Synopsis: The Army Contracting Command - Orlando (ACC-O), on behalf of the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI),) is releasing this Notice of Intent (NOI) to inform interested parties about the Government's intention to negotiate an assisted acquisition with the Department of Energy (DOE), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), for Scientific and Technical Support (STS)services. This notice is being published by ACC-O in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 5.201. NAICS Code: 541712; Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology). Small Business Size Standard: 500 employees. Background: PM CATT is responsible for the research, development, acquisition, fielding and life-cycle support of the virtual synthetic environment, gaming environment, and associated Training Aids, Devices, Simulators and Simulations (TADSS) to support individual, institutional and collective training, as well as mission rehersal. Research under this requirement for Scientific and Technical Support (STS) services requires the following analyses (see attachment), on a Time and Material (T&M) type of contract basis. Acquisition Approach: PM CATT determined the best procurement approach for meeting the twelve (12) each Scientific and Technical Support (STS) tasks identified in the requirement is through an Assisted Acquisition and proposes to issue Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests (MIPRs) to the Department of Energy (DOE), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Scientific and Technical Support services will be provided under the DOE Work for Others (WFO) program in accordance with the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between Department of Defense (DoD) and DOE governing DoD funded work performed at the DoE laboratories and facilities. The PM CATT STS tasks may be selected randomly and will be funded using MIPRs. Each Task Order awarded by DOE may contain one or more of the STS tasks identified in the PM CATT requirement. DOE will award Task Orders and execute each task upon receipt of funding via each MIPR. However, award of each Task Order is subject to the availability of funds and PM CATT is under no obligation to fund any of the remaining STS tasks after award of an initial Task Order. The proposed MIPRs shall be issued pursuant with the Economy Act [Title 31, United States Code, Section 1535 (2003)], as implemented by: Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 17.5 entitled Interagency Acquisitions; Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) Subpart 217.5 entitled Interagency Acquisitions; DFARS 217.78, Contracts or Delivery Orders Issued by a Non-DoD Agency; and, Army Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (AFARS) 5117.7802, Policy - Contracts or Delivery Orders Issued by a Non-DoD Agency. The Government anticipates that PM CATT STS requirements will be fulfilled by the award of Time and Material (T&M) Task Orders in accordance with FAR Part 16. The period of performance for PM CATT STS shall not exceed 36 months after the award date of the first Task Order awarded by DOE. Market Research: The DOE ORNL has assembled a team that is able to achieve unique, highly interdisciplinary goals that meet PM CATT STS requirements that no other laboratory is able to conduct. The ORNL team is capable and accomplished for applying cutting edge developments in serious gaming for training, high performance computing evaluation, cyber network simulation with respect to cyber security, cyber threats, and the impact of cloud computing to operations. ORNL's team has developed a unique expertise over the last five years and is able to address the challenges with virtualization with respect to the best way to implement training in the cloud and distribute training virtually that most government agencies are now only addressing and the private sector has yet to address. ORNL staff members have specific R&D skills, expertise and existing tools and facilities that are directly applicable to the problem of human cognition modeling with respect to addressing psychological aspects of behavior, stress, etc. These collective skill sets enable the ORNL team to evaluate advances in gaming technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI), act as independent quote mark Third Party evaluators quote mark . Further, ORNL has been team members for existing technology insertion and engineering design studies, new technology development and engineering design studies, and participates in technical discussions and meetings regarding emerging technologies with PM CATT. ORNL has available highly specialized, and often unique, scientific, and information technology capabilities, including but not limited augmented mixed reality computing and cyber related posturing in both physical and virtual environments to meet the short suspense of the tasks required by PM CATT. The Computational Sciences and Engineering Division (CSED) at ORNL includes within its core competencies applications of algorithmic solutions to massive data sets ( quote mark Big Data quote mark ) such as that being proposed here for processing socio-cultural data within the subject domain of serious gaming. Members of the Division hold several patents in the foundational technologies in this discipline as well as receiving Research and Development 100 (R&D100) magazine awards for their research in processing large text corpora, further recognizing their world-class international reputation in this area. ORNL will use DOE funded intellectual property and exclusive technical expertise in addressing the advancements of virtual synthetic environment, gaming environment, and associated TADSS to support individual, institutional and collective training, as well as mission rehearsal. ORNL has a unique combination of multi-disciplinary capabilities, facilities and experience that allow a comprehensive approach to development of these systems. This includes world-class expertise in computational sciences and engineering that are relevant to PM CATT that is not available elsewhere, which include: - The ORNL team currently has