DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION SERVICES FOR TACTICAL RESILIENCE IN CONTESTED THEATERS (DISTRICT)

NAICS CODE: 541715 FEDERAL AGENCY NAME: Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514 BAA ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Initial announcement BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: Distributed Information Services for Tactical Resilience In Contested Theaters (DISTRICT) BAA NUMBER: FA8750-19-S-7011 PART I - OVERVIEW INFORMATION This announcement is for an Open, 2 Step BAA which is open and effective until 30 Sep 2021. Only white papers will be accepted as initial submissions; formal proposals will be accepted by invitation only. While white papers will be considered if received prior to 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 30 Sep 2021, the following submission dates are suggested to best align with projected funding: FY19 by 15 MAY 2019 FY20 by 30 SEP 2019 FY21 by 30 SEP 2020 Offerors should monitor the Federal Business Opportunities website at Http://www.fbo.gov in the event this announcement is amended. CONCISE SUMMARY OF TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT: The Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Rome Research Site, is seeking innovative research proposals to design and prototype a resilient and secure Information Provisioning Layer (IPL) to enable the Combat Cloud in disconnected, intermittent, low-bandwidth (DIL) tactical airborne environments. The IPL shall achieve this resilience by providing mission and network-aware disruption tolerant information flows and distributed data stores, as well as increased information interoperability and information accountability and trust. The end goal is to provide secure and resilient information exchange to maximize survivability of services and apps in the Combat Cloud. The DISTRICT program is divided into four technical areas (TAs). Offerors may bid on any technical area individually or any combination of technical areas thereof. Offerors who include multiple technical areas in their proposal should describe the work for each technical area separately and clearly identify the applicable TAs. Proposers should indicate their integration strategy for integration of components developed in other TAs when applicable. The four technical areas are as follows: TA1: Information Dissemination TA2: Information Interoperability TA3: Information Accountability and Trust TA4: Integration and Demonstration BAA ESTIMATED FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $20M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 18 months with dollar amounts normally ranging from $1M to $1.8M. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount. ANTICIPATED INDIVIDUAL AWARDS: Multiple Awards are anticipated. TYPE OF INSTRUMENTS THAT MAY BE AWARDED: Procurement contracts, grants, cooperative agreements or other transactions (OT) depending upon the nature of the work proposed. In the event that an Other Transaction for Prototype agreement is awarded as a result of this competitive BAA, and the prototype project is successfully completed, there is the potential for a prototype project to transition to award of a follow-on production contract or transaction. The Other Transaction for Prototype agreement itself will also contain a similar notice of a potential follow-on production contract or agreement. AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION: All white paper submissions and any questions of a technical nature shall be directed to the cognizant Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) as specified below (unless otherwise specified in the technical area): BAA MANAGER: Brian Holmes AFRL/RISA 525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: +1 (555) 000-0000 Email: contact@example.gov Questions of a contractual/business nature shall be directed to the cognizant contracting officer, as specified below (email requests are preferred): Amber Buckley Telephone +1 (555) 000-0000 Email: contact@example.gov Emails must reference the solicitation (BAA) number and title of the acquisition. Pre-Proposal Communication between Prospective Offerors and Government Representatives: Dialogue between prospective offerors and Government representatives is encouraged. Technical and contracting questions can be resolved in writing or through open discussions. Discussions with any of the points of contact shall not constitute a commitment by the Government to subsequently fund or award any proposed effort. Only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. Offerors are cautioned that evaluation ratings may be lowered and/or proposal rejected if proposal preparation (Proposal format, content, etc.) and/or submittal instructions are not followed. AMENDMENT 1 to BAA FA8750-19-S-7011 The purpose of this modification is to republish the original announcement, incorporating any previous amendments, pursuant to FAR 35.016(c). This republishing also includes the following changes: Part I, Overview Information: Updates FBO reference to Beta SAM website; Update FY21 white paper submission date; Description of FY21 Focus Area Part II, Full Text Announcement: Section III.2.b.2, updates the DCSA website; Section IV.1, updates FY21 white paper submission date; Section IV.3.a, updates the DCSA website; Section IV.3.c, updates the