SOURCES SOUGHT
70 -- National Institute of Standards and Technology Consolidated User Storage Prohect
- Notice Date
- 3/23/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 334112
— Computer Storage Device Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mountain Administrative Support Center, 325 Broadway - MC3, Boulder, CO, 80305-3328
- ZIP Code
- 80305-3328
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-NB00000000
- Response Due
- 4/11/2005
- Archive Date
- 4/26/2005
- Description
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) is planning to consolidate a subset of the storage systems managed for NIST staff in Boulder, CO and in Gaithersburg, MD. The response to this Request for Information (RFI) is intended to help the OCIO refine the requirements for a proposed acquisition. The purpose of this RFI is to determine (i) if there are sources capable of providing the government?s requirements; (ii) to determine availability of commercial items or, to the extent commercial items are available that: (A) Meet the government?s requirements; (B) Could be modified to meet the government?s requirements; or (C) Could meet the government?s requirements if modified to a reasonable extent. The goal is to implement a common storage solution that will meet the needs of users at both of the NIST campuses located in Gaithersburg, Maryland (~3000 staff) and Boulder, Colorado (~500 staff) as well as consolidating the storage infrastructure that is in place at each of these sites. From the users' perspective, the goals are for a secure, rapid, and highly reliable access to their own data and data that is to be shared with their colleagues from Windows XP, Linux, and Unix platforms. No proposals are being requested or accepted under this synopsis. Feed back addressing the clarity, feasibility, scope, and potential alternative means of meeting the government?s requirement is sought. The anticipated North American Classification System Code (NAICS) for this requirement is 334112 and the small business size standard is 1,000 employees. NIST will consider all comments, supportive or critical, but may or not use these individual comments, and in addition, those interested are requested to provide a budgetary estimate for the requirement specified below. Interested sources are also encouraged to submit product literature in response to the RFI. NIST will not pay for information or comments submitted, and will not recognize any costs associated with the submission of comments. NIST is assessing the existence of sources and is requesting written comments from the industry no later than 3:30 PM, Mountain Standard Time, April 11, 2004. Sources interested in providing comments shall respond in writing to Jacqueline Wright, Contract Specialist, DOC, NIST, MASC, MC3, Acquisition Management Division, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO, 80305. Submittals may be made via email at jacqueline.s.wright@noaa.gov or by facsimile at 303-497-3163. Telephone responses are not acceptable. This is not a Request for Proposals, Invitation for Bid, or a Request for Quotes. At the NIST Boulder campus there are approximately 700 user and group accounts with access to data on a clustered Windows file server. Approximately 3.6TB (Terabytes) of data are stored on this clustered Windows server. An EMC CX300 SAN (Storage Area Network) with 6TB capacity supports this file server cluster. In addition, the Boulder campus also makes use of a Sun Solaris server. There are approximately 25 active Unix and Linux home and project directories on the Solaris server occupying 200GB of data. The Solaris server has a total capacity of 1.6TB on a JBOD (hard disks arranged in a drawer without a RAID controller). At the NIST Gaithersburg campus a Windows cluster with shared SCSI storage supports over 1900 users for home and project directories. Unix and Linux users are supported by a Sun Solaris server with approximately 3.2TB of net direct attached storage, with about 1TB currently used for over 800 home and project directories. A SAN utilizing DataCore SANSymphony software with EMC CX600 hardware is also deployed at the Gaithersburg campus but is not currently employed for general client data storage. The Boulder and Gaithersburg sites are currently linked by 4 multiplexed T1 lines, yielding 6 Mbits/sec bandwidth. Both sites use IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) for primary system and data backups: (i) In Gaithersburg, TSM consists of ~20TB of disk storage, IBM p630 series AIX servers, a 3584 Tape Library [12 Linear Tape Open (LTO) drives], and a Spectralogic T950 Tape Library (6 SAIT drives). Network connectivity is 2Gbit Fibrechannel and 1Gbit Ethernet. (ii) In Boulder, TSM consists of ~2TB disk storage, IBM B80 AIX server, and two 3583 Tape Libraries ( 7 LTO drives). Network connectivity is 1Gbit Fibrechannel and 1Gbit Ethernet. Unless otherwise noted, all technical requirements are equally applicable to both NIST sites. Availability and User Response Times: -Users will have access to the data stored on the system 99.91% of clock time (i.e., unscheduled downtime due to hardware and/or software failures will be no more than 8 hours per year). Explain how levels of redundancy lower or higher than our goal lead to different costs