Trusted Internet Connection (TIC)

This announcement constitutes a Sources Sought (market survey). This is not a Request for Quote (RFQ) or a Request for Proposal (RFP). This announcement is for information and planning purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, implied or otherwise, to issue a solicitation or award a contract. Purpose of Sources Sought: The National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Library of Medicine (NLM), Center for Information Technology (CIT) is requesting information from all qualified vendors to determine whether capability and interest exists for establishing a contract for a Trusted Internet Connection (TIC). This Sources Sought is intended to inform the NIH on the current status of industry sources that can provide a Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) Platform. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. The Contractor will be required to perform the following tasks: 1. Provide two (2) circuits for connectivity to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at Culpeper, VA. Must have diverse paths from each other, diverse routing administration, and physical separation. Dedicated Gig-Ethernet Wave (1000Mb, Unprotected). Circuit Locations: o 1000Mb Wave 1, 9000 Rockville Pike Bldg 12 Bethesda, MD 20894 (GFP secured cage) to 18155 Technology Dr Culpeper, VA 22701 o 1000Mb Wave 1, 44480 Hastings Dr Ashburn, VA 20147 (GFP secured cage) to 18155 Technology Dr Culpeper, VA 22701 2. Provide three (3) WAN circuits to interconnect three (3) HHS TIC locations. This "WAN A", consisting of three (3) circuits [Bethesda to Atlanta, Bethesda to Albuquerque, and Atlanta to Albuquerque] will serve as the backbone transport for HHS TIC on-net traffic. HHSWAN Site Locations - "WAN A": a) Indian Health Service (IHS) 1011 Indian School Rd NW Albuquerque, NM 87104 b) Center for Disease Control (CDC) 1600 Clifton Rd NE, Building 21 Atlanta, GA 30329 c) National Institutes of Health (NIH) 9000 Rockville Pike, B12 Data Center Bethesda, MD 20817 Listed below are the specific physical, operational, and technical ISP/HHS Internet Wide Area Network Connectivity requirements for each of the three HHS TIC Internet connection sites: 1. Each designated HHS Internet site location requires a base 10Gbps bandwidth connection into the vendor network service. 2. Service to be set up as point to multi-point. 3. The proposed vendor solution must support a minimum 99.99% per circuit availability metric. 4. The proposed vendor solution must support telecommunications service priority (TSP) to ensure rapid service restoration. 5. The proposed vendor solution average packet transit time through the vendor network is not to exceed 70ms end-to-end. 6. HHS intent is to manage traffic in and out of vendor cloud. Therefore, the proposed vendor solution must support packet traffic tagging. 7. Service must not impede IPv4 and IPv6 traffic through the vendor network. 8. Optical transport technology must be used between HHS TIC sites. 9. Vendor service turn up expediency will be considered as a weighted value. 10. Solutions for WAN A and WAN B must have end-to-end diverse paths that do not use the same inter-site solution. This solution must have diverse routing administration and maintain physical separation. 11. This solution must ensure the failure of WAN B does not affect the operation of WAN A, and vice versa. 3. Provide two (2) 10g ISP connections for Atlanta Internet Connectivity (A and B) Site Location: Center for Disease Control (CDC) 1600 Clifton Rd NE, Building 21 Atlanta, GA 30329 Specific physical, operational, and technical ISP/HHS Internet Connection Requirements at Atlanta, GA: 1. Each designated HHS Internet site location requires a minimum 10Gbps connection to the commodity Internet. 2. The ISP service shall support a minimum 99.99% per circuit availability metric. 3. The ISP service average packet transit time through the ISP network is not to exceed 70ms end-to-end. 4. The ISP service must support telecommunications service priority (TSP) to ensure rapid service restoration. 5. The ISP service must support blocking of malicious Denial of Service (DOS) attacks. 6. The designated HHS Internet site location requires a dedicated, entrance path connection to the ISP vendor Internet points-of-presence (PoP). 