Request for Informatiion US NDC Modernization Program

US National Data Center (US NDC) Request for Information This request is an announcement for information for planning purposes only. This Request for Information does not constitute a Request for Proposal, Request for Quote, or Invitation for Bid. Nor does its issuance in any way restrict the Government's acquisition approach. The Air Force Technical Application Center (AFTAC) is seeking interested sources for the US National Data Center (US NDC) program, Modernization Contract. The US NDC is the geophysical data acquisition, data processing, reporting and archiving component of the United States Atomic Energy Detection System (USAEDS) operated by the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC). AFTAC's mission is to monitor compliance with nuclear test ban treaties to standards set by US verification and policy leaders. This mission requires the US NDC to detect, locate and identify foreign nuclear tests and provide rapid reporting and technical assessment to the appropriate national security agencies and policy makers. The US NDC processes and integrates data and information up to and including the Department of Defense (DoD) TOP SECRET level. The US NDC also serves as the data distribution center for all US government and authorized users for International Monitoring System (IMS) data. The focus of this contract effort is an incremental modernization of the US NDC system to enhance existing data acquisition, detection, association, location, magnitude/yield estimation, event classification, event reporting, data distribution, and data archiving capabilities to meet current and future treaty monitoring needs as specified in the US NDC System Requirements Document (SRD). Another focus of this incremental modernization effort is to make use of modern software design and development practices to re-architect the US NDC's legacy source code/software baseline that has evolved over the past 15+ years and sustain the present operational systems. The US NDC is an advanced geophysical data acquisition and processing system which provides the capability to receive, process, archive and report events of interest in monitoring nuclear treaty requirements. It acquires waveform data from a global network of seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasonic stations. Data is stored, distributed to researchers both internal and external to AFTAC, and reliably forwarded to a classified processing system. The US NDC receives data from the USAEDS network and from the International Data Center (IDC) originating from International Monitoring System (IMS) sensors on U.S. territory and from other countries. The US NDC performs significant automate processing, followed by interactive review to refine, correct, and display and report results. The US NDC consists of the following components: (a) A 24x7 operations center located in the AFTAC Operations Center (AOC), Patrick AFB, FL (PAFB); (b) A 24x7 alternate (ALT) hot-backup system located at a designated location; (c) A Training System located at the 312th Training Squadron GAFB; (d) A Remote Operations Center (ROC) located at PAFB (used to support unplanned and/or short term AOC outages, fire drills, etc.); (e) The US NDC Sustainment System (SUS, aka the test-bed) and (f) The US NDC Development System (DEVL), both located at AFTAC/PAFB. Current System Parameters include the following: 1) Hardware: Sun/Oracle SPARC-based servers and workstations, Sun/Oracle x86 servers, Oracle/SunRay thin-clients, Storage Area Network Drives, LTO3 tape archives 2) System Software: Solaris 10, Red Hat Linux 5.4, Oracle 11g 3) Applications software: C, C++, FORTRAN, PERL, Scheme, SQL, Lisp, ASM, CSH, Java, Makefile, SH, TCL, YACC The operational US NDC hardware (OPS, Alt, Training System, and Remote Operations Center) along with most of the development/sustainment hardware is and will continue to be maintained through a separate AFTAC maintenance support contract until approximately FY2015. Contractor responsibility will include the development and integration of a total system including ongoing upgrades, advanced geophysical studies and tuning/optimization of software algorithms. All personnel must have a Secret clearance and all key personnel must have a Top Secret (SCI) clearance. A majority of the work will be done within the AFTAC building at Patrick AFB, FL. Therefore, the contractor must have or establish a facility in Florida and have key personnel available to work within AFTAC. Examples of US NDC development and sustainment items include, but are not limited to the following: MODERNIZATION EFFORTS 1) One of the primary objectives of this modernization effort is to enhance existing data acquisition, detection, association, location, magnitude/yield estimation, event classification, event reporting, data distribution, and data archiving capabilities to meet current and future treaty monitoring needs as specified in the US NDC System Requirements Document (SRD). 2) A second major objective of this modernization effort is to make use of modern software design and development practices to re-architect the US NDC's legacy source code/software baseline that has evolved over the past 15+ years. This effort shall include recoding the US NDC software baseline to allow the US NDC to take advantage of modern multi-core and 64 bit CPU architectures. The most immediate need is the interactive analysis tool suite. 3) The contractor shall work closely with US NDC government staff in an integrated product team to re-engineer and modernize the US NDC system in a series of builds over the life of the contract. The builds are structured to provide system-wide requirements with a top-down design phase followed by a methodical bottom-up implementation. The modernization schedule will be milestone driven; such that new efforts will not begin until the milestone of previous effort is successfully completed. Some development efforts will overlap so as to efficiently utilize resources. This will be done by adhering to a set of entry/exit criteria established during each phase of development. 4) Develop and/or integrate state-of-the-art algorithms for detection, association, location, magnitude/yield estimation, event classification, and reporting to meet current and future treaty monitoring needs. 