and configurations. -Vendors are encouraged to provide literature of availability in currentinstallations or through published case studies or articles. -For proposed solutions that employ clustering technology, provide the ability for one of the nodes to handle full or partial operations for both node's services while one of the units is being serviced. -For proposed solutions that employ clustering technology, identify physical and/or logical limitations regarding the physical distance between nodes. -Users of the new infrastructure will not suffer any degradation in performance as compared to the existing infrastructure. Recoverability: -Provide both manual and scheduled snapshot capabilities and enable system administrators to have fine-grained control over the scope and frequency of multiple snapshots. Explain software licensing costs pertaining to differing snapshot capabilities; our intention is to maintain 10 snapshots at any point in time. -Provide the ability to replicate data asynchronously across sites at specified intervals, with capability to throttle or control bandwidth, such as limiting replication to a percentage of full link bandwidth. -Provide point-in-time recoveries within the time window of the on-line snapshots. -Provide fibre channel connection between the proposed storage solution and the existing IBM TSM infrastructure. -In the event of a major system or subsystem failure that requires restoration of user data from the tape media managed by TSM, it must be possible to restore a minimum of 1TB of data per 24 hours. Client Access -Provide for user clients to connect via 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet, with the number of network interfaces appropriate to the number of clients at each site. -Provide a unified filesystem that both Windows and Linux/Unix clients can simultaneously access. -Client authentication and access should be compliant with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Active Directory schemas. -Provide filesystem/directory/file access controls that adequately address Common Internet File System (CIFS) and Unix differences and commonalities among groups, read/write/modify/delete controls, and implement file locking methods for concurrent user access. If your solution uses Samba for multi-protocol file access, please identify that fact. -Provide a network file virtualization capability that enables continued access to network-based files by end users even when the location of the network file changes, with no changes required by the end user. Management: -The system should be manageable through a single interface from multiple locations in a secure manner utilizing FIPS-compliant encryption (3DES or AES). -Provide secure and authenticated web or command-based access secure shell (ssh)-compatible). Management user authentication should be based on LDAP or Active Directory structures. -Management of both sites' solutions from one graphical interface sharing one set of user and access controls would be preferable but not required. Separate but equivalent management interfaces is tenable. A system to lock or manage configuration changes should prevent concurrent management users from de-stabilizing the management software. -Provide for automatic expiration of passwords for access control and comply with the Commerce Department's password policies (see http://www.osec.doc.gov/cio/itmhweb/policy%20on%20password%20management.htm). -Provide the ability to set both soft (warning) and hard (absolute)storage quotas on a user's home or a group's project directories. -Provide the ability to create notifications when the soft quota is reached. -Provide the ability to create reports of storage usage by directory. -Provide the ability to both grow and shrink the size of filesystems while they are in use. -Provide the ability to upgrade and patch the operating system while the system is fully operational. Provide the ability to upgrade/patch firmware or ROM (commonly necessary for hardware components such as network interfaces, disk drives, and chassis) while the system is fully operational. -Provide the ability to insert and remove ("hot-swap") disk drives,drive controllers, and power supplies from the chassis while the system is fully operational. -Provide system management software features that include: configuration management controls, change history, configurable system logs, ability to roll back changes, multiple binary system images. Capacity: -For the Boulder site: Provide for 3TB of net user storage (without snapshots) with the capability to expand to a capacity of 32TB of net user storage. -For the Gaithersburg site: Provide for 3TB of net user storage (without snapshots)with the capability to expand to a capacity of 32TB of net user storage. Redundancy: -Provide the capability to replicate the net user storage directly within the system (snapshot capability). -Provide a configuration such that the loss of one entire disk drive in an array will have no effect on the integrity or availability of the data on the array to which the failed drive belongs. Hierarchical Storage Management: -A majority of current user data is static over a period of months. Provide a configuration that allows us to mix Serial ATA (or equivalent-cost disk storage) with faster fibre