Public User Portal (IRS.gov) Managed Services

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to award a sole source contract to Accenture, Ltd., for Public User Portal (PUP) (IRS.gov) Managed Services. These services include hosting, and operations and maintenance support for the irs.gov website. This announcement is in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The Government believes that there is only one responsible source that can provide the services that satisfy the agency requirements for PUP Managed Services in the required timeframe, as the IRS is currently engaged in determining the future direction of its portals. The Government intends to award a fixed price and time and materials contract pursuant to FAR Part 15 under NAICS Code 541512. Since January, 2002, the IRS.gov website serves as a preferred channel for interactions with the IRS and is currently the primary information source for over 120 million taxpayers and tax professionals. IRS.gov hosts 42 applications and enables the dissemination of tax forms, instructions, publications, and other tax-information free-of-charge to the public. The website has 100% availability despite an annual increase in usage of over 30%, over 218 million visits, 1.3 billion page views, 153.3 million downloads, 75-100 million hits per day, and over 159 million hits on April 15. The site has won numerous awards, including Forbes Magazine's - Best of the Web, and e-Government's - Pioneer Award as one of several government sites recognized for innovative approaches to improving core products and services. IRS.gov is credited for assisting the IRS in streamlining its processes, increasing productivity, improving quality, timeliness and accuracy of government provided information and services. The Operations and Maintenance (O&M) for the PUP is currently performed by Accenture. The sites consist of approximately 60 hosting servers located at two external, load-balanced sites (Sterling, Virginia and Denver, Colorado) and content is cached utilizing a bank of over 28,000 servers all over the Internet. At each level of the architecture, redundancy was implemented to meet the high level of availability required by the IRS. The IRS is in the process of developing a long range strategy for Portal Managed Services. The current portal hosting infrastructures at the IRS are mission critical systems that cannot be allowed to break or suffer service level degradation. The current O&M contract will expire in May 2009. It is imperative that IRS public facing portal continue to be maintained and available 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Some of the challenges prohibiting a competitive acquisition include: *infrastructure ownership implications; software (OS, Tools), Telecommunications, Facilities (Floor, Space, Power, etc.), and Network (each unique component) cannot be transferred timely to another vendor; *knowledge and execution of security complexities in the planned transition to a new service provider; Title III of the E-Government Act, of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, Public Law 107-347, OMB Circular A-130 -NIST provides guidance consistent with the requirements of OMB Circular A-130, Section 8b(3), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), NIST Special Publications 800 series, TD P 85-01, Department of Treasury Security Manual, TD P 84-01, Information System Life Cycle (ISLC),TD P 83-01, Guidelines for Acquiring Federal Information Processing, TD P 71-10, Department of Treasury Security Manual and Internal Revenue Manual (IRM) 10.8 Series; *completion of the portal strategy analysis that will determine the technical direction of the PUP; *disruption in service would result in external user applications not having a platform to operate on. Given the complexity, mission criticality, and transitional requirements of the IRS portals, the IRS estimates the need for a sole-source contract, with the incumbent, consisting of one base year and 2 one-year option periods. This will ensure sufficient time to: 1) complete the IRS Portal Strategic Analysis including the submission and acceptance of all of the final deliverables, leading to IRS ability to conduct a competitive acquisition for future portal requirements; 2) develop a procurement strategy that implements the future direction of the portals and promotes competition to the maximum extent practicable; and, 3) successfully complete transition of all existing applications to the new portal infrastructure with no disruption of service during the transition period. No solicitation document is available, and requests for same will be considered non-responsive. However, any firm that believes that it can meet the requirements above may give written notification to the contracting officer; firms must submit clear and convincing data in writing substantiating an ability to furnish the entire requirement. Responses may not exceed ten pages. Responses to this notice must be received by this office by November 5, 2008. Responses should be sent to: Internal Revenue Service, Office of Procurement, 6009 Oxon Hill Road, Oxon Hill, MD 20745, Attn: Nicolete C. Veno, OS:A:P:I:F:B. Responses will be accepted by facsimile at 202-283-4427. If a response is received the meets the IRS requirements, and analysis of both technical and pricing documentation indicate that a competitive acquisition would be more advantageous to the Government, a formal solicitation may be issued. A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Telephonic or e-mail inquiries will not be accepted. The reference number for this announcement is Q9QU3KSIS00000. If no compelling responses are received, award will be made to Accenture.