SOLICITATION NOTICE
99 -- National Library of Medicine High Speed Internet Connectivity - Solicitation Attachments
- Notice Date
- 8/5/2016
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 517110
— Wired Telecommunications Carriers
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20894
- Solicitation Number
- NIHLM2016864
- Archive Date
- 9/7/2016
- Point of Contact
- April Merriwether, Phone: 301-827-6424
- E-Mail Address
-
merriwetheran@mail.nih.gov
(merriwetheran@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Att.2 Past Performance Questionnaire Att.1 Statement of Work This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for a commercial service prepared in accordance with the format in FAR 12.6 as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a separate written solicitation will not be issued. This solicitation number is NIHLM2016864 and is issued as a Request for Proposal (RFP). The solicitation /contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-83. The North American Industrial Classification (NAICS) code 517110 with a size standard 1,500 employees. This acquisition is being conducted using Simplified Acquisition Procedures in accordance with FAR Part Subpart 13.5. The purpose of this contract is to provide high speed Internet connectivity to the National Library of Medicine's network which is located in Bethesda, Maryland. This will provide commodity Internet access to the public as well as the research and medical communities around the world. This connectivity needs to be provided via a Global Tier 1 Internet Service Provider (ISP). It must also include protected circuit connections from the ISP Point of Presence (POP) to the National Library of Medicine (NLM). This connectivity must provide 3 Gbps bandwidth. The provider must have the capability to upgrade the connections up to 10 Gbps bandwidth. Please see the attached Statement of Work dated May 03, 2016 for the complete scope of work. QUESTIONS : If you have any questions regarding this requirement, please submit your inquiries to April Merriwether, Contracting Officer, at merriwetheran@mail.nih.gov no later than August 11, 2016 at 11:00AM Eastern Standard Time. Questions with the Government's responses will be posted to FedBizOpps. Please be advised that the Government reserves the right to transmit those questions and answers of a common interest to all prospective Offerors. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS AND PROPOSAL DUE DATE : In order to receive an award, contractor must be registered and have a valid certification in the System For Award Management (SAM) http://www.sam.gov. Interested vendors capable of providing the Government with the services specified in this combined synopsis/solicitation shall submit electronic responses to merriwetheran@mail.nih.gov. Please reference solicitation number NIHLM2016864 on all correspondence to this notice. Proposals must be submitted electronically no later than August 23, 2016 at 11:00 AM EST. The proposal submitted shall be prepared in two volumes and clearly identified as: Volume 1: Technical Proposal and Volume 2: Business Proposal. Proposals shall be in sufficient detail to permit proper evaluation, negotiation, and/or acceptance thereof. The technical proposal must not contain reference to price; however, resource information (such as data concerning labor hours and categories, materials, subcontracts, etc.) must be contained in the technical proposal so that the offeror's understanding of the Statement of Work may be evaluated. The price proposal shall be submitted as a Fixed Price proposal with pricing for each element of the Statement of Work. In addition, our SOW states we are looking for a starting b/w speed of 3 Gbps with equipment capabilities in place to increase that b/w up to 10 Gbps. As a result, please include a pricing structure that will not only price the initial startup of 3Gbps, but also include the rate increases per increase in Gbps up to 10. Page Limit : 25 pages, excluding appendices. Formatting : Page size 8.5 by 11 inches with 1 inch margins. Paragraphs single spaced. Minimum font size/style 10 point Times New Roman font for Text, 9 point font in the Arial family for Tables, and 8 point font in the Arial family for Graphics. Tables and graphics may be landscape; all other text must be portrait. If the offeror uses a different format (font size, margin, etc.), the government reserves the right to adjust the proposal to fit the parameters of the format as stated in the RFP, and if this results in the proposal exceeding the page limitations in any one area, the government will not consider those excess pages. Period of Performance : The period of performance shall be for a base period of one year, with 4 one-year option periods. Base Period: 9/16/2016 - 9/15/2017; Option Pd. 1: 9/16/2017 - 9/15/2018; Option Pd. 2: 9/16/2018 - 9/15/2019; Option Pd. 3: 9/16/2019 - 9/15/2020; Option Pd. 4: 9/16/2020 - 9/15/2021 EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD 1. GENERAL Selection of an offeror for award will be based on the evaluation of proposals against three factors. The factors in order of importance are: technical, price, and past performance. Although technical factors are of paramount consideration in the award of the task order, price, and past performance are also important to the overall award decision. All evaluation factors other than cost price, when combined, are significantly more important than price. The Government intends to make an award to that offeror whose proposal provides the best overall value to the Government. The evaluation will be based on the demonstrated capabilities of the prospective contractors in relation to the needs of the project as set forth in the RFP. The merits of each proposal will be evaluated carefully. Each proposal must document the feasibility of successful implementation of the requirements of the RFP. Offerors must submit information sufficient to evaluate their proposals on the detailed factors listed below. 