MODIFICATION
D -- Post End-of-Life Support for Red Hat 7.2
- Notice Date
- 12/8/2003
- Notice Type
- Modification
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Acquisition and Grants Office, SSMC4 - Room 7601/OFA61 1305 East West Highway, 7th Floor, Silver Spring, MD, 20910
- ZIP Code
- 20910
- Solicitation Number
- DG133W-04-RQ-0014
- Response Due
- 12/12/2003
- Archive Date
- 1/31/2004
- Point of Contact
- Anita Middleton, Contract Specialist, Phone 301-713-0828 x129, Fax 301-713-0806,
- E-Mail Address
-
Anita.R.Middleton@noaa.gov
- Description
- Amendment 0004 is being issued to answer questions submitted on December 08, 2003. The due date for the proposal remains unchanged. (Q1) What often has NOAA asked for patches/drivers in the past? What was the level-of-effort (LOE) required before the solicitation? (A1) The number of patches required in the past is not a useful indicator of how many will be required in the future. New security policies will require that NWS install patches for all reported vulnerabilities, whereas in the past other risk reduction procedures (e.g. firewalls) were deemed acceptable. Most of the required drivers were bundled with the Red Hat 7.2 distribution. Probably about ten drivers have had to be added over the last two years. (Q2) What is the configuration of the Linux machines that will need support (i.e. services, hardware platforms, etc.)? (A2) There are various different platforms, and more may be procured during the life of the contract. All are Intel x86-based and all are 32 bit. In other particulars they vary considerably. One large subclass consists of IBM Xeon-based (Intellistation) graphics workstations with two CPUs, three graphics displays, and two graphics cards (one Matrox, one Nvidia). (Q3) How many servers does are included under this solicitation? (A3) Most of the machines in question are graphics workstations. There are probably a few hundred servers. Please note that the NWS will handle all deployment and installation of patches. The number of machines should not affect the bid. (Q4) Do you plan to upgrade to a more current version of Red Hat during the contract terms? If so will, who do the implementation? And if not, why are you staying with Red Hat 7.2? (A4) NWS future plans on utilizing Linux operating system are undefined at this time. Because of the undefined future requirement, NWS needs to keep the present versions of Red Hat running through the time period stated within this requirement. (Q5) What services is the current version of Red Hat 7.2 running? (A5) That information is not available. Vendors should plan to be able to provide security patches for any services included in the Red Hat 7.2 distribution, or in the other distributions if they are bidding those as well. (Q6) What is the dollar amount of the current support contract? And if there is one, who is the incumbent? (A6) There is no current support contract. Patches have been downloaded as needed from the Red Hat errata site and deployed from NWS servers. (End of Amendment 0004) This posting is being accomplished to add Amendment 0003 and to put all the amendments together in one document. Amendment 0003 is being issued to answer questions submitted on December 04, 2003. Questions (Q) and Answers (A). (Q1) Is the contractor required to monitor relevant Linux news, mailing lists, and other relevant sites to know when a patch must be created, or is the contractor notified by NOAA when a patch is required? (A1) The contractor is not required to monitor mailing lists and other news sources. NOAA will ask for the patches that are required. But the contractor should note that security patches must be provided within five business days of when they are requested, so the contractor may gain valuable lead time by monitoring web sites that announce security vulnerabilities. (Q2) Once the updated RPMs are created, do they become full property of the NOAA? If specific code level changes are required to the supplied patches, per the GPL these must be re-released under the GPL. Does the NOAA have a restriction against this? May the contractor have license to redistribute these RPMs in any capacity? (A2) NOAA places no restrictions on what the contractor may do with any software created under this contract. NOAA gets full use of the software, with no restrictions on use other than those imposed by the GPL or whatever other public license the underlying software may be governed by. The contractor retains the same rights. (Q3) Since service is expected to begin on January 1, 2004, by what date will the decision be made as to which contractor is chosen? (A3) On current schedule, the decision will be announced by December 19, 2003. The Government will not make its first request for a patch until at least two weeks have elapsed after award