mailing instructions; Section IV.4.a, updates the Cost Sharing or Matching language; Section IV.4.e, updated the link to reference the Beta SAM website; Section VI.1, updates the RI Specific Proposal Preparation Instructions date and Beta SAM link; Section VI.4, adds paragraphs d and e; Section VII: updated the OMBUDSMAN. No other changes have been made. ________________________________________ NAICS CODE: 541715 FEDERAL AGENCY NAME: Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Rome Research Site, AFRL/Information Directorate, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome, NY, 13441-4514 BAA ANNOUNCEMENT TYPE: Modification BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: Distributed Information Services for Tactical Resilience In Contested Theaters (DISTRICT) BAA NUMBER: FA8750-19-S-7011 PART I - OVERVIEW INFORMATION This announcement is for an Open, 2 Step BAA which is open and effective until 30 Sep 2021. Only white papers will be accepted as initial submissions; formal proposals will be accepted by invitation only. While white papers will be considered if received prior to 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 30 Sep 2021, the following submission dates are suggested to best align with projected funding: FY19 by 15 MAY 2019 FY20 by 30 SEP 2019 FY21 by 29 JUN 2020 Offerors should monitor the Contract Opportunities on the Beta SAM website at https://beta.SAM.gov in the event this announcement is amended. CONCISE SUMMARY OF TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT: The Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Rome Research Site, is seeking innovative research proposals to design and prototype a resilient and secure Information Provisioning Layer (IPL) to enable the Combat Cloud in disconnected, intermittent, low-bandwidth (DIL) tactical airborne environments. The IPL shall achieve this resilience by providing mission and network-aware disruption tolerant information flows and distributed data stores, as well as increased information interoperability and information accountability and trust. The end goal is to provide secure and resilient information exchange to maximize survivability of services and apps in the Combat Cloud. The DISTRICT program is divided into four technical areas (TAs). Offerors may bid on any technical area individually or any combination of technical areas thereof. Offerors who include multiple technical areas in their proposal should describe the work for each technical area separately and clearly identify the applicable TAs. Proposers should indicate their integration strategy for integration of components developed in other TAs when applicable. The four technical areas are as follows: TA1: Information Dissemination TA2: Information Interoperability TA3: Information Accountability and Trust TA4: Integration and Demonstration FY21 Focus Area: The Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Rome Research Site, is seeking innovative research proposals to augment the resilient and secure Information Provisioning Layer (IPL) [1] in the areas of learning-based methods for proactive dissemination/caching (TA1) and data discovery (TA2), and key distribution and management (TA3). Efforts under TA1, Information Dissemination, are developing techniques to reliably deliver information based on participants Information Exchange Requirements (IERs). IERs established pre-mission are updated in-mission as the mission evolves, yet require participants or mission-managers to manually configure IERs or the policies by which IERs update. Techniques that enable inferring IERs from mission context are desired to automate and improve this process. In addition to end-point delivery, these automated techniques could potentially improve the efficacy and efficiency of proactively caching information across the network based on mission context. Key to the dissemination process is the understanding of information (TA3) among multiple formats or representations. Current practices enable explicit mapping among representations of information concepts (e.g. tracks, threats, imagery). Techniques are sough that enable inference among information formats to discovery and enable delivery of relevant information to Combat Cloud participants. A key challenge to this and previously mentioned inferencing is the availability of data sets from which to potentially learn from. Information Accountability and Trust (TA3), requires in-mission key generation, distribution, verification and revocation for group-based encryptions schemes (e.g. Attribute-based Encryption) in DIL environments. While network authentication methods permit nodes to participate in the Combat Cloud, confidentiality may need to be maintained within groups of participants with a - need to know. Techniques are needed to manage attributes and their assignment, and the lifecycle of the resulting encryption keys. The total value of awards under this Focus Area are anticipated to be limited to $500,000 and 12 months. BAA ESTIMATED FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $20M. Individual awards will not normally exceed 18 months with dollar amounts normally ranging from $1M to $1.8M. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount. ANTICIPATED INDIVIDUAL AWARDS: Multiple Awards are anticipated. TYPE OF INSTRUMENTS THAT MAY BE AWARDED: Procurement contracts, grants, cooperative agreements or other transactions (OT) depending upon the nature of the work proposed. In the event that an Other Transaction for Prototype agreement is awarded as a result of this competitive BAA, and the prototype project is successfully completed, there is the potential for a prototype project to transition to award of a follow-on production contract or transaction. The Other Transaction for Prototype agreement itself will also contain a similar notice of a potential follow-on production contract or agreement. AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION: All white paper submissions and any questions of a technical nature shall be directed to the cognizant Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) as specified below (unless otherwise specified in the technical area): BAA MANAGER: Brian Holmes AFRL/RISA 525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Telephone: +1 (555) 000-0000 Email: contact@example.gov Questions of a contractual/business nature shall be directed to the cognizant contracting officer, as specified below (email requests are preferred): Amber Buckley Telephone +1 (555) 000-0000 Email: contact@example.gov Emails must reference the solicitation (BAA) number and title of the acquisition. Pre-Proposal Communication between Prospective Offerors and Government Representatives: Dialogue between prospective offerors and Government representatives is encouraged. Technical and contracting questions can be resolved in writing or through open discussions. Discussions with any of the points of contact shall not constitute a commitment by the Government to subsequently fund or award any proposed effort. Only Contracting Officers are legally authorized to commit the Government. Offerors are cautioned that evaluation ratings may be lowered and/or proposal rejected if proposal preparation (Proposal format, content, etc.) and/or submittal instructions are not followed. PART II - FULL TEXT ANNOUNCEMENT BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) TITLE: Distributed Information Services for Tactical Resilience In Contested Theaters (DISTRICT) BAA NUMBER: BAA FA8750-19-S-7011 I. TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS: Air Operations are becoming increasingly interconnected, interdependent, and challenged. Information needs are also expanding in both scale and complexity. These battlespace environments are characterized by disconnected, intermittent, and low bandwidth networks. To address these issues, the Air Force has envisioned the Combat Cloud. Air Combat Command (ACC) has defined the Combat Cloud as an, - Overarching meshed network for data distribution and information sharing within a battlespace, where each authorized user, platform, or node transparently contributes and receives essential information and is able to utilize it across the full range of military operations [2]. In order to achieve this operating vision, a number of challenges must be addressed including: The ability to store, share and exchange information in contested environments Mission-aware and network-aware routing to queue and prioritize information Security and trust mechanisms At the core of the Combat Cloud vision is secure, seamless information sharing. The DISTRICT program seeks to provide this capability through development of a resilient and secure Information Provisioning Layer (IPL) to enable the Combat Cloud in disconnected, intermittent, low-bandwidth (DIL) tactical airborne environments. The IPL shall achieve this resilience by providing mission and network-aware disruption tolerant information flows and distributed data stores, as well increased information interoperability and information accountability and trust. The end goal is to provide secure and resilient information exchange to maximize survivability of services and apps in the Combat Cloud. To achieve this, development is sought in four primary technology areas (TAs): Information Dissemination: how information is moved throughout the network, with a focus on disruption-prone highly contested environments (HCE) and distributed data stores Information Interoperability: the ability of information to be readily produced, discovered, and consumed Information Accountability and Trust: the secure exchange of information and degree to which information can be trusted Integration and Demonstration: Integration of TAs 1 through 3 to achieve desired DISTRICT IPL functionality along with demonstration and experimentation in relevant environments. The end product of the four TAs is expected to be an Application Programming Interface (API) for platform integrators and sub-system developers to employ to share, discover and access information among/across nodes in a heterogeneous network of networks (e.g. the Combat Cloud). The services underlying the API should provide seamless and secure exchange of information that is adaptive to the underlying network, and responsive to dynamic mission priorities. TA1: Information Dissemination The primary goal of dissemination in the context of DISTRICT is to move information between producers and consumers in contested and highly contested environments. A producer is defined as any element in the network that generates information meant for itself and/or other elements and a consumer as any element in the network that receives (as an