2. MANDATORY QUALIFICATION CRITIERIA The offeror shall include all information which documents and/or supports the mandatory qualification criteria in one clearly marked section of its proposal. In addition, provide an index within the technical proposal which directs reviewers to the specific areas of the proposal that address each mandatory criterion. The mandatory qualification criteria establishes conditions that must be met at the time of receipt of Technical Proposals by the Contracting Officer in order for your proposal to be considered any further for award. The contractor must be considered a Global Tier 1 ISP. The National Library of Medicine defines a Global Tier 1 ISP as one that has the following attributes: • provides connections to the Internet via settlement-free interconnections. This means that there are not overt charges for the amount, direction, or type of traffic sent between networks; • has access to the entire Internet routing table through their peering relationships; • are interconnected at Internet Exchange (IX) points; • are not dependent on other ISPs to manage private peering; • peer on more than one continent; and • own or lease transoceanic fiber optic transport. 3. TECHNICAL EVALUATION FACTORS The evaluation factors are used by the technical evaluation committee when reviewing the technical proposals. The factors below are listed in the order of importance with weights assigned for evaluation purposes. The criteria for evaluating the proposals are listed below: a. Network Architecture 30__pts NLM will evaluate the Offeror's network in terms of speed, latency, capacity, number and types of connections to other networks, traffic congestion points, and number of hops to other networks and key access points. In order to provide for adequate capacity and speed to meet future demands, the Offeror shall demonstrate a commitment to continuous review and enhancing the network architecture. The Offeror will describe its current and future plans for the implementation of IPv6. NLM will evaluate and determine if it meets the needs of our service requirements. It is anticipated that network technology will advance and improve significantly during the period of performance of the task order. NLM wishes to take advantage of any new capabilities, which will result either in reduced overall costs or result in new capabilities, which can satisfy NLM's requirements for services. The Offeror shall explain how it can and will incorporate new technologies into its network architecture, and how NLM can take advantage of these new capabilities. b. Network Reliability and Availability 30___pts The Government relies heavily on the Internet to provide network service and access to research and biomedical information for an international community. Disruption of this capability would impede the accomplishment of the mission of the Government. Therefore, the proposal will be evaluated in terms of factors, which affect the availability of the network services. The contractor shall provide service level agreements (SLA) that include the following: • Average monthly packet delivery • Average monthly latency in the contiguous U.S. and globally • Time to Repair (TTR) from trouble ticket creation to restoral The reliability of hardware and software components within a network are primary factors affecting network reliability. All components shall be of the highest quality and well maintained. The Offeror shall describe the historical availability and reliability of the network. Relevant statistics such as average error rates and packet loss as well as network up time can be used to show reliability. In the event of an outage somewhere in the provider's network, the ability to continue to provide connection and services via alternate routing paths within the provider's network and over connections to the Government is critical and shall be provided with explanation. The Offeror shall explain how it proposes to provide for reliable paths between the Government and the provider's POP (Point of Preference). c. Network Security 20___pts The Government has a requirement to protect its information resources from vulnerabilities, which are introduced by being connected to the Internet. The Offeror shall describe any programs, that it may have, which reduce the risk of various threats from malicious activity over the network. This description shall include, but is not limited to, what precautions the Offeror will take to detect and prevent "sniffing" of information over its network and Government connections, prevention of unauthorized access to the Offeror's NOC (Network Operations Center) and network nodes, detection of various types of network attacks, etc. Assistance with security matters, which would be available to the Government, shall be described. The method of providing DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attack mitigation will be evaluated. This service shall be able to detect DDoS attacks against NLM IT resources, and enable the mitigation of such attacks to enable NLM information services which are not under attack to continue to be accesses during such attacks. d. Corporate Related Experience 20__pts The Government will evaluate the past experience of the Offeror, with respect to providing similar ISP and DDoS services as specified in the Statement of Work (SOW). The Offeror shall describe past performance of comparable and related work, within the past three (3) years, similar in kind to that required under the task, including summaries of scopes of work, resource requirements, dollar values and points of contact for each body of work on past or current contracts (or under other arrangements). The Offeror shall provide contact information for these references. 