staff members who understand the technical intricacies of the military gaming and simulation systems and have in the past owned gaming companies that addressed common Application Program Interface (API) for disparate game engines and software infrastructures to promote agnostic game technologies. - The ORNL team is currently engaged in a DOE funded project that are addressing Modeling and Simulation as a Service (MSaaS) which seeks to provide users with simulation resources using the Application as a Service (AaaS) model. - The ORNL team expertise will allow these MSaaS to provide: Delivered Simulation Services to remote users, On-Demand, Via Remote Network Connection or as local embedded capability; Brings Simulation Services to Home Stations; Removes the Complexity of Running Simulation Systems; and Web Based Delivery. - The ORNL team also is currently engaged in a WFO funded project that is addressing the mechanism for the delivery of MSaaS within a Cloud Simulation Infrastructure (CSI), which will facilitate the use of Cloud Based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). - The ORNL team has ORNL registered intellectual property and ORNL patent pending techniques that will be used to evaluate the PM CATT computing architecture with respect to network simulation to identify cyber security issues and mitigate associated cyber threats. - The ORNL team will use ORNL registered intellectual property and ORNL patent pending techniques to evaluate and test the impact of cloud computing to PM CATT current computing architectures with respect to: On-demand self-service; broad network access; resource pooling; rapid elasticity; and measured services. - The ORNL team will use ORNL registered intellectual property and ORNL patent pending techniques to evaluate and test the challenges with virtualization with respect to the best way to implement training in the cloud and distribute training virtually. - The ORNL team will use ORNL registered intellectual property and ORNL patent pending techniques to evaluate and test the impact of cloud computing to PM CATT current computing architectures with respect to: virtualization versus cloud based computing; will use ORNL established techniques in addressing performance issues, in particular I/O overhead issues. - ORNL possesses and has modified and enhanced Human Cognition Modeling (HCM) algorithms that are being developed to address artificial intelligence predictive behavior. ORNL has developed HCM algorithms dealing with scripted socio-cultural mob and village artificial intelligence. - The ORNL team possesses Gaming Computational Intelligence (GCI) developed algorithms excerpted from and used in the virtual mission rehearsal-ready environment from DOE sponsored activities. - The ORNL team consists of subject matter experts (SME) and these SMEs have acted as advisors to analyze data, analyze requirements, and review technical responses with previous DOE and WFO sponsors, as well as conducting technology assessments, trade studies, and related hardware and software system tests and evaluations. The ORNL team SMEs have participated on Source Selection Evaluation Boards (SSEBs) and Integrated Project Teams (IPTs). Oak Ridge National Laboratory possesses unique cyber security capabilities and technologies that are unmatched in the commercial and other government sectors. Through its Cyber Research and Modeling and Simulation Groups within the CSED, outstanding cyber security areas of excellence are maintained as follows. These areas of excellence are directly applicable for the proposed effort to PEO-STRI in that they identify the competitive nature of ORNL, its relationship with the commercial cyber-security and government sectors, and ORNL's unique skills in the technical area. Hyperion - A patent-pending software capability that can analyze an executable program and determine its behavior without using its source code or even running the program. By doing so, Hyperion can identify and isolate harmful intent resulting in a generalized zero-day malware detector. In January 2015, Hyperion was licensed to a cyber-security commercial firm. Continued research with Hyperion is being used at ORNL to further mitigate sophisticated malware masking and packing capabilities. FUSEnet Counter-Exfiltration Data Diode (CE-DD) - A cloud-based, cyber-security counter-exfiltration software gateway capability. CE-DD operates similar to a one-way hardware-based data diode, which permits data transfers only one way from the outside to inside, and further allows normal online business operations such as virtual, remote desktop. CE-DD prevents critical data from being copied and stolen from an insider threat, malware or a hacker. In the event of an attempt to breach, CE-DD performs at 100% effectiveness and provides alerts and detailed system log of the activity for digital forensics. CE-DD is in the process of being licensed by a commercial company that intends to use it to protect financial data, PCI networks (credit cards), and personally identifiable information (PII). CE-DD currently is used in the FUSEnet secured enclaves to ensure the protection of commercially licensed data from patent and technical digital publishers such as Thomson Reuters. Annual Cyber and Information Security Research (CISR) Conference - With the leadership of the ORNL CSED, ORNL started and has been hosting the CISR conference now in its 10th year will the technical papers published by the ACM. Each year the conference assumes a pressing cyber-security theme with the most recent objectives to present, discuss and publish novel theoretical and empirical research focused on one or more of the Federal Cybersecurity focuses. Cyberspace is fundamental to our national prosperity and security, as it has become critical to commerce, research, education, and government. Realizing the benefits of this shared environment requires that we are able to properly balance the risks and rewards, understand and communicate threats to security and privacy, and rapidly adapt any resulting approach to a changing adversarial environment. The scope of interest for the conference covers a wide