Sources Sought-Request for Information Notice Number: 19065 Key Dates:Issue Date: 6/21/11Response Due Date: 6/24/11 by 2:00 pm Eastern Standard TimePlease ensure your e-mail response has "RFI #19065" in the subject line. Issued by:The Department of Interior (DOI) National Business Center (NBC) Acquisition Service Directorate (AQD) in Herndon VA is issuing the subject Request for Information (RFI) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), National Institute of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). AQD is a federal franchise fund contracting office within DOI under the authority of the Government Management Reform Act (GMRA) and is authorized to provide acquisition support to all federal and DoD agencies. RFI Objective: The Government is seeking market research, sources sought, and general industry information to help aid in finalizing a statement of work or objectives requirements document which will be included in an upcoming solicitation. The projected RFQ/RFP will request proposals to provide access to and use of fiber optic infrastructure to give NIAID's Hamilton, Montana facility exclusive use, management, control, and configuration of a 10 Gigabit or greater end user connection to the NIAID network, operated in accord with regional providers and Internet2. The future analysis requirement may be advertised and posted to the Federal Business Opportunities web site at FedBizOpps.gov (FBO.gov). The Government is asking for interested qualified firms to review this notice and respond as stated under the "How to Respond" section of this document. Background:The NIAID pursues research in two basic ways; through intramural research performed by laboratories headed by federal employees who work for the Institute, and through extramural research, for which NIAID awards grants and contracts to outside institutions to help them pay for their research efforts. The Division of Intramural Research (DIR) conducts basic and clinical research in a wide range of disciplines related to immunology, allergy, and infectious diseases. A key component of DIR is the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), NIH's state-of-the-art biomedical research facility located in Hamilton, MT. In addition to five research labs and the newly constructed Integrated Research Facility (IRF), resources on the RML campus include state-of-the-art technologies for use by NIAID researchers in Hamilton, MT, as well as Bethesda, MD. For example, the Genomics Unit within RML's Research Technologies Section (RTS), has recently invested in advanced gene sequencing technologies to meet investigators' standard and custom DNA sequencing needs. Over 80 percent of NIAID's budget supports extramural investigators at universities, hospitals and medical research institutes throughout the U.S. and abroad. Additionally, the Institute has long realized that health is a global challenge requiring effective collaboration with a global research community of governments, health providers, academia and industry. Given the geographical dispersion of its extramural partners, NIAID is constantly seeking ever more effective and efficient means to collaborate with that extended community. One collaborative strategy that NIH has invested in is participation in the Internet2 organization and access to its nation-wide advanced optical and packet network. Internet2 is a not-for-profit advanced networking consortium comprising more than 200 U.S. universities in cooperation with 70 leading corporations, 45 government agencies, laboratories and other institutions of higher learning as well as over 50 international partner organizations. The Internet2 network is a high speed network that provides the necessary scalability for member institutions to efficiently provision resources and address bandwidth-intensive requirements such as, collaborative applications, distributed research experiments, grid-based data analysis and professional networking. The Internet2 network currently provides, ten 10 Gbps links on each segment of the network, but is testing new 40 and 100 Gbps technologies. The security and speed of the Internet2 network provides NIH researchers in labs located in Maryland the ability to interact with external collaborators using instant meetings, "telepresence" video conferencing, and common file repositories. Large data sets and files (gigabytes to terabytes) can be stored in one place, readily accessed in another, and automatically replicated to a third for off-site back-up. The RML constitutes a critical research asset to the whole of NIAID's research community, intramural as well extramural partners. Access by DIR's intramural researchers in Bethesda, Maryland to the state-of-the-art technologies maintained at the RML, as well as the global research community's ability to effectively collaborate with RML researchers are vital to accomplishing the Institute's overall mission. However, due to limitations in the intervening telecom infrastructure, the RML campus does not have access to the Internet2 network, but rather is connected to the NIAID Maryland labs and external collaborators via a Digital Signal 3 (DS3) telecom line. A DS3, also referred to as a T3 line, is a digital signal level 3 T-carrier with a signal performance capacity limited to approximately 45 Mbit/s. By way of comparison, the Internet2 network's performance is at least 200 times greater and will shortly be over 1,000 times that of RML's current data transfer capability. Until recently, the telecom transport capacity at the RML campus was sufficient for the need, however, the combination of the recent construction of an advanced IRF and the deployment of advanced, data-intensive research tools like RTS' gene sequencer have increased the demand on the RML infrastructure by an order of magnitude. For example, the results of a single experiment performed on behalf of