SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- LARC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED SERVICES - LITES
- Notice Date
- 4/2/2009
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541513
— Computer Facilities Management Services
- Contracting Office
- NASA/Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 144, Industry Assistance Office, Hampton,VA 23681-0001
- ZIP Code
- 23681-0001
- Solicitation Number
- SS-LITES-409
- Response Due
- 4/17/2009
- Archive Date
- 4/2/2010
- Point of Contact
- Robert J Rice, Contract Specialist, Phone 757-864-2267, Fax 757-864-7709, - Rosemary C. Froehlich, Contracting Officer, Phone 757-864-2423, Fax 757-864-8541, />
- E-Mail Address
-
Robert.J.Rice@nasa.gov, Rosemary.C.Froehlich@nasa.gov<br
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is hereby soliciting information in regard topotential sources for a follow-on procurement to the Consolidated Information TechnologyServices (CONITS) Task Order (Number L-70750D) under the General ServicesAdministrations (GSA) Millennia Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC),GS-00T-99-ALD-0209, GSA Task Order Number T03-01-DS-L003. The Langley Research Center(LaRC) Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) contract will be the follow-oneffort to the current CONITS task order. No solicitation exists; therefore, do notrequest a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsizedin FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Services. It is the potentialofferors responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation orsynopsis. One of the primary goals of this synopsis is to assist NASA Langley in determiningwhether a Small Business Set-aside is an acceptable strategy for this procurement. If afull and open competition is ultimately pursued, responses to this synopsis will be usedto aid in establishing small business subcontracting goals. As no decision on aset-aside has yet been made, all qualified firms are encouraged to respond. The NorthAmerican Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code for this procurement is 541513 andthe size standard under this code is average annual receipts of $25 Million.The LITES contract will provide computing support services for complex informationtechnology (IT) systems that are uniquely configured or highly specialized in functionand include state-of-the-art IT. Systems supported include unique and high-end systemsused by Mission and Mission-support staff at LaRC. LITES will provide a wide range ofsupport functions including those for non-standard operating systems, for systeminterfaces, or for use within a dynamic environment such as a research laboratory or testfacility. LITES will provide integrated support that encompasses all activities(including system administration and hardware and software maintenance) necessary todevelop, deploy, upgrade, operate, and maintain a system that delivers an IT capabilityfor research and development (R&D) use and business applications.LITES will also provide IT services incorporating new and emerging technologies that willevolve over the life of the contract. The scope of support to be provided under LITES isintended to cover all requirements for "Information Technology" including computers,ancillary equipment, software, firmware, services, and related resources. Softwaredevelopment, operations, and maintenance under LITES apply to software at several levelsof risk and control from minimal to critical (as it relates to impact to the Government).No later than nine (9) months after the contract effective date, the successful offerorsquality system will be required to be Certified/Registered to the current ANSI/ISO/ASQCISO 9001 standard, Quality Management Systems Requirements. In addition, no later thannine (9) months after the contract effective date, the successful offer (includingteaming partners/subcontractors) that will be performing software engineering will berequired to be CMMI for Development Capability Level 2 or higher as measured by aSoftware Engineering Institute (SEI) authorized lead appraiser from an externalorganization in the following Process Areas:(1)Requirements Management(2)Configuration Management(3)Process and Product Quality Assurance(4)Measurement and Analysis(5)Project Planning(6)Project Monitoring and Control(7)Supplier Agreement ManagementThe IT systems supported under LITES are used in R&D computing and advanced engineeringsupport and business applications. The environment for the R&D activities is by naturevery fluid and evolutionary; often an unexpected result will focus the researchersattention in an entirely new direction. In order to maximize the ability to change coursequickly, the IT systems used by the researcher are subject to change and realignment. Tosupport these systems, LITES will require flexible staffing with high-level skills thatare continually reviewed with an eye toward emerging, cutting-edge technologies.Software development and maintenance under LITES will provide applications needed tosupport R&D and advanced engineering activities that are usually not well defined at theoutset. The applications tend to be evolutionary, gaining more focus on the goal as thecode is fine-tuned to the researchers requirements. It will be critical that theapplication administrator is well educated in the mission requirements as related to thespecific application. The process will rely on a high level of understanding of how theapplication functions within the system architecture and the potential impacts to ITsecurity once the