 technologies with the best of Layer 3 (IP routing and forwarding, diverse paths, and high survivability). The MPLS architecture will allow the creation of meshed VPNs, thus eliminating the requirement for complex router configurations. The MPLS architecture must allow the internetworking of multiple access methods and allow the VA to choose the access method that best fits our needs on a per site basis. C.2.1.27 The contractor shall provide Managed Services of all Ethernet and ATM networks.