Notice of Intent to Issue Sole Source It Server Operations and Maintenance

This publication serves as notice of intent to procure services for the Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Science Data Integration Group (SDIG) with the Pacific Marine environmental Laboratory (PMEL), on a sole source basis with Weathertop Consulting, a small business, in accordance with the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253 (c)(1), One Responsible Source. Using FAR Part 12 and 13.5 procedures, the Government intends to negotiate a contract for the continuation of operation and maintenance of a server for a total performance period of three years. The purpose of this service is to continue the operation and maintenance of a complex web application which began in 1993 with 35 man years of development and is the foundational data visualization service of many NOAA, Government and non-Government entities. NOAA plans to contract with Weathertop Consulting for this service, of which the principal programmer has been involved in the project for seventeen years. The Science Data Integration Group (SDIG) with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) applies innovative software concepts to develop software for scientific data integration tools. One of the in-house developed, and widely accepted tools developed by SDIG is the Live Access Server (LAS) application. LAS is a unique web application for geo-science dataset analysis and visualization that has been developed by and is supported by SDIG at NOAA/PMEL (see http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/LAS/) that strives to blend these two approaches to environmental science. LAS provides users with a highly interactive interface through which they can visualize, subset, download and inter-compare scientific data sets (Schweitzer et al 2007 and Schweitzer et al 2008, Hankin et al 1998, Sirott et al 2001, Callahan et al 2004). On the order of 50 Live Access Server sites are in operation within NOAA, within other Federal Agencies and within academia and internationally. The LAS server is the foundation for several projects that the SDIG group is responsible for: the Observing System Monitoring Center (OSMC -- http://osmc.noaa.gov/Monitor/OSMC/OSMC.html), which supports the NOAA Office of Climate Observations (OCO); the NOAA/GFDL data portal (http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov:8380/las/servlets/dataset); the Surface Ocean Carbon Atlas (SOCAT) server (http://socat.info/); and the Earth Systems Grid Federation (ESGF -- http://esgf.llnl.gov) in which SDIG is a collaborator with responsibility for Web-based visualization tools and for supporting participation in the federation by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (NOAA/OAR/GFDL). LAS will be an integral component for data selection, subsetting and visualization with the implementation PMEL Data Integration Strategy with an expected implementation period of 6 years. The contractor will be required to continue with the design cycle that has made LAS successful within the specialized community of ocean and climate scientists: to understand emerging ocean and climate data analysis requirements; to develop data models that address these requirements; to evaluate software requirements; develop an object-oriented architecture based on those requirements; create a design, including frameworks, data models, protocols, objects, integration with legacy code, and testability based on the architectural specifications; implement and debug the design; manage operating systems to accommodate application needs regarding network data access, network security and usage logging; design user interfaces and perform usability testing; and troubleshoot and correct interactions with legacy software. The range of software disciplines will include object-oriented design, distributed computing, network programming, computer graphics, scientific graphics, user interface design, usability testing, database design, scientific data formats, client-server, multi-threaded, procedural programming and ocean/climate data modeling knowledge. The computer languages in which the work will be performed include both procedural and object-oriented languages: Python, HTML, JavaScript (and languages that compile-down to JavaScript like Dart), and Java. The operating system environments on which the work must be performed and deployed includes UNIX systems (Linux) and Windows systems. The contractor will be required to track the continually evolving standards for Java, HTML, XML, JSON, HTTP, GWT, and other World Wide Web protocols and adapt developments to adjust to these changes. There exists no other company with the unique skills and expertise with respect to LAS - the system architecture? the Web service interfaces? the configuration framework? the Serverside transformation capabilities? the user interface design, the unique combination of scientific analysis and visualization functionality that this contract addresses in its Statement of Work, and the specific software environments in which the system has been built such as the PyFerret application, the Google Web Toolkit, and the Bootstrap framework. The proposed contract action is for services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under authority of FAR 6.302. Interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement or submit proposals. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. However, any firm that believes it can meet this requirement may provide written notification to the Contract Specialist. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. The NAICS code for this requirement is 541511, Custom Computer Programming Services and the small-business size standard is $27.5M of average annual receipts. Any questions regarding this solicitation must be submitted in writing via e-mail to the Contract Specialist, erik.lundstrom@noaa.gov. All vendors doing business with the Government are required to be registered at sam.gov.