Sunflower Support

THIS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL AND PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY AND SHALL NOT BE CONTRUED AS A SOLICITATION OR AS AN OBLIGATION BY THE GOVERNMENT. The Social Security Administration (SSA) is performing market research to determine potential 8(a) Contractors capable of providing the services related to Sunflower database and Sunflower application server environments to support the Information Technology Asset Management project (ITAM). The North American Industry Classification (NAICS) Code assigned to this requirement is 541519 (Other Computer Related Services), with an associated Size Standard of $25.5M. The purpose of this notice is to identify potential 8(a) Small Business concerns that may be interested in and capable of performing the work described. This notice does not constitute a solicitation for offers, nor is it a pre-solicitation notice. SSA will not pay for any information submitted in response to this notice, nor will the SSA return any information submitted. Information submitted by parties other than 8(a) Small Business concerns will not be considered. The Government will not publish any results of this market research, such as lists of interested parties. Background: The Social Security Administration (SSA) has an agency requirement to support the Information Technology Asset Management project (ITAM). The ITAM project goal is to provide the Agency with better information to manage business decisions, improve best practices and allow better management of the life cycle of IT assets. ITAM will allow the Agency to cut costs, reduce liability exposure, and improve software compliance. The long-term objective is capturing and integrating physical, financial, and contractual data that supports the functions needed to manage IT assets effectively and optimize SSA's performance. This requirement shall cover support services for troubleshooting day to day Sunflower issues as well as the installations and completion of scheduled and planned interface enhancements through the Systems Development Life Cycle. SSA requires services and deliverables, including hardware, software enhancements and maintenance, on a long-term basis. SSA has identified enhancements to the existing application as well as the creation of new features to add to the agencies current property management asset system (Sunflower Enterprise v4.5). This will allow the agency to better manage business decisions in support of the overall mission of the SSA by better managing the life cycle of its assets, allowing the Agency to cut costs, reducing liability exposure, and better matching use with contract terms. The long-term objective is capturing and integrating physical, financial, and contractual data that supports the functions needed to manage assets effectively and optimize SSA's performance. Scope: The purpose is to acquire support services for production support activities as well as the activities associated with implementing releases that result from emergency patches, mandatory updates, upgrades and/or resolutions to typical production support issues. This requires the Contractor to work with various Office of Telecommunications and Systems Operations (OTSO) and Systems components that are a part of the System Development Life Cycle for the Sunflower database and the Sunflower application server environments. SSA requires the Contractor to provide support services and complete installation activities throughout the Systems Development Life Cycle (Development, Validation, Integration, and Production) during the period of performance. Requirements: The Contractor shall provide the following requirements: - Monitor application Server logs; - Support and assist the Office of Facilities and Space Management (OFSM), Sunflower users and various SSA components with operations, processes, and system support. This includes providing third level support to problem records opened by end-users and representatives; - Ensure a 24/7 availability of Application Servers; - Resolve Load Balancer related issues and conflicts; - Support testing activities by providing support to various SSA's Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) components: - Troubleshoot day to day Sunflower Oracle application server software and issues related to the deployment and operation in the SSA's SDLC; - Provide support, develop and implement resolutions associated with the Sunflower Software and all Application Server related issues; - Requirements gathering, analysis, development and migrating the solution throughout SSA's SDLC; - Provide support during production cutover weekends associated with any production support implementations; - Perform and/or recommend server based preventative maintenance; - Analyze and maintain interaction of Sunflower application server and appropriate database(s), interfaces, and end-user browsers requests; - Provide recommendations on the use of automated technologies to reduce data entry; - Gather requirements from the Office of Facilities and Supply Management (OFSM) and the Division of Resource Management and Acquisition (DRMA) to develop and recommend new logistics and asset management procedures to address common and recurring problems based on SSA's Logistic Management Policy and Procedures; - Develop, modify and update scripts; - Develop, modify and update life cycle documentation; - Develop, modify, and update acceptance criteria based on findings and standards deemed acceptable by SSA; - Develop installation documents, user guides, configuration documents and test plans; - Create issues logs, document findings, make recommendations, and work with SDLC components to implement changes as appropriate; - Complete the implementation of the Sunflower Version 5.0 upgrade; - Complete the implementation of the Mobiltrak Version 4.6.1.1 upgrade. Place of Performance: All activities shall take place at the SSA Headquarters location in Woodlawn Maryland Complex located at 6201 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland 21235. 8(a) Concerns responding to this Sources Sought Notice must: 1) Indicate their company's applicable small business status category based on the size standard above. 2) Interested parties should send their corporate capabilities with experience/reference documentation via e-mail to Linda.Washeck@ssa.gov no later than April 10, 2013, 2:30 p.m. CDT. RESPONSES SHALL NOT EXCEED TEN (10) PAGES IN LENGTH; not including the cover page. Font shall not be smaller than industry standard word processor 12-point Times New Roman. Submissions in formats other than e-mail (facsimile, mail, telephone calls, simple references to websites, etc...) will not be considered. Further, requests to meet with the Contracting Officer or SSA programmatic officials to discuss this notice will not be granted. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION NOTE: This notice does not constitute a solicitation for offers, nor is it a pre-solicitation notice. This notice is for market research purposes only. The SSA will not pay for any information submitted in response to this notice, nor will the SSA return any information submitted. Information submitted by parties that are not 8(a) concerns will not be considered. The Government will not publish any results of this market research, such as lists of interested parties. This is not a solicitation announcement for proposals and the Government will not award a contract from this announcement. The Government will not accept any telephone calls, or requests for bid package or solicitation. At this time, no solicitation exists. In order to protect the procurement integrity of any future procurement, if any, that may arise from this announcement; the Government will not give information regarding the technical point of contact. The Government will use responses to this sources sought/market research to make appropriate acquisition decisions.