7. The ISP service shall support Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) dynamic routing between each ISP vendor PoP and designated HHS Internet site location. 8. The ISP service shall support AS-Path filtering, prefix-lists, Multi-Exit Discriminators (MEDs), and community strings to control and customize individual customer BGP requirements. 9. The ISP service shall support Federal Government assigned and InterNIC registered IPv4 and IPv6 network addresses, autonomous system numbers (ASN), and domain names. 10. The ISP service IP network must extend internationally, using peering agreements with major (Tier 1) global Internet providers. 11. The service must support BGP for IPv4 and native IPv6 networks. 12. The ISP service shall announce the full Internet routing table to each site plus a default originate route. 13. The ISP service turn up expediency will be considered as a weighted value. 14. Diverse paths end-to-end, diverse routing administration, and physical separation are mandatory. 15. The service provider 10G WAN service P/Label Switch Routers must maintain geographic diversity by not utilizing the same physical address at ingress or egress to the service provider WAN network. 4. Provide two (2) 20g Connections for Internet Connectivity (A and B) ISP's at the DC Bi-located (Bethesda, MD and Ashburn, VA) Internet HUB. Site Locations: o National Institutes of Health (NIH) 9000 Rockville Pike, B12 Data Center Bethesda, MD 20817 o Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ACC4 Datacenter, 44480 Hastings Drive Ashburn, VA 20147 Specific physical, operational, and technical ISP/HHS Internet Connection Requirements and Bethesda, MD and Ashburn, VA. 1. Each designated HHS Internet site location requires a minimum 20Gbps connection to the commodity Internet. 2. The ISP service will must support a minimum 99.99% per circuit availability metric. 3. The ISP service average packet transit time through the ISP network is not to exceed 70ms end-to-end. 4. The ISP service must support telecommunications service priority (TSP) to ensure rapid service restoration. 5. The ISP service must support blocking of malicious Denial of Service (DOS) attacks. 6. The designated HHS Internet site location requires a dedicated, entrance path connection to the ISP vendor Internet points-of-presence (PoP). 7. The ISP service shall support Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) dynamic routing between each ISP vendor PoP and designated HHS Internet site location. 8. The ISP service stichall support AS-Path filtering, prefix-lists, Multi-Exit Discriminators (MEDs), and community strings to control and customize individual customer BGP requirements. 9. The ISP service shall support Federal Government assigned and InterNIC registered IPv4 and IPv6 network addresses, autonomous system numbers (ASN), and domain names 10. The ISP service IP network must extend internationally, using peering agreements with major (Tier 1) global Internet providers. 11. The ISP service must support BGP for IPv4 and native IPv6 networks. 12. The ISP service shall announce the full Internet routing table to each site plus a default originate route. 13. The ISP service turn up expediency will be considered as a weighted value. 14. Diverse paths, diverse routing administration, and physical separation are mandatory. 15. The service provider 10G WAN service P/Label Switch Routers must maintain geographic diversity by not utilizing the same physical address at ingress or egress to the service provider WAN network. 5. Provide three (3) 10g WAN circuits to interconnect three (3) HHS TIC locations. This "WAN B," consisting of three (3) circuits [Ashburn to Atlanta, Ashburn to Albuquerque, and Atlanta to Albuquerque] will serve as the backbone transport for HHS TIC on-net traffic. HHSWAN Site Locations - "WAN B" a) Indian Health Service (IHS) 1011 Indian School Rd NW Albuquerque, NM 87104 b) Center for Disease Control (CDC) 1600 Clifton Rd NE, Building 21 Atlanta, GA 30329 c) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 44480 Hastings Drive Ashburn, VA 20147 Specific physical, operational, and technical ISP/ HHS Internet Wide Area Network Connectivity requirements for each of the three HHS TIC Internet connection sites. 1. Each designated HHS Internet site location requires a base 10Gbps bandwidth connection into the vendor network service. 