4. COST/PRICE Offeror(s) cost/price proposal will be evaluated for reasonableness. For a price to be reasonable, it must represent a price to the Government that a prudent person would pay when consideration is given to prices in the market. Normally, price reasonableness is established through adequate price competition, but may also be determined through cost and price analysis techniques as described in FAR 15.404. Although price is of less importance than the technical factors, taken as a whole, it is an important factor and should not be ignored. The degree of its importance will increase with the degree of equality of the proposals in relation to the other factors on which selection is to be based. The evaluation method used will allow the Government to make an award to an Offeror who may not be lowest in price, but who ostensibly offers the greatest value. The Government is more concerned with obtaining superior technical or management features than with making an award at the lowest overall price to the Government. However, the Government will not make an award at a significantly higher overall price to achieve slightly superior technical or management features. 5. EVALUATION OF OPTIONS It is anticipated that any order awarded under this Request for Quotation will contain option provision(s) and period(s). In accordance with FAR Clause 52.217-5, Evaluation of Options (July 1990), the Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement, except when it is determined in accordance with FAR 17.206(b) not to be in the Government's best interests. Evaluation of options will not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s). 6. PAST PERFORMANCE Offeror's past performance information will be evaluated subsequent to the technical evaluation. However, this evaluation will not be conducted on any offeror whose proposal is determined to be technically unacceptable. The evaluation will be based on information supplied by the offeror by way of past performance questionnaires. Questionnaires are to be completed on contracts or orders within the last 3 years that are similar in size and relevance. Please only provide questionnaires on three (3) past performance references. The questionnaires are to be sent directly to April Merriwether at merriwetheran@mail.nih.gov, no later than 12:00 noon EST on August 25, 2016. The Questionnaire Template is attached to the solicitation. The Government will assess the relative risks associated with each offeror. Performance risks are those associated with a vendor's likelihood of success in performing the acquisition requirements as indicated by that offeror's record of past performance. The assessment of performance risk is not intended to be a product of a mechanical or mathematical analysis of an offeror's performance on a list of contracts/orders, but rather the product of subjective judgment by the Government after it considers relevant information. When assessing performance risks, the Government will focus on the past performance of the offeror as it relates to all acquisition requirements, such as the vendor's record of performing according to specifications, including: standards of good workmanship; the offeror's record of controlling and forecasting costs; the offeror's adherence to contract schedules, including the administrative aspects of performance; the offeror's reputation for reasonable and cooperative behavior and commitment to customer satisfaction; and generally, the offeror's business-like concern for the interest of the customer. The Government will consider the currency and relevance of the information, source of the information, context of the data, and general trends in the offeror's performance. The lack of a relevant performance record may result in an unknown performance risk assessment, which will neither be used to the advantage nor disadvantage of the offeror. ATTACHMENTS : Attachment 1: Statement of Work, dated May 03, 2016 Attachment 2: Past Performance Questionnaire FEDERAL ACQUISITION REQULATION (FAR) CLAUSES The following provisions and clauses apply to this acquisition and are incorporated by reference. Full text may be found at https://www.acquisition.gov FAR 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items FAR 52.212-2 Evaluation-Commercial Items FAR 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items FAR 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items FAR 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes and Executive orders The offeror must include a completed copy of the following provisions with your proposal submission: FAR Clause 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items and FAR Clause 52-212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders - Commercial Items - Deviation for Simplified Acquisitions.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OAM/NIHLM2016864/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Bethesda, MD, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, United States
- Zip Code: 20892
- Zip Code: 20892
- Record
- SN04211278-W 20160807/160805234411-2afb31d98efb15f621478b8e076e69d7 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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