DIR researchers in Maryland using the gene sequencer may result in hundreds of gigabytes, if not terabytes, of data. That data must be transferred back to the DIR labs in Maryland in order for scientists to mine the data for useful research information. Given the fact that up to 50% of the current throughput capability of RML's commercial DS3 telecom line is already consumed by the normal network traffic of RML staff, RML's current network capacity is no longer sufficient to meet its requirements. OCICB recently engaged an independent consultant with extensive knowledge of the regional telecommunications community, both public and private, in the Montana region to assess alternatives available to NIAID to affect the desired connectivity. That consultant found that, although there exists commercially available dark fiber between Missoula, MT and both Chicago and Seattle, similar capacity does not exist between the RML campus in Hamilton and Missoula, a distance of approximately 45 miles. In order to effectively link the RML with the broader Internet2 network, NIAID must either find a commercial service provider willing to invest in the fiber optic infrastructure not yet available between Missoula and Hamilton, or fund the construction itself. Purpose and Requirement Information: NIAID seeks access to and use of fiber optic infrastructure to give RML exclusive use, management, control, and configuration of a 10 Gigabit or greater end user connection to the NIAID network, operated in accord with regional providers and Internet2. The physical infrastructure will address at least the following elements: 1. Link the RML site in Hamilton, Montana, to a common network junction point in Missoula, Montana. 2. Extend from the Missoula junction point to an appropriate Internet2 connection point operated by Internet2 in Seattle, Washington and Chicago, Illinois. 3. Optionally, NIAID may wish to establish a direct connection from RML to an Internet2 connection point in Salt Lake City, Utah.The multiple routes from Hamilton to Internet2 connection points is required to provide for adequate fault tolerance across the resulting network. NIAID envisions a two-phase project to establish the desired 10Gbps network connection between NIAID's RML campus in Hamilton, Montana and Internet2 network connection points in Seattle, Washington, Chicago, Illinois, and optionally in Salt Lake City, Utah. Phase I will consist of the construction of the physical fiber optic infrastructure between RML and Missoula followed by the maintenance of the physical infrastructure then establish wave service between RML and the Internet2 network in Chicago and Seattle. Phase II (optional) will acquire and or construct the physical fiber optic infrastructure between RML and the Internet2 point of presence in Salt Lake City, Utah and then establish wave service between RML and the Internet2 network. The contractor shall perform the following specific tasks: 1. Phase I: a. Subtask 5.1.1: RML-to-Missoula (Segment A)i. Construct Fiber Optic Network - Construct or acquire a 10G/100G fiber optic network line(s) from Hamilton to Missoula.ii. Maintain Fiber Optic Network - maintain the dedicated 10G/100G fiber optic network line(s) from Hamilton to Missoula for the duration of the IRU. iii. Provide Wave Service - Segment A - provide wave services over Segment A (RML-to-Missoula) for the duration of the contract's period of performance.b. Subtask 5.1.2: Long-Haul Connection(s) on Segments B & Ci. Obtain wave services capable of supporting a 10G/100G transport network between Missoula and Internet2 connection points in Chicago (Segment B) and Seattle (Segment C) for the duration of the contract's period of performance. 2. Phase II (Optional) If exercised, this optional task will consist of the following subtask:a. Subtask 5.2.1: RML-to-Salt Lake City, Utah (Segment D)i. Acquire/Construct Fiber Optic Network - Construct or acquire a dedicated 10G/100G fiber optic route between the RML campus in Hamilton and the Internet2 connection point in Salt Lake City.ii. Maintain Fiber Optic Network - maintain the dedicated 10G/100G fiber optic route between the RML campus in Hamilton and the Internet2 connection point in Salt Lake City.iii. Provide Wave Service - Segment D - provide wave services over Segment D (RML-to-Salt Lake City) for the duration of the contract's period of performance.The contractor must perform the tasks to the following network design, requirements and performance objectives: Requirements - NIAID is seeking a vendor to provide the fiber optic routes, locations, and operational details described above. However, the proposed solution must conform to the following minimum requirements. 1. Operational Requirements a. The contractor shall include the option to acquire 6 additional dark fibers or waves over the period of the contract.b. Trouble Reportingi. The contractor must respond to all trouble reports twenty-four (24) hours a day, 365 days per year.ii. The contractor must provide a toll-free trouble reporting number.iii. For all service problems the contractor must provide a status report (type of problem, estimated time to repair, contractor ticket number) to the NIAID Point of Contact (to be identified in the Contract). c. Contractor will supply on-field personnel for on-site support. d. Contractor must have a trouble ticketing system with the ability to issue ticket numbers per trouble incident, track status, outage duration and incident priority.e. Contractor must provide a problem escalation procedure as part of the Contract. The escalation procedure must identify who should be contacted, the order the contact should occur, and what additional Contractor resources will be added at each escalation stage of the problem. The Contractor must be willing to provide the names and telephone numbers of all contacts. f. NIAID and the Contractor will agree to a