application is brought online. The skills inherent in this type ofsupport are highly specialized and success will rely on a diverse mixture of severalskill sets. To illustrate the LITES environment, here are some specific examples of anticipatedrequirements:IT Security: This task provides LaRC with an incident response and computer forensicscapability; intrusion detection and monitoring capability; remote access compliance;support of IT system security plans; coordination of IT security activities with otherCenters; perimeter protection (including a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and firewall);and outreach. Key aspects of the task are the unknown day-to-day intrusions and threatsand the countermeasures needed to safeguard the Centers network. The task requires avariety of continuously evolving skills to address the dynamic nature of systemvulnerabilities. Specific projects arise on an ad hoc basis and must be addressed quicklyand skillfully.Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab Computer Administration: The lab computer systemconsists of a heterogeneous network of Linux and Unix servers, Linux and Unixworkstations, and high-end computer clusters that require system administration, systemtuning, and maintenance of network security and resource availability for NASA personnel,contractors, and grantees within and outside the LaRC network domain. Nodes supportedunder this task continue to grow dramatically; currently we have reached a total of 27physically distinct clusters and 52 sub-clusters consisting of 8,017 processing coressupported by LITES. As with any cutting edge technology, bugs will continue to bediscovered and corrected through extensive communication with the hardware vendorengineering and technical support staff. Advanced Engineering Environment Lab Operations: These tasks will provide support in theareas of data visualization, geometry modeling, and knowledge management. The GeometryLaboratory (GEOLAB) serves as a Center resource to the LaRC research community in dealingwith geometry and grid generation issues. The GEOLAB is an open shop facility with anon-site technical staff available to collaborate with researchers or to take on geometryrelated tasks. The geometry modeling and grid generation support provided includes theproduction of accurate geometry definitions and numerical grids for Computational FluidDynamics (CFD), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), and other engineering analyses.The GEOLAB typically supports 30 to 60 production and consultation tasks a year, with asmany as 100 geometry models, geometry comparisons, and structured and unstructured gridsdelivered as products. The majority of these tasks are production tasks of short durationand are accomplished within 2 to 6 weeks. The GEOLAB also develops software to facilitategeometry modeling and grid generation. The Data Visualization and Analysis Lab (DVAL) isa central, open shop resource available to meet the data analysis and scientificvisualization needs of the LaRC research community. The capabilities within the DVALinclude development of immersive, collaborative virtual environments; flow featureextraction techniques; visualization systems for generating computer visualizations, bothstills and animations; methods for visual comparisons of experimental and computationaldatasets; and image/data reduction tools and techniques. In addition, the DVAL expertiseincludes software development capabilities to produce custom software tools tailored tothe unique requirements of the customer. Application areas cover a wide variety ofdisciplines including computational fluid dynamics, computational structures, atmosphericmodeling, remote sensing, materials science, and experimental fluid dynamics. For theGEOLAB and DVAL, all work is specific to the individual research customer on an as-neededbasis, resulting in a great variation in workload and staffing over the course of theyear.Airspace and Traffic Operations Simulation (ATOS) Development and Enhancements: Theobjective of this task will be to develop and enhance NASA-Langley Research CentersAirspace and Traffic Operations Simulation, including methodologies to enable researchexperiments in support of future air transportation system concepts and technologies suchas those currently being explored by NASAs Airspace Systems Program projects (NextGenAirspace and NextGen Airportal). Tasks will explore new methodologies for thedevelopment and enhancement of distributed airborne simulation tools, design and developnew engineering models of revolutionary and enabling airborne technologies, integratethese new simulation tools and engineering models into the ATOS, and aid in the conductof simulations (including experiment design, data analysis, and reporting). Theoverarching goal will be to produce and maintain an integrated, operational, andproductive Air Traffic Management (ATM) research tool that also incorporates capabilitiesfor transitioning to simulations of airport surface operations.Research goals will be met through studies and experiments conducted using the ATOS(hosted in the Air Traffic Operations Lab, or ATOL, at LaRC) as well as with othersimulation tools that may be linked to the ATOS for specific experiments. These researchgoals include (1) evaluating the impact of uncertainties, real-world system behaviors,weather, and human factors on the safety and performance of airborne trajectorymanagement applications; (2) developing new 4D dynamic Required Navigation Performance(RNP) capabilities and determining how they may affect