Notice of Intent to Negotiate a Sole Source Contract - UNH IT Services

NOTICE OF INTENT TO NEGOTIATE A SOLE-SOURCE CONTRACT This is a notice of intent to negotiate a sole-source contract pursuant to the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1), only one responsible source, which applies when the supplies/services required by the agency are only available from one responsible source and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The Government intends to negotiate a contract with the University of New Hampshire, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Office of Coast Survey (OCS) who has a requirement for annual IT support for NOAA personnel and/or NOAA contractors working collaboratively with UNH researchers and in facilities provided by and shared with UNH. These personnel require IT services and support that is tightly integrated with the UNH IT infrastructure. Areas of services include computers and services, basic IT services, data storage for high-resilience data; and data storage for bulk data. This package is intended to support the IT needs of eight (8) NOAA users throughout the base period of performance and up to ten (10) NOAA users in the option years. The Joint Hydrographic Center (JHC) was formed and is a formal cooperative partnership between the UNH and NOAA to create a national center for expertise in ocean mapping and hydrographic sciences. UNH has been the recipient of the last two five-year awards or grants to fund the JHC. The Center for Coastal Ocean Mapping (CCOM) is a complementary university center that expands the scope of ocean mapping interaction and collaboration with the private sector, other government agencies, and other universities. Together, the CCOM/JHC develop tools to advance ocean mapping and hydrography and to train the next generation of hydrographers and ocean mappers. The CCOM/JHC home is in the Jere A. Chase Ocean Engineering Lab on the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire. The lab contains state of the art technology, classrooms, and lab space. NOAA technicians, engineers, and support personnel work with UNH staff in support of research and learning where opportunities to collaborate, communicate, and cooperate are continuously increasing. These personnel require IT services and support that is tightly integrated with the UNH IT infrastructure. NOAA personnel and contractors are unable to connect to the NOAA network while working onsite at the University as their IT system will not allow for "loop back" connectivity. The IT services must operate on the UNH network and within the university's security boundaries, and must be collocated with and share high-performance, and high-availability data storage facilities provided by the university. There is no sensitive or non-public data being generated and stored on the University's servers and the data is not considered to be NOAA data. The University does not permit NOAA to utilize their own laptops and instead requires use of UNH equipment and IT services for the research and development being conducted at their facility. Therefore, UNH is the only known responsible source that can provide the IT services required for this procurement. Responses to this notice must be provided within fifteen (15) calendar days from the date of this notice. Vendors who believe they can meet this requirement are required to submit in writing an affirmative response demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the requirement. All written responses must include a written narrative statement of capability, including detailed technical information demonstrating their ability to meet the requirement. The response must be sufficient to permit agency analysis to establish a bona fide capability to meet the requirement. Failure to submit such documentation will result in the Government proceeding as previously stated. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Affirmative written responses must be received no later than 4:00 P.M. local time, August 5, 2016. The responses must be submitted via e-mail to Emily Clark, Contract Specialist, at Emily.Clark@noaa.gov, with a hard copy to the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Eastern Region Acquisition Division, 200 Granby Street, Suite 815, Norfolk, VA 23510.