end-point) information from a producer. While legacy systems may statically define producers and consumers, the Combat Cloud will enable nodes to be producers, consumers, both, or neither in a much more dynamic fashion. This technology area seeks the development of information dissemination technology with the following attributes: General Accessibility - Appropriate information is reliably accessible (e.g., via redundancy and multiple seamless avenues) to all locations in the battlespace and access to that information gracefully degrades. Information Healing - Information is synchronized, progressed, and bridged across partitions in disconnected, intermittent, low-bandwidth (DIL) environments, even if the underlying networks are not inherently disruption tolerant. Quality of Service (QoS) - Support for appropriate quality of service requirements imposed by applications and the mission, including time constraints. Resource and Information Prioritization - Storage and capability resource usage and information priority of the services is controllable by common mission objectives. Provenance and Consistency - Ability to carry provenance information, support consistency algorithms, and eliminate/archive stale data. For the dissemination technology area, existing solutions tend to gravitate towards distributed approaches that provide general accessibility and information healing, or centralized approaches that provide quality of service, resource & information prioritization, and provenance & consistency. Science and Technology (S&T) research is needed to develop a solution that provides the level and ease of consistency and provenance found in centralized dissemination approaches combined with the gains in availability and overhead reduction found in decentralized approaches, such as content-based networking. TA2: Information Interoperability The ability for information of different platforms, networks, and formats to be discoverable and useable is key to enabling the Combat Cloud vision. Currently, platforms, networks, and formats are disjoint and often stove-piped, making interoperability difficult. Existing waveforms, such as Link 16, Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), Inter/Intra Flight Data Link (IFDL), Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT), and Common Data Link (CDL) are generally incompatible with one another. Similarly, message formats such as J-series, K-series (Virtual Message Format), Open Mission Systems/eXtensible Markup Language (OMS/XML), and Cursor-on-Target (CoT) have differing syntax and semantics that make interoperability difficult. There is no common language or network that makes information readily available to the entire theater. This technology area will look at enabling theater-wide interoperability such that all elements of the network can discover and access information from all other elements. This technology area seeks the development of information interoperability technology with the following attributes: Understandability - Information generated from any element is understandable and ingestible by all other appropriate elements. Discoverability - Elements participating are able to readily discover and request all accessible information (receiver-driven). Information Filtering - Elements participating are able to proactively move filtered information to other elements (publisher-driven). Description Mapping - Services that convert or transfer information maintain a sufficient level of accuracy, fidelity, and versioning of that information, even if represented in a different way. Format and Language Agnostic - The information construct is extensible, open, and collaborative, such that new information (from waveforms, apps, etc.) can be readily integrated. For the information interoperability technology area, solutions tend to gravitate towards global message types or flexible information representation. Global message types, due to the necessity for wide adoption, risk expressivity in discoverability and filtering, and lack extensibility. On the other hand, flexible information representation and querying approaches such as semantic web provide understandability, discoverability, and are format/language agnostic. However, the rich representation typically incurs greater overhead in bandwidth and processing, and also requires extensive description mapping across formats. S&T research is needed to identify how to efficiently pack and convert specific formats into a structured, common language to maintain fidelity, accuracy and versioning while minimizing overhead. TA3: Information Accountability and Trust The trustworthiness and security of information is critical to the feasibility of the Combat Cloud vision. If information is not trusted, then the high levels of availability and interoperability enabled by the previous two thrusts are of less use. This technology area will look at how elements in the network can be authenticated and trusted and how information can be secured and contains a wide breadth of technology topics. Note that - trust in this context means the linking of an identity to cryptographic operations. Cryptographic operations can also help ensure trustworthiness and authenticity of data (via a combination of authentication and integrity). However, this does not protect against a - trusted entity/sensor from sending