SOURCES SOUGHT
99 -- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Network Enabled Weather (NNEW) Request for Information (RFI)
- Notice Date
- 8/16/2011
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- Contracting Office
- FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, AJA-474 HQ - FAA Headquarters (Washington, DC)
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- 11043
- Response Due
- 9/15/2011
- Archive Date
- 9/30/2011
- Point of Contact
- Bill Willenbring, 202-267-7914
- E-Mail Address
-
bill.willenbring@faa.gov
(bill.willenbring@faa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This announcement provides a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Market Survey - Request for Information (RFI) for the NextGen Network Enabled Weather (NNEW) Program. The purpose of this RFI is to (1) identify potential technical solutions that could meet the FAA's requirements for the NNEW System; (2) obtain vendors' comments and recommendations regarding the draft Initial Program Requirements (attached); and (3) obtain additional industry insight regarding the overall NNEW Program. This announcement is NOT A SCREENING INFORMATION REQUEST (SIR) OR REQUEST FOR OFFER (RFO). Further, the FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. The FAA may decide to do a full and open competition or set aside all or part of the procurement for small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, or eligible socially and economically disadvantaged businesses that are certified by the SBA for participation in the SBA's 8(a) Program. The FAA expects to release the associated Screening Information Request (SIR) - Request for Proposal (RFP) in the spring of 2012. This is a new acquisition. 1BackgroundThe operation of today's National Airspace System (NAS) is supported by a variety of weather sensing and processing systems maintained by Federal agencies and private entities. These disparate sources of aviation weather data sometimes conflict with one another, presenting challenges for efficient NAS operational planning and decision-making. Furthermore, the communications and transport layers that support aviation weather information users present a complex network of point-to-point communication paths, Local Area Networks (LANs), and Wide Area Networks (WANs) that rely on a diverse collection of legacy hardware, software, and protocols. Consistent NAS-wide weather information is rarely available in any one location. As a result, NAS-wide operational coordination requires excessive, ad hoc discussion and collaboration among stakeholders, which is inefficient and time-consuming. The increasing use of gridded weather data with high spatial and temporal resolutions and the addition of new users to the network will impose significant demands on the capacity of the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) Operations Internet Protocol (IP) network. Furthermore, the addition of new types of data sources and remote users can require costly, "purpose-built" connections and service adaptors to translate among data formats. 2DescriptionThe NNEW System must enable the dissemination of weather information to users throughout the NAS. The NNEW System must consist of a combination of information exchange conventions, applications, and mission services that enable NAS business enterprises to send and receive accurate weather information in a timely manner. The NNEW System must register, store, and disseminate weather data produced by the FAA, other Federal agencies, specifically the National Weather Service (NWS), and private vendors. The NNEW System must provide registry and repository services in concert with other NAS databases and support data archiving. The NNEW System must allow users to discover available weather content, receive query and subscription messages from users, identify and locate the data requested, filter the data as specified by users, perform format conversions, and provide users with logical IP address references to access the information. The NNEW System must enable the FAA to manage and maintain the performance of networks at the communications and transport layers. The NNEW System must enable the FAA to manage and enforce FAA information technology and security policies regarding internal and external user access to NAS weather data, including Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) such as Air Traffic Controllers, Traffic Flow Managers, and a variety of remote users, including airlines and pilots. The FAA maintains a preference for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components and adaptation of Non-Developmental Items (NDI) to the extent they provide cost advantages over new development. The NNEW System must also operate on the FTI Operations IP network in order to interface with users outside of the NAS through the NAS Enterprise Security Gateway (NESG). The NNEW System must utilize Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards and newly defined formats for weather data for its services. The NNEW System must manage and translate data from new and legacy systems that use various data formats and it must be compatible with the FAA's System Wide Information Management (SWIM) system as a SWIM Implementing Program (SIP). The FAA has identified the following critical success factors for NNEW: Accurately communicate large volumes of weather information among usersBe scalable to meet the needs of an increasing number and type of data sources and usersEnable weather data format standardization Optimize (i.e., minimize) the use of FTI telecommunication bandwidthOptimize (i.e., minimize) the physical footprint at existing FAA facilities Minimize lifecycle costs to the FAA and to users The FAA anticipates the following NNEW Program milestones schedule:Final Investment Decision: December 2012Screening Information Request (SIR) Request for Offer Release: Third Quarter FY2012In-Service Decision: December 2015 3ResponsesInterested parties are requested to provide responses as directed below and based on the background information in section 1, the system description in section 2, and the draft requirements in Attachment 1. You are encouraged to submit nonproprietary information as possible. However if you do submit proprietary information please mark all proprietary information included in the response as such. As a follow-up to this RFI, the CO may contact some, all or none of the respondents for one-on-one meetings to obtain additional information regarding their response. SUBMISSION FORMAT: FormatQuantityAddressElectronic1 setbill.willenbring@faa.gov OR Hard copy1 originalWilliam Willenbring800 Independence AV SWRoom 406Washington, DC. 20591 NOTES: Electronic submission is preferred. Submissions must not exceed 20 pages in length. The electronic submission should be in either Microsoft WORD format or portable document format (PDF). Please note that the FAA e-mail server restricts file size to 10MB per email message, therefore, responses may have to be submitted in more than one e-mail in order to be received. All Submissions must be received by 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on September 15, 2011. For questions, requests for additional information, etc. regarding this market survey, contact Bill Willenbring, Contracting Officer, via E-mail: bill.willenbring@faa.gov. Submission must include company Point(s) of Contact, telephone number(s), FAX number(s), E-mail address(es) (if available), and mailing address. 3.1Technical SolutionInterested parties are requested to identify a potential technical solution that meets the NNEW System requirements provided in Attachment 1 and corresponds to the description of the NNEW System in section 2. To further assist vendors in drafting a technical solution, the Government-owned reference implementation software can be accessed via a protected site. To gain access to NNEW RFI ftp server, respondents should make request via URL: http://wx.tc.faa.gov/nnew_rfi_request/. Please limit your Technical Solution response to 35 pages and include the following elements in your response: Solution characteristics (including hardware and software features, facility requirements, telecommunications requirements, and performance quality factors)Development and implementation strategy (including configuration management approach, testing approach, and implementation approach)In-service management strategy (including management/operation, maintenance, staffing, and training)Assumptions and constraintsRisks 3.2Comments on RequirementsThe FAA welcomes comments and recommendations, such as additional requirements, on the draft Initial Program Requirements included in Attachment 1. There is no page limit for your Comments on Requirements response; however individual incoming messages are limited to 10 MB. 3.3QuestionsThe FAA also requests responses to the following questions. A complete response to all questions listed is appreciated. There is no page limit for your Questions response. Service Oriented ArchitectureDo you have experience in introducing applications and web services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) into a legacy environment? If so:-What were the primary challenges you faced? -What strategies did you use to overcome them? -Please describe your approach and lessons learned.What type of SOA development tools, processes, and prototype configurations may be useful to identify and mitigate risks?Please provide source lines of code (SLOC) count estimates for the development of the filtering/extraction function and of the SOA structure described in the draft NNEW program requirements. Telecommunications InfrastructureWhat compression techniques has your organization implemented to minimize the bandwidth utilization in a latency-sensitive environment?Does your organization have experience implementing a model for a national content distribution network using the FTI infrastructure? If so, what performance and latency measures have you utilized?Does your organization have experience using SWIM or hosting a SWIM Implementing Program? Registry/RepositoryWhat best practices are associated with implementing service registries and repositories in run-time and design-time environments?What best practices are associated with implementing data registries and repositories in a run-time and design-time environment? Service Flow Management and PoliciesDo you have experience with managing static and dynamic service flows through policies? Provide an example of how you configured, managed, and implemented these policies. How did you use this information for capacity planning? MessagingHow have you integrated application services into a generic Java Messaging Service (JMS) messaging infrastructure?What JMS solutions have you applied? How have you optimized web services for efficient communication? Meteorological DataWhat is your experience with meteorological data formats and conversions of different meteorological data? SecurityWhat best practices are associated with physically implementing security policies in a SOA environment?How do you foresee the provisioning of user access privileges working in the FAA environment, considering users are both internal and external to the FAA?How have you handled boundary protection and user authentication from a XML/SOA perspective? AcquisitionGiven the background, description, and draft requirements provided, what type of contract, number of contracts, and options do you think would offer the FAA the best value and least risk for this program?Have you provided a system similar in size and complexity to NNEW previously? Describe the service and the price structure you used.What specific mechanisms should the FAA employ to motivate good performance and mitigate risk for the NNEW Program? What would provide you the best incentive?
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