5) The US NDC system currently resides on the SPARC architecture. The US NDC, for multiple reasons, needs to migrate away from SPARC to an x86 architecture. Since the US NDC system is on a 4-5 year equipment replacement cycle, the migration must be synchronized with our hardware purchases. The migration is to occur on the legacy system, but must also be compatible with the modernized system. 6) Integrate improved seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasonic propagation models (velocity, attenuation, etc.) to help improve association, location, magnitude/yield estimation and event classification to meet current and future treaty monitoring needs. 7) Propose, define and manage DT&E and OT&E strategies and processes with explicit exit criteria to ensure that all elements of the SRD and the individual build efforts are satisfied to government expectations. 8) Address new and outstanding SRD requirements. SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING SYSTEM STUDIES An integral part of the overall US NDC R&D effort is conducting scientific and engineering System Studies focused on investigating potential system improvements. These potential system upgrades and improvements focus on allowing the US NDC to meet current and future treaty monitoring requirements, improving overall system performance and helping reduce O&M costs. The studies normally range in duration between 3 to 12 months. Efforts requiring more than 12 months are broken into increments with major milestones serving as the logical stopping/starting points between increments. a. Conduct R&D studies (e.g., hardware, software, databases) to help improve overall system performance and help reduce maintenance costs and man power needs. b. Conduct scientific studies to help improve detection, association, location, magnitude/yield estimation and event classification to meet current and future treaty monitoring needs. O&M EFFORTS In FY2015, the contractor will begin to support the US NDC government staff with O&M tasks. O&M tasks will include Database, System Administration, Software Engineering, Scientific Programming, Test & Evaluation, and O&M Studies support. All applicable upgrades to the US NDC shall also be made to the training system located at Goodfellow AFB TX, ROC located at PAFB FL, and to the Alt US NDC, located at a designated location. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR A PROPOSAL SUBMISSION. It is a market research tool to determine the availability and adequacy of potential sources. Interested parties responding to this announcement shall provide a point of contact, their company's Cage Code, and indicate their company's business size (i.e. large, veteran-owned small business, service-disabled veteran-owned small business, HUBzone, small disadvantaged business, 8(a), or woman-owned small business) in relation to NAICS Code 541330, size standard $25 million. The Government reserves the right to set this action aside for a type of small business concern. Interested parties are invited to submit a Statement of Capabilities (SOC) to the Government for evaluation in response to this announcement in accordance with Numbered Note 25 (see below Numbered Notes). In addition to Numbered Note 25, the following must, as a minimum, be addressed in your SOC: 1) Is your intent in responding to this synopsis to be a prime, or a subcontractor? 2) List all relevant Government contracts by contract number and title. Provide a brief overview of the contracted effort and indicate if the effort performed under each contract was as the prime contractor or as a subcontractor. 3) List geophysicist and other key personnel available to perform at Patrick AFB, FL in support of this type of effort. 4) Do you have documented internal processes for Configuration Management and Quality Assurance? 5) List any current certifications held by your company. (ex: ISO) 6) Address experience using Earned Value Management techniques for cost, schedule and performance reporting on current contracts. Identify which EVM system is used and if system has been validated by DCMA. Numbered Note 25: Information submitted should be pertinent and specific in the technical area under consideration, on each of the following qualifications: (1) Experience: An outline of previous projects, specific work previously performed or being performed and any in-house research and development effort; (2) Personnel: Name, professional qualifications and specific experience of scientist, engineers and technical personnel who may be assigned as a principal investigator and/or project officer; (3) Facilities: Availability and description of special facilities required to perform in the technical areas under consideration. A statement is required regarding industry security clearance. Any other specific and pertinent information as pertains to this particular area of procurement that would enhance our consideration and evaluation of the information submitted. Please limit SOC responses to a maximum of fifteen (15) total pages. Minimum font shall be 12 point. The SOC shall be submitted in an Acrobat readable format via email. Interested parties may also submit via the US Postal Service a single CD/DVD containing additional information related to company background, experience, contracts, key personnel resumes, EVM, etc. Routine communications concerning this announcement should be directed to the point of contact listed below. The due date for receipt of email responses to this announcement is May 11, 2011, 1600 EDT. Interested companies are requested to submit their responses electronically (via e-mail) to Patricia.Bosinger@patrick.af.mil with a copy to lynn.corley@patrick.af.mil. The point of contact for this announcement is Ms. Patricia Bosinger, Contract Specialist, AFISRA/A7KRA 1030 South Highway A1A, Bldg 989, Patrick AFB, FL 32925-3002, (321) 494-0998. The alternate point of contact for this announcement is Ms Lynn Corley, Contracting Officer, AFISRA/A7KRA, 1030 South Highway A1A, Bldg 989, Patrick AFB, FL 32925-3002, (321) 494-0519 THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT INTEND TO AWARD A CONTRACT ON THE BASIS OF THIS SYNOPSIS, NOR TO OTHERWISE PAY FOR THE INFORMATION SOLICITED IN THIS DISCUSSION.