the performance of variousairborne applications integrated with ground-based operations; (3) creating new metricsfor dynamic airspace complexity and evaluating the effects of various distributedcomplexity-mitigation functions and en-route coordination strategies; and (4) evaluatingdifferent algorithms and procedures for super-density terminal area merging and spacingapplications. In the area of airport surface operations, research goals include (1)evaluating Collision Avoidance for Airport Traffic (CAAT) algorithms in the low altitude,runway, and taxiway operating environment; (2) evaluating integrated aircraft-based CAATand ground-based taxi conformance monitoring and longer term collision detection andresolutions solutions; and (3) developing and evaluating algorithms and procedures tomaximize airport arrival and departure capacity, including reduced in-trail separationrequirements, closely-spaced and converging/intersecting runway operations, and runwaybalancing.Development, implementation, and integration of new simulation capabilities will berequired to perform vital studies and experiments in support of planned research goals.These simulation capabilities generally fall into the following categories: (1)development of engineering models of advanced technologies that enable new concepts ofoperation, such as airborne four-dimensional (4D) trajectory & separation management,terminal area merging and spacing, and in-trail procedures (oceanic and domestic) forenroute climbs and descents; (2) new 4D trajectory generation capability for the on-boardflight management computer (FMC), including a common lexicon for the exchange of 4Dtrajectory data between various airborne and ground-based systems and applications; (3)advancements in the simulation of the basic aircraft, including airframe and engineperformance models and control laws; (4) improvements to fundamental simulation controlfunctions, including timing, mode transitions, and scenarios, that support the full rangeof experiment types from real-time human-in-the-loop studies to large-scale batch runs;and (5) evaluation of algorithms and procedures for airport arrival and departureoperations.High Performance Computing and Distributed Systems: LITES supports several highperformance computing programs and projects. The systems that these activities requireare current, state-of-the-art computing systems that utilize a variety of computerhardware, operating systems, and applications codes. The major requirements for thesupport of high performance computing specific to this work area include providing expertconsulting services on the application of high performance hardware and softwaresolutions for Langleys programs and projects; administering organizational level andCenter computer level systems used primarily for the production of engineering data wherelarge numbers of processors, large memories, or extensive data management is required tomeet Langley engineering and scientific goals; facilitating the development, debugging,performance analysis, and optimization of user and system-wide applications; developingperformance metrics, benchmarking, testing, and evaluating new architectures and softwareto meet current and future needs; administering Langley parallel and clusteredcomputational or application servers with state-of-the-art architectures; supportingspecialized libraries for system or software development for high performance computingarchitecture; supporting specialized applications codes for use on high performancecomputing architecture; and developing unique solutions to isolate, eliminate, ormitigate information technology-centric problems in engineering and scientificapplications. In addition there are distributed systems consisting of clusters ofnetworked computers and associated equipment, located at various sites throughout theCenter, which are used in specific experimental or analytical environments. Theseclusters are used by small groups of researchers or engineers with particular specialtiessuch as computational fluid dynamics, computational structures, engineering design anddevelopment, modeling and simulation, software development, and other IT intensiveapplications. Geographic Information System: Geographic Information System (GIS) is an intuitivespatial data management and decision support tool. Institutional managers are the currentprimary users of data and processes, but use of the technology by researchers is on therise. The spatial information management system is built around a relational databaseconsisting of data that includes or is derived from such records as: aerial photographs,topographic maps, descriptions and engineering drawings of buildings and facilities,utility plats, geological data, climatic records, financial data, and personnel locatorrecords. The location of objects to the level of individual offices is given with highaccuracy in coordinates derived from the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS).GIS at Langley integrates functions from institutional databases with the goal ofincreasing the accuracy and sustainability of data. The database can be interactivelyqueried through web pages to extract up-to-date maps or plans restricted to selectedfeatures or to produce reports relating selected data.Automated space allocationoptimization is an area where spatial data technologies are being applied to increaseoverall efficiency and effectiveness. Requirements to support GIS include providingintegrated support of the GIS systems; updating and enhancing GIS databases; providingfield observation, network