range of topics related to cyber and information security research. In 2014, the conference included presentations and demonstrations of technologies from the DOE Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems (CEDS), the DOE Cyber Sciences Labs (CSL), and the DHS Transition To Practice (TTP) Program. World Class Computing - Through its Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), ORNL operates the computing and data center for America's faster computer, Titan, and other top high-performance computers. The OLCF offers the world's most advanced computational researchers an opportunity to tackle complex computational problems that would be unthinkable on other systems. The facility welcomes investigators from universities, government agencies, and industry who are prepared to perform breakthrough research in climate, materials, alternative energy sources and energy storage, chemistry, nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and the gamut of scientific inquiry. Because it is a unique resource, the OLCF focuses on the most ambitious research projects-projects that provide important new knowledge or enable important new technologies. World Class Computational Sciences Team - Through the CSED, ORNL maintains a highly qualified staff with a diverse set of cutting-edge and expert research and solutions for computer science and engineering. For example, the Modeling and Simulation Group is pioneering gaming in virtualized environments. CSED is taking on the challenges of mitigating the latest advances in malware and stopping data breaches. This expertise expands to the following relevant areas for the proposed subject matter: - Augmented mixed-reality computing, simulation, serious games, and gaming technology expertise; - Information technology and cyber security expertise in enterprise systems and control of physical systems. This includes distributing and deploying software updates; enforcing usage policies; patch management in response to IAVA events; malware detection and response; centralized log monitoring; zero-day threat detection; and counter-exfiltration solutions; - Deployment, management, and cyber security for virtual environments including large-scale cloud computing, cloud deployments, virtual machine operations, and commercial clouds (e.g. Amazon); - Algorithmic solutions to massive data sets (big data) for geographical and socio-cultural components; - High performance computing environments for storing, transferring, and processing massive data sets; - Hosting, managing, and securing data for IC sponsors and commercial firms including the storage for over 200 million commercial quality, published articles and patents. Estimated Dollar Value: $5,000,000.00 Responses Requested: It is the Government's belief that only the Department of Energy can complete the work and provide the deliverables under this requirement. However, interested firms or individuals may identify their interest and capability to meet PM CATT STS requirements by submitting in writing their name and information to the identified point of contact within 7 days after publication of this synopsis. Such documentation will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to conduct a competitive procurement, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the government. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. Questions concerning the requirement must be e-mailed to Colleen Mathews at
[email protected]. Submission Instructions: Interested parties are requested to respond to this notice in Microsoft Office 2007 (Word, Excel, Power Point) as the preferred format. Responses may contain a mixture of text, numerical data, figures or graphics. CD-ROM submissions are requested in lieu of printed materials. Submissions are to be divided into two distinct sections, Section 1 and Section 2, to meet the following criteria: Section 1 of the submission shall provide the following administrative information: Name, mailing address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail of designated point of contact; Commercial Activity/Government Entity (CAGE) code Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number designating the primary business unit participating in the response; and Business type and size as defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration (see: http://www.sba.gov/content/small-business-sizeregulations), based upon North American Industry Classification System codes (NAICS, 2012). Section 2 of the submission shall be limited to 2 pages and shall address the respondent's capabilities to meet Government requirements. Management of Information: Submissions that voluntarily contain proprietary information will be managed in accord with FAR 9.505-4, quote mark Obtaining access to proprietary information quote mark . Any proprietary information submitted in response to this notice must be clearly identified via a general declaration on the cover page and on any subsequent page where proprietary information occurs. Submissions shall not contain any classified information. Please be advised that submissions will not be returned. Submission of Responses: Responses to this electronic notice must be submitted by 11:00 a.m. Eastern on 11 May 2015. Responses may be submitted by mail to: U.S. Army Contracting Command-Orlando, Attn Mr. Robert Baird, Partnership III - 3L1, 12350 Research Parkway Orlando, Florida 32826-3276; or, e-mail to
[email protected]. Notice: This notice of intent to negotiate with the Department of Energy under an Interagency Agreement and the Economy Act is being provided to verify that no other sources will satisfy agency requirements. A determination by the Government not to compete this effort based on any responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government IAW FAR Part 17. Disclaimer: The Government will not be responsible for any costs incurred by interested parties in responding to this notice. This NOI represents the only official notice. This notice is not a request for competitive proposals and no solicitation package is available. This NOI shall remain posted through Tuesday, May 11, 2015.