Cloud Interconnect Services and Support

Cloud Interconnect Services and Support The objective of this contract is to acquire secure, high‐speed direct connections from the FDA WODC and ADC to AWS (US Commercial and GovCloud East & GovCloud West), Azure for Government, utilizing MACSEC encryption and high data transfer bandwidth at or above 10 Gigabit circuits. The acquisition will include the network circuits that connect FDA data centers to the Interconnect Service Provider data centers, interconnect Service, technical support, and professional services to install, configure, test, and deploy the Interconnect Service to production. The FDA data centers include Ashburn Data Center (ADC) and White Oak Data Center (WODC). This contract will enable FDA to: Fulfill security controls for the AWS GovCloud to operate under FISMA high categorization; FISMA high categorization requires high availability (HA), and HA is one of the benefits of the Interconnect Service. Increase network performance and reduce latency issues between the FDA network and CSPs; the Interconnect Service enables real‐time access to cloud resources and services. Provide increase network bandwidth needed to migrate large applications and to transfer large data sets from FDA on‐premises data centers to the cloud in high speed. Provide secure connections to the CSPs which comply with all Federal cloud computing regulations and security standards that are specified in Section 3.1; improve security by bypassing the public internet with a direct connection to the CSPs. Support the monitoring and inspection of cloud traffic between the FDA network and the CSPs. Increase communication reliability since faster data transfers with high‐speed connections are less vulnerable to system timeouts. Facilitate Disaster Recovery (DR) with high speed direct and simultaneous connections to multiple CSPs that are geographically distributed across the Continental United States (CONUS). Minimize resources required to acquire, implement, and manage individual connections from the FDA to each CSP. Extend the FDA network infrastructure footprint with greater reach and flexibility to manage network resources in the ICSP infrastructure facilities/data centers. Increase security and performance through direct connections that are more secure and reliable and have lower latency than public internet connections. This is a combined synopsis solicitation issued on SAM.gov. This is an unrestricted competitive solicitation. This acquisition shall utilize Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection procedures. By submission of its offer, the Quoter accepts all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements. Failure to meet a requirement may result in an offer being determined technically unacceptable. The evaluation factors that establish the requirements of acceptability are set forth in the solicitation. The award will be made based on the lowest evaluated price of quotations meeting or exceeding the acceptability standards for non‐cost factors. The government intends to select one contractor for award of this effort. Quoters shall submit quotations in the following formats for the identified Volume: One (1) electronic copy of Volume I (Technical in Microsoft Word format); One (1) electronic copy of Volume I in PDF format; One (1) electronic copy of Volume II in Excel Word format; One (1) electronic copy of Volume II in Microsoft Word/PDF format; One (1) electronic copy of Volume III (Small Business in Microsoft Word format); and One (1) electronic copy of Volume III in PDF format. All files submitted SHALL NOT be secured or locked. All file names shall be limited to 45 characters . (i.e. 45_characters_limit.docx) Quoters may submit questions regarding the RFQ. Quoters shall submit all questions to Lilibeth Deato via email at [email protected]. The FDA must receive the questions no later than 12 Noon Eastern Time on July 30, 2024. The subject line shall read: RFQ‐75F40124Q00407: FDA Cloud Interconnect Services and Support ‐ Questions. Questions shall be in Microsoft Word or email format. Questions shall NOT be in table, spreadsheet or boxed format. FDA may not answer questions received after this date and time and will not answer questions submitted to individuals other than the named contact. No phone calls please. FDA will provide Quoters with answers to all questions received via an Amendment. All quotations shall be sent by e‐mail to the following e‐mail address: [email protected]. E‐mail shall be limited to 10 MB. Quoters shall not include macros. All macros may be stripped from emails by the system. Quotations are due August 12, 2024 at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time) . Each volume shall be clearly marked with the volume number, the solicitation number, and the Quoters’ name. The Technical (Volume I), Business (Volume II) and Small Business (Volume III) quotation shall be kept separate from each other. Technical volume must not make reference to pricing data in order that the technical evaluation may be made strictly on the basis of technical merit. Text color shall be black. Color may be used in graphics or charts for greater clarity at the Quoters’ option. Regular text shall not be smaller than a 12 point font size and shall not greater than an 12 point font size, Arial Narrow font, with the exception of headings. Quoters shall use only 8.5 inch by 11 inch paper, single‐spaced pages with margins no less than one half inch (.05”) on each border and shall number each page consecutively. The size and font of headers and footnotes are not dictated. No fonts may be condensed. Font size within tables, graphs and charts shall be no smaller than 10‐point font size. A page in the technical quotation that contains a table, chart, graph, etc., not otherwise excluded, is subject to the page limitation. The Technical Quotation shall be page numbered. The following items are not included in the 30‐page limit: Cover Sheet; Table of Contents. If a subcontractor or subcontracts are proposed to be utilized, a description of the subcontractor tasks, subcontract type, and pricing information must be provided with the quotation response. The contents of Volume I shall be organized and adhere to the specified page limitations in Table 1 – Technical Quotation Page Limitations Volume I Technical Quotation Page Limitations Executive Summary 2 Pages Factor 1: Technical Acceptability 30 Pages Factor 2: Past Performance 0 Pages Factor 3 – Small Business 10 pages Information submitted over any page limitation will not be evaluated. Late submissions will NOT be evaluated. Fax submissions are NOT authorized. It is the Quoter's responsibility to confirm receipt of all quotes by the closing date of this announcement by contacting the above Contract Specialist at [email protected].