regularly scheduled maintenance window and all scheduled and routine maintenance shall be conducted during that maintenance window. The Contractor must submit all scheduled and routine maintenance requests to NIAID 30 (thirty) days prior to the date of maintenance and testing. The NIAID POC (to be identified prior to contract execution) must approve the request in writing prior to implementation by the Contractor. NIAID will respond to the request in 10 business days and notify the Contractor of approval or disapproval of times and outages, within the maintenance schedule.g. Emergency Maintenancei. The Contractor must notify the NIAID POC immediately if emergency maintenance or testing is going to occur that could potentially disrupt NIAID network traffic.ii. Contractor must maintain a repair log listing the date of the repair occurrence, problem found, action taken to resolve the problem, and the total out-of-service time. Only issues affecting NIAID's service need be logged.2. Technical Requirementsa. The wave service must be capable of 10Gigabits per wave at a minimum, but scalable to 100Gigabits by January 1st, 2012, and configurable as a LAN PHY, WAN PHY, or SONET per wave at NIAID discretion. b. Service handoffs shall be available in 850nm, 1310nm or 1550nm wavelengths per wave as directed by NIAID. c. The contractor will provide optical amplification, regeneration and add/drop sites, and will install and maintain all equipment that performs the service. NIAID facilities will originate the optical signal at both ends. d. The contractor will be responsible for procuring on behalf of NIAID all 10G, and /or 100G optical transponders to light the contractor-provided dark fiber or wave services, and any spares as determined by NIAID. The contractor will be responsible for maintaining these NIAID assets in a mutually agreed upon contractor owned depot maintenance facilities, or facilities. The contractor will highlight the number of transponders necessary to light each dark fiber or wave service within their response.e. The one way latencies of all Segments must be at or below .001 milliseconds per mile.f. Jitter will be required to be equal to or less than 1 picosecond.g. The required availability for each service provided is 99.95 percent, or no more than 4 hours non-availability per year.3. Performance Requirementsa. The required availability for each service provided is 99.9 percent, or no more than 8.76 hours non-availability per year. Request for Information and Market Research: I. Program Information: 1. Identify the expected length of time needed to complete the project. 2. Identify the commercial contract type most appropriate for this task for example firm fixed price, time and materials (T&M), labor hours, hybrid, etc. For contract types other than T&M or labor hours, please provide a recommendation regarding a payment schedule 3. List potential approaches or additional areas of consideration you recommend incorporating in this requirement. 4. Describe the skills, qualifications, and experiences that NIH-NIAID should consider in evaluating proposals for undertaking such a study. The following item (5) will not count against the 5 page limitation for your firm's response to this RFI: 5. Provide any additional information you feel would be helpful for the Government to consider. The following items will not count against the 5 page limitation for your firm's response to this RFI: II. Business and Acquisition Information: 1. Does your firm specialize in commercial telecom services, technologies and infrastructure similar to this project's scope? Briefly explain. 2. Does your firm have fiber optic infrastructure experience? 3. Does your firm have experience providing wave service (capable of supporting a 10G/100G transport network ? 4. Does your firm currently hold a GSA IT Schedule 70 - Innovative Information Technology Products, Services, and Solutions? Also, if you have another schedule that can be utilized for this requirement, please identify it. 5. Is your firm a small business? If so, what socio-economic category is the firm registered as on the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) web site (CCR.gov or https://www.bpn.gov/ccr/)? DISCLAIMER This RFI is for information and planning purposes only and should not be construed as a solicitation or obligation on the part of the Government. The Government does not plan to issue an award on the basis of the responses to this RFI. Responses to this notice are not offers and will not be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The Government will not pay for the preparation of any information submitted or for the Government's use of such information. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Acknowledgement of receipt of responses will not be made, nor will respondents be notified of the Government's evaluation of responses. No basis for claims against the government shall arise as a result of a response to this request for information or the Government's use of such information as either part of our evaluation process or in developing specifications for any subsequent announcement. Any proprietary information should be so marked. HOW TO RESPOND Responses in any of these areas are welcome. Respondents should not feel compelled to address all items. Please limit your response to no more than five (5) pages total (excluding Section I's Program Information - Item 5) and Section II's Business and Acquisition Information.). Responses should be identified with this Notice Identifier "RFI #19065" and are due by 6/16/11 at 2:00PM EST. Please submit your responses to this announcement via email to Shelita Saint-Louis at
[email protected] and to Mario Gray at
[email protected]. The due date for responses to this RFI # 19065 is on or before 6/24 /11 by 2:00 pm EST. Please ensure your e-mail response has "RFI #19065" in the subject line.