inaccurate data, whether that be from sensor malfunction or misinterpretation of an event. Data outlier detection and validation via consensus is a higher-level problem that must also be solved. It will also consider interaction with multiple security domains through a cross-domain solution (CDS). (Note: the focus of this technology area is not the development of cross-domain solutions, rather the interaction of dissemination (e.g. discovery, filtering) and interoperability with cross-domain solutions.) This technology area seeks the development of information accountability and trust technology with the following attributes: Authentication/Authorization- Certifiably strong and granular authentication and authorization services in DIL environments. Confidentiality/Access Control - Certifiably strong and flexible confidentially and access control services in DIL environments. Multi-Level Security-Enabled - Information services that support discovery/filtering within multiple security enclaves through efficient interaction operations with a CDS. Trustworthiness - Assignment/representation of trust in information produced/received; may be based on a scale. For the information accountability and trust technology area, certain technologies do well at providing confidentiality for group-based communications, but do not provide authentication at all. On the other hand, other technologies provide strong authentication but there are performance tradeoffs depending on the intended use case in terms of overhead. It is expected that a complete solution needs to be a suite of technologies to provide the required information accountability and trust functionality. Special consideration must be made for operation in a tactical environment, where key-related operations (creation, distribution, validation, revocation), for example, can be impacted. S&T research is needed to develop a security suite that provides group-based confidentiality, integrity, and availability in DIL environments and host/identity-based authentication. If key generation and/or revocation is needed during a mission, challenges associated with key distribution and verification in DIL environments must be addressed. Consideration must also be made to how the components of such a security suite interact with the dissemination and information interoperability technologies of TA1 and TA2. TA4: Integration and Demonstration The goal of TA4 is to have DISTRICT technologies integrated, tested and evaluated at regular intervals (e.g. quarterly). Integrating functionality as the IPL is developed will ensure interoperability of TAs 1 through 3 to achieve the desired end result and ensure issues are identified and mitigated as they arise. Exploration of how to integrate the IPL with existing and emerging tactical datalinks and networking capabilities, as well as with tactical applications and mission representations should also be considered. Testing and evaluation (T&E) should occur in a relevant environment relative to the maturity of the technology. It is expected initial testing will be done through simulation and/or emulation of a tactical network representative of the expected operational environment. In a traditional host-based development approach, a test suite is usually set up on a desktop machine even though the final product will eventually run on a different platform - particularly in the context of this effort, on an airborne tactical platform. While algorithms can be run relatively quickly using this approach, it doesn't reflect how the real system will behave. Exploration of performance characteristics in a simulated/emulated environment also helps mitigate cost and schedule overruns by identifying risks and issues as they arise and ensure that all of the functional requirements of the design prototype are being met. Once the functionality of the IPL has been demonstrated through simulation/emulation and key performance parameters (KPPs) have been met, the next step will be operationally relevant field testing to evaluate the performance and limitations of the prototype. IMPORTANT NOTE: For the above technical areas, there is supplemental documentation that will be available upon request to potential offerors. This material is considered Distribution Statement D and is available to DoD and DoD Contractors only. Therefore, access will require additional approval. Contact the Technical Point of Contact identified in Section VII, to receive this material. When doing so, the requestor must: Provide their company's CAGE Code Be a U.S. owned company (if not, see SECTION III for mitigation procedures); and Be a U.S. citizen The materials will then be provided via either: Certified mail with confirmed signature Access to a locally maintained read library (Rome, NY), or By digital transmission of materials by secured means IMPORTANT NOTES REGARDING: FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH. It is DoD policy that the publication of products of fundamental research will remain unrestricted to the maximum extent possible. National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 189 defines fundamental research as follows: - Fundamental research means basic and applied research in science and engineering, the results of which ordinarily are published and shared broadly within the scientific community, as distinguished from