channel technology disk storage (or equivalent). -Provide features that will allow us to manually move data from faster/expensive storage to slower/inexpensive storage as well as to perform this function automatically according to criteria we specify. Migration: -A fundamental goal shared by both those who provide storage services and those who use those services is that migration from the current infrastructure to a new infrastructure shall require less than 48 hours of downtime (zero downtime would be optimal). -Data integrity will be maintained during and after migration, including access control structures of directories and files. -Users' existing CIFS and NFS shares will be seamlessly migrated to the new system, retaining CIFS sharenames. RFI Response: -Identify which technical requirements above you can meet (and how you meet them) as well as those you cannot. -Provide a rough quotation of a proposed solution to allow us to determine whether the scale of the solution is within general limits of our project budget. -Enumerate details of which network technologies are supported by the NAS head (Gbit Ethernet, switched FC or FC-AL) and what kind of disk storage is supported behind the same NAS head (FC, SATA, iSCSI). Will the solution support the next generation of Ethernet, at 10Gbps, and FibreChannel, at 4 or 8Gbps, and if so, what is the process for that upgrade? -What kind of CPUs and I/O backplanes does your solution use? How many CPUs are supported in one NAS head? -Provide a rough quotation of the cost to expand the proposed solution. Beyond adding or replacing disks, what additional costs are associated with increasing disk storage, in increments, up to the solution's storage limit, i.e. licensing, firmware, controllers, disk enclosures? -Include an estimate of the yearly cost of software and hardware maintenance, with 24x7, 4-hour response time, on-site and phone support, as well as the initial service or warranty period included with the initial purchase of the system. -Provide a detailed description of the method for dealing with the interoperability of NFS and NTFS enumerated access control lists(ACLs). Describe what limitations Windows clients have in using files that have NFS ACLs, and limitations Solaris/Linux clients have using files that have NTFS ACLs. -Include an architectural diagram of the solution proposed by your company so we may note the relationship of the system components to our existing network infrastructure. -Identify whether there will there be any loss to metadata such as timestamps and permissions during the migration to the new system? Describe the migration method in detail. -Explain how the proposed system can use the backup and restore capabilities of IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager, whether by direct client-based backup or whether via an intermediate host. Alternatively, what backup system is recommended or has been tested with this solution? -Explain whether the proposed solution has been tested in conjunction with Legato or Veritas backup software solutions. Does the solution support NDMP(Network Data Mgt. Protocol)-based backups? Capacity questions: -What is the maximum useable capacity, in Terabytes, of the solution. What is the largest filesystem that can be created? On the fly, can filesystems and LUNs be expanded or contracted, and disk storage be added? -Replication questions: Does the solution support block-based data replication as well as file-based replication; disk-to-disk replication based on configurable policies (ie. size of file, file last accessed, etc.)? -RAID questions: Is RAID done in software or hardware? What types of RAID are supported? -Snapshot questions: Does the solution support block-based incremental snapshots? Is there a maximum number of snapshots the solution can take? Is there a performance degradation while a snapshot is performed? Can snapshots be accessed directly by the end user? -Include in the proposed rough cost what is necessary for your company's technical representatives to do pre-installation planning, full physical and software installation and configuration in concert with NIST team members, and training for approximately 12 NIST staff in the operation of the system. -Supply an idea of the continuous and/or peak data throughput rate in Megabytes/sec or peak user transactions/sec as a gauge to estimate how the proposed solution may be able to handle the traffic during typical peak times during the work day from, for instance, many users logging in at the beginning of the work day. -If it is possible, please detail how the proposed solution can manage or virtualize the existing EMC CX300 and CX600 SAN. infrastructure, or any other Fibre Channel-based or SCSI storage units that may be included in a storage pool. -Explain the hardware upgrade path of the proposed solution. -NIST requests a reference from one of your customers who has an equivalent system, and who will allow us to contact them for questions.
- Place of Performance
- Address: National Instiute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO
- Zip Code: 80305
- Country: USA
- Zip Code: 80305
- Record
- SN00774547-W 20050325/050323213003 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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