announcement. (Q4) In regards to Past Performance, would you classify general Linux patching experience as more or less important than general C programming experience? (A4) The Government expects that the major work required by this contract will be taking publicly available source code patches and building and re-packaging them for the specific distribution being patched. So while experience in both C programming and patch preparation are important, patch preparation is more important. We do not expect a significant amount of new C programming will be required for this task. Amendment 0002 is being issued to add the Red Hat versions 7.3 and 9 to the support coverage. Follow the below instructions when submitting. Address these two versions separately as shown below. Provide pricing separately and then pricing for all four versions. (End of Amendment 0002) Amendment 0001 is being issued to provide Questions and Answers, to include version 8.0 as part of the support, and to require separate technical and pricing submissions for three scenarios. Questions (Q) and Answers (A): (Q1) What type of support does the Government require? Is it 24/7 or normal business hours? (A1) The most important element of support is provision of patches. The vendor should place the patches on a server that the Government can access at the Government?s convenience via ftp or sftp. Other requests for support will be rare, and will be during normal business hours. (Q2) Will the support require onsite, offsite, or a combination of both support? (A2) The Government expects that requests for support (other than provision of patches) will be rare. Such requests will usually be handled by telephone, but it is possible that visits to Government integration and test facilities in the Washington Metropolitan Area may be required. (Q3) How many systems will require Red 7.2 patch/driver support? (A3) The Government will handle all patch deployment and other ?per machine? issues, so the number of systems involved should not be relevant. User-level support is handled by currently existing engineering staff. Somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 machines are involved. Up to two NWS programs may be involved, so there will be at most two different machine configurations. (Q4) Will the Government furnish equipment at the contractor?s site for testing of developed patches/drives? (A4) No. Routine testing of patches may be done on commodity Intel x86 hardware with the contractor is expected to own. Testing of hardware-specific patches may require visits to the Government?s integration and test facilities in the Washington Metropolitan Area. (Q5) How does the Government require the deployment of patches/drivers? By onsite, offsite link, or best means method? The Government recommends that the patches be loaded on to the contractor?s ftp or sftp server. Up to three Government IP addresses should be granted access to the server to download patches. Contractor?s server should have a reliable internet connection providing data transfer speed of at least 600 kilobits per second. According to the commercial definition and the performance based acquisition solution, the contractor needs to come up with the best solution that will meet the Government?s needs. The contractor must be able to stand by any solution provided to the Government. (Q6) Will the Government provide the contractor any office/test bench space at the Government location? (A6) If onsite testing or consultation is required, the Government will provide the necessary access and facilities on an ad-hoc basis. (Q7) Does the Government require a Time and Material or a Cost Plus quotation? (A7) The Government is expecting a firm-fixed price quotation. This is a commercial acquisition and commercial acquisition can only be firm-fixed price methodology. If the contractor is asked to provide additional services besides supporting the Red Hat, the contractor will need to provide labor categories and labor rates for that type of work. The Government will provide a line item for a not-to-exceed amount for this particular purpose. (End of Questions and Answers) All additional information will be shown within the solicitation via quotations. (End of Amendment) NOTE: THIS NOTICE WAS NOT POSTED TO FEDBIZOPPS.GOV ON THE DATE INDICATED IN THE NOTICE ITSELF (08-DEC-2003). IT ACTUALLY APPEARED OR REAPPEARED ON THE FEDBIZOPPS SYSTEM ON 09-DEC-2003. PLEASE CONTACT fbo.support@gsa.gov REGARDING THIS ISSUE.
- Place of Performance
- Address: Department of Commerce, NOAA/National Weather Service, 1325 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD
- Zip Code: 20910
- Zip Code: 20910
- Record
- SN00484326-W 20031211/031209212917 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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