proprietary research and from industrial development, design, production, and product utilization, the results of which ordinarily are restricted for proprietary or national security reasons. As of the date of publication of this BAA, the Government cannot identify whether work proposed under this BAA may be considered fundamental research and may award both fundamental and non-fundamental research. Proposers should indicate in their proposal whether they believe the scope of the research included in their proposal is fundamental or not. While proposers should clearly explain the intended results of their research, the Government shall have sole discretion to select award instrument type and to negotiate all instrument terms and conditions with selectees. Appropriate clauses will be included in resultant awards for non-fundamental research to prescribe publication requirements and other restrictions, as appropriate. For certain research projects, it may be possible that although the research being performed by the awardee is restricted research, a sub-awardee may be conducting fundamental research. In those cases, it is the awardee's responsibility to explain in their proposal why its sub-awardee's effort is fundamental research. CLOUD COMPUTING. In accordance with DFARS Clause 252.239-7010, if the development proposed requires storage of Government, or Government-related data on the cloud, offerors need to ensure that the cloud service provider proposed has been granted Provisional Authorization by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) at the level appropriate to the requirement. II. AWARD INFORMATION: 1. FUNDING: Total funding for this BAA is approximately $20M. The anticipated funding to be obligated under this BAA is broken out by fiscal year as follows: FY19 - $700k FY20 - $9.7M FY21 - $9.6M Individual awards will not normally exceed 18 months with dollar values normally ranging from $1M to $1.8M. There is also the potential to make awards up to any dollar value as long as the value does not exceed the available BAA ceiling amount. The Government reserves the right to select all, part, or none of the proposals received, subject to the availability of funds. All potential Offerors should be aware that due to unanticipated budget fluctuations, funding in any or all areas may change with little or no notice. 2. FORM. Awards of efforts as a result of this announcement will be in the form of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements or other transactions depending upon the nature of the work proposed. 3. BAA TYPE: This is a two-step open broad agency announcement. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation. STEP ONE - The Government is only soliciting white papers at this time. DO NOT SUBMIT A FORMAL PROPOSAL. Those white papers found to be consistent with the intent of this BAA may be invited to submit a technical and cost proposal. See Section VI of this announcement for further details regarding the proposal. III. ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION: 1. ELIGIBILITY: All qualified offerors who meet the requirements of this BAA may apply. 2. FOREIGN PARTICIPATION/ACCESS: This BAA is closed to foreign participation. This includes both foreign ownership and foreign nationals as employees or subcontractors. Exceptions. Fundamental Research. If the work to be performed is unclassified, fundamental research, this must be clearly identified in the white paper and/or proposal. See Part II, Section I for more details regarding Fundamental Research. Offerors should still identify any performance by foreign nationals at any level (prime contractor or subcontractor) in their proposals. Please specify the nationals country of origin, the type of visa or work permit under which they are performing and an explanation of their anticipated level of involvement. You may be asked to provide additional information during negotiations in order to verify the foreign citizen's eligibility to participate on any contract or assistance agreement issued as a result of this announcement Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence (FOCI) companies who have mitigation plans/paperwork in place. Proof of approved mitigation documentation must be provided to the contracting office focal point, Amber Buckley, Contracting Officer, telephone +1 (555) 000-0000, or e-mail contact@example.gov prior to submitting a white paper and/or a proposal. For information on FOCI mitigation, contact the contact the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA). Additional details can be found at: https://www.dcsa.mil/mc/ctp/foci/ Foreign Nationals as Employees or Subcontractors. Applicable to any effort not considered Fundamental Research. Offerors are responsible for ensuring that all employees and/or subcontractors who will work on a resulting contract are eligible to do so. Any employee who is not a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident will be restricted from working on any resultant contract unless prior approval of the Department of State or the Department of Commerce is obtained via a technical assistance agreement or an export license. Violations of these regulations can result in criminal or civil penalties. Information Regarding Non-US Citizens Assigned to this Project Contractor employees requiring access to USAF bases, ...