RFI FOR RE-ENGINEERING UTILITIES, TELECOMMUNICATIONS PAYMENTS

May 1, 2008 Request for Information The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeks a partner to define, design, implement, and operate disaster recovery facilities, general support infrastructure, and engineering support required to successfully recover the ACFO-FS applications. This is a Request For Information (RFI) issued solely for information and planning purposes. It does not constitute a Request For Proposal (RFP). USDA intends to assess the capabilities of the potential candidates and may then issue an RFP. Please ensure that any sensitive or protected information is marked as such. Introduction The Office of the Chief Financial Officer/Associate Chief Financial Officer for Financial Systems (ACFO-FS) manages a range of systems that are used for the administrative and financial management of the United States Department of Agriculture. The ACFO-FS' mission is to provide effective and efficient tools that are used to ensure proper financial management of USDA agencies at the corporate level, and that adequate financial records are maintained for accountability and reporting to the Inspector General, Congress, other Federal agencies and to the public. The ACFO-FS accomplishes this by maintaining the corporate financial management system, the Foundation Financial Information System, corporate reporting through the Financial Statement Data Warehouse, agency reporting thorough the Financial Data Warehouse, an Automated Cash Reconciliation Work Sheet used for daily reconciliation with the United States Treasury, the Purchase Card Management System, the Travel System, the Personal Property System, and the Purchase Order System. All of the applications are critical to the overall mission of the USDA. Goal To lower the TCO for recovering the ACFO-FS business systems in the event of a disaster at the USDA National Finance Center's computing facilities hosted in Denver. Purpose The objective of this request for information is two fold: First, to assist the ACFO-FS in improving the attached statement of work for a disaster recovery solution for ACFO-FS applications currently hosted by the National Finance Center (NFC) should a disaster occur at the NFC's Denver computing facilities, and Second, to identify potential candidates who could provide the recovery facilities and engineering support to assist in the recovery of the ACFO-FS applications currently hosted by the NFC should a disaster occur at the NFC's Denver computing facilities. Instructions to Prospective Offerors Responses to this RFI must be no more than 40 total single-sided pages with print no smaller than 10-point; however, text included in graphics, tables, and figures can be smaller than 10 point. The cover page, cover letter, table of contents and SOW recommendations are not included in the 40-page total. Any material submitted in excess of the 40-page limit and page limitation exclusions will not be considered. The submission must be in sufficient detail and clarity to provide the USAD with the information it needs to assess your company's capabilities. Describe your pricing mode and provide a Rough Order of Magnitude pricing for supporting the USDA's requirements as described in the draft SOW. Published price lists for your DR support services and/or any pricing standards or mythologies need to be clearly delineated along with any assumptions, which pertain. Responses must be submitted in electronic format. Tables, text and drawings will be provided in Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Project, or Visio readable formats. Offerors responses to the RFI must be submitted to the USDA by 2:00 p.m. EST June 16, 2008. Your company should only contact the contracting officer issuing this letter if there are any questions about any aspect of this request for information. Interested parties must not contact USDA technical personnel about this RFI. Three hardcopies and three CD's of all responses must be submitted to USDA Office of Procurement and Property Management Reporter's Building, 300 7th Street, S.W. Attn: VMcPherson I-08-1000 Washington, DC 20024 Fax (202) 720-9226 Email: vivian.mcpherson@usda.gov Responses to this RFI must include: - 1. Cover Letter - cover letter must include the following information: - a. Company Name, - b. Company point of contact including Email address and phone number - c. Date submitted - d. Applicable company GSA schedules Section 1 - Recommendations for improving the SOW Section 2 - Corporate Capability and Strategy Offeror must briefly describe their corporate capabilities to provide the services described in the attached draft Statement of Work. Offeror should describe their approach to working with the USDA to ensure a cohesive team utilizing the capabilities and experience of the vendor. Offeror must indicate if any subcontractors are small, and disadvantaged, or other minority business concerns. Offeror must also describe their proposed methodology and approach for implementation of the disaster recovery solution and provide a proposed project plan including any transition planning milestones or conversion tasks, and recommended types of training for USDA personnel, within a stringent timeframe. - 4. Section 3 - Related Experience The offer should identify and describe experiences related to the services identified in the draft SOW: such as providing full-service hosting, DR subscription, IT security, and/or engineering technical support services. The description should be in enough detail to demonstrate corporate expertise. - 5. Section 4 - Past Performance The Offeror should submit a minimum of four (4) but no more than ten (10) past performance references. Each reference must be for similar service and performed within 5 years of the date or release of this RFI. Each reference shall be no more than 2 pages and list the following information: Name of the customer Contract type Contract value Period of Performance Customer point of contact (name, telephone number, e-mail address) from the last 3 years Description of work performed, including a statement of the similarities of the work and the proportion of the work performed that correlates to the required services identified in the SOW List of significant subcontractors Performance Highlights - 6. Section 5 - Proposed Cost Model(s) Offers should provide their cost model for providing the disaster recovery hosting and recovery engineering services.