Notice of Intent to Sole Source - Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) and Technical Support of iRODS Installations

The National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) intends to award a Purchase Order to the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, at 104 Airport Drive, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599 for services related to Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) and Technical Support of iNIEHS RODS Installations. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 541519 "Other Computer Related Services" with a size standard of $27.5 million dollars. NO SOLICITATION OR REQUEST FOR QUOTE (RFQ) IS AVAILABLE. It has been determined that the University of North Carolina is the only known responsible source capable of providing the required services and no other services will satisfy the agency's requirements. The acquisition of technical support and independent validation and verification (IV&V) of iRODS installations will provide support to NIEHS Office of Scientific Information Management (OSIM) in the areas of: 1) using iRODS open source data management software to enable data discovery, sharing and reuse; and 2) independent review of NIEHS Data Commons development. As a result of this acquisition, NIEHS expects to: - Ensure all NIEHS iRODS instances are installed in a manner which is supportable, upgradeable, congruent with NIEHS Enterprise Architecture, and meets OSIM requirements for data management. - Verify and validate that the Data Commons delivered by third-party contractors satisfies NIEHS-defined requirements. - Advise the NIEHS on strategies for integrating iRODS across diverse systems and data models. iRODS is developed by the iRODS Consortium. The Consortium maintains and supports a commercial-grade distribution of iRODS and provides support services. The iRODS Consortium fields a team of software developers, application engineers, and support staff housed at RENCI at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC/RENCI has detailed knowledge of the existing NIEHS iRODS installation and the hardware that supports the installations. NIEHS has three existing deployments of iRODS used for various projects. RENCI was either largely responsible for the implementation or was brought in to provide technical support. As a result, they possess unique knowledge of the NIEHS iRODS environment in order to assess whether the third-party contractor developing the data commons system is actually building and completing the system according to NIEHS specifications. RENCI is uniquely aware of the interdependencies between the iRODS-based data commons system and the other two iRODS deployments. RENCI is the only vendor that has sufficient knowledge of the NIEHS iRODS environment to ensure that the data commons system, as it is built out by the other third-party contractor, integrates with all three NIEHS iRODS installments and does not put continuity of service at risk, without the risk of data loss. This notice of intent is not a solicitation or request for quotes. Notwithstanding, any firm that believes it is capable of meeting NIEHS' requirement, as stated herein, may submit their corporate capabilities, which, if received by the response date of this announcement, may be considered. Responses to this posting must be in writing and shall be emailed to nicole.humphrey@nih.govv and are due by the listed due date and time. 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 be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement in the future.