solutions, equipment readiness, and report generation insupport of GPS data gathering and use; developing and enhancing software products for thedisplay, maintenance, and publication of building spatial data; and developing newsoftware tools and maintaining existing tools to support the activities of the GIS using.NET and ArcGIS Server technologies.Large Scale Data Storage and Retrieval System:The Contractor shall support the CentralStorage System (CSS). The CSS provides large-scale, network-accessible storage for LaRC. CSS is the next generation of the Distributed Mass Storage System (DMSS). CSS uses aHierarchical Storage Management (HSM) approach with three levels in its storagehierarchies: disk, primary copy tape and secondary copy tape. The current configurationconsists of Fibre-Channel disk array systems and a StorageTek Automated Tape CartridgeSystem (StorageTek SL8500) with T10K and 9940 tape transport technologies. The SL8500 isfront-ended by a contractor-supplied tape encryption capability. The HSM software usedis IBM's High Performance Storage System (HPSS). CSS is managed by the OCIO. Thissystem is used by users throughout LaRC to (1) archive data, (2) to temporarily storelarge-scale data files for near-term computational needs, (3) to store data forscientific information systems, (4) to archive shared data for projects, and (5) to storebackups for scientific information systems. Requirements specific to this work areainclude providing quality round-the-clock data storage and retrieval services toindividual users and IT services; ensuring the security of the stored data by maintaininghighly disciplined control and monitoring of the physical and software accesses of dataas well as the environmental factors required of the disk and tape technologies for dataintegrity; performing user-transparent migration of data prompted by hardware andsoftware technology upgrades; and addressing new user- or project-specific datarequirements and Government IT infrastructure requirements, and evaluating mass storagesystems and technologies and the interface of mass storage systems to other ITtechnologies. Administrative Business Applications/Support:The Contractor shall provide support forall administrative business applications (including implementation, operations,improvement, and information delivery). Services to be provided by the contractorinclude: (1) technical support of the Integrated Enterprise Management Program (IEMP)modules that are in production, (2) security administration support for IEMP modules inproduction, (3) information delivery (report) support by providing process knowledge tosupport end-users with existing reports, as well as, design and develop additionalreports or queries as requested, and (4) support to the Office of the Chief FinancialOfficer (OCFO) when implementing business computing projects in project managementsupport areas such as Business Readiness (formerly Change Management).For further information and details of the tasks being performed under the current LITEScontract, please see the LITES Bidders Library at http://conitsii.larc.nasa.gov/.Interested offerors/vendors having the required specialized capabilities to perform theeffort as described above should submit capability statements of five pages or lessindicating those abilities.Responses must include the following: Name and address of firm; size of business;average annual revenue for the past three (3) years, and number of employees; ownership;whether they are large, small, small disadvantaged, 8(a), HUBZONE, and/or veteran orwoman-owned; number of years in business; affiliate information: parent company, jointventure partners, potential teaming partners, prime contractor (if potentialsubcontractor) or subcontractors (if potential prime); list of relevant work preformed inthe past five (5) years, contract numbers, technical description, contract type, dollarvalue of each procurement, and point of contact address and phone number. Pleaseadvise if the requirement is considered to be a commercial or commercial-type product.Acommercial item is defined in FAR 2.101. This synopsis is for information and planningpurposes and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government nor will theGovernment pay for information solicited. Respondents will not be notified of theresults of the evaluation. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy ofthe solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps andon the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is the potential offerors responsibilityto monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. All responsesare requested to be submitted to NASA Langley Research Center, Attn: Robert Rice, MailStop 126, Hampton, VA 23681 or by email to Robert.J.Rice@nasa.gov no later than April 17,2009. Please reference SS-LITES-409 in any response. Technical questions should be directed to Tom Brinkley, Phone:757-864-2507, Email: Thomas.H.Brinkley@nasa.gov with LITES Technical Question annotated in the subject line.Procurement related questions should be directed to Robert Rice at 757-864-2267, Email: Robert.J.Rice@nasa.gov with LITES Contracting Question annotated in the subject line. Contracting Office Address: NASA/Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 144, IndustryAssistance Office, Hampton, VA 23681-0001 Point of Contact(s):Robert Rice, ContractSpecialist, Phone (757) 864-2267, Fax (757) 864-9020, - Rosemary Froehlich, ContractingOfficer, Phone (757) 864-2423, Fax (757) 864-9020.
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