2. Service to be set up as point to multi-point. 3. The proposed vendor solution must support a minimum 99.99% per circuit availability metric. 4. The proposed vendor solution must support telecommunications service priority (TSP) to ensure rapid service restoration. 5. The proposed vendor solution average packet transit time through the vendor network is not to exceed 70ms end-to-end. 6. HHS intent is to manage traffic in and out of vendor cloud. Therefore, the proposed vendor solution must support packet traffic tagging. 7. Service must not impede IPv4 and IPv6 traffic through the vendor network. 8. Optical transport technology must be used between HHS TIC sites. 9. Vendor service turn up expediency will be considered as a weighted value. 10. Solutions for WAN A and WAN B must have end-to-end diverse paths that do not use the same inter-site solution. This solution must have diverse routing administration and maintain physical separation. 11. This solution must ensure the failure of WAN A does not affect the operation of WAN B, and vice versa. 6. Provide one (1) 1000Mb circuit for connectivity between Atlanta, GA and Albuquerque, NM. Dedicated Gig-Ethernet Wave (1000Mb, Unprotected). Circuit Location: a) 1000Mb Wave 1, SOC TIC Office, Rm 350 Telco, 6 Executive Park Dr. NE, Atlanta, GA 30329 to Indian Health Service (IHS) 1011 Indian School Rd NW Albuquerque, NM 87104. 7. Provide Distributed Denial of Service Mitigation service for the HHS Washington D.C. region TIC POP Internet circuits at Bethesda, MD and Ashburn, VA. ISP will provide service instructions and 24x7 access to their SOC (Security Operations Center) for management and coordination of traffic offload to scrubbing centers. o ISP will provide DDoS Clean Traffic Return Path, Flow Based Monitoring, Additional Protected Subnets, and Clean Banwidth. DDoS Service Location: o Configure sub-interface and applicable settings on the 20-Gig ISP circuit at 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892 o Configure sub-interface and applicable settings on the 20-Gig ISP circuit at 44480 Hastings Drive, Ashburn, VA 20147 8. Provide two (2) circuits for connectivity to NIEHS at Research Triangle Park, NC. Must have diverse paths from each other, diverse routing administration, and physical separation. Dedicated 10Gig-Ethernet Wave (10000Mb, Unprotected). Circuit Location: a) 10000Mb Wave 1, 9000 Rockville Pike Bldg 10 Bethesda, MD 20894 to 111 TW Alexander Dr Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Bldg 104 Data Center b) 10000Mb Wave 1, 9000 Rockville Pike Bldg 12 Bethesda, MD 20894 to 111 TW Alexander Dr Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Bldg 101 Module F Capability Statement - Submission Requirements: Please provide the following in your response: 1) Name of company with address, point of contact, phone, email, and website address, if applicable. 2) DUNS number 3) Contract vehicle information if you believe the NLM can use a GWAC or GSA Schedule to obtain these services. 4) The Government believes the most appropriate NAICS code for this requirement is 517312, Wireless Telecommunication Carriers. Do you believe this is the most appropriate? If not, please suggest an alternative NAICS code. 5) Size of business and socioeconomic status (i.e., small, small disadvantaged business, woman owned, etc.) 6) Statement of capability demonstrating your firm's ability to meet the requirement stated above. No more than 3 pages. Responses should be sent via email to LaDonna Stewart, Contract Specialist at Email: [email protected]. Your response is due by: 12:00 pm ET, November 1, 2019 **Responses shall be in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat format. The email should include the following subject heading, "NLMTIC - Sources Sought."** Disclaimers and Important Notes: • The information provided is for market research purposes pursuant to FAR Part 10 Market Research. Information provided will be used at the government's discretion to finalize the acquisition strategy in fulfilling the need through an upcoming solicitation. • This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to provide the product or perform the services specified herein. • Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a combined synopsis/solicitation, GSA Ebuy, NITAAC, or SEWP order may be published. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).