SPECIAL NOTICE
D -- Enterprise Cloud Fax (ECFax) Managed Service Industry Day
- Notice Date
- 1/19/2021 2:07:40 PM
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541512
— Computer Systems Design Services
- Contracting Office
- TECHNOLOGY ACQUISITION CENTER NJ (36C10B) EATONTOWN NJ 07724 USA
- ZIP Code
- 07724
- Solicitation Number
- 36C10B20Q0024
- Archive Date
- 03/01/2021
- Point of Contact
- Matthew Newell, Contract Specialist, Phone: 732-440-9691
- E-Mail Address
-
Matthew.Newell@va.gov
(Matthew.Newell@va.gov)
- Awardee
- null
- Description
- Request for Information and Industry Day Enterprise Cloud Fax (ECFax) Service This is a Request for Information (RFI) only issued for conducting market research and eliciting industry s input as to the Government s requirement. Accordingly, this RFI constitutes neither a Request for Quote (RFQ) nor a guarantee that one will be issued by the Government in the future; furthermore, it does not commit the Government to contract for any services described herein. Do not submit a Quote/Proposal. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is not, at this time, seeking proposals or quotes, and therefore, will not accept, review, or evaluate unsolicited proposals or quotes received in response hereto. This notice is not to be construed as a commitment on the part of the Government to award a contract/order, nor does the Government intend to pay for any information submitted because of this request. The Government does not reimburse respondents for any costs associated with the submission of the information being requested or, reimburse expenses incurred for responses to this RFI. The information provided may be used by VA in developing its acquisition strategy and Performance Work Statement (PWS). Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFQ, if issued. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary; however, any information received shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the respondent. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted, or competition sensitive information contained in their response. This is a request for information and does not obligate the Government in any way, nor does it commit the Government to any specific course of action. Background: VA is in a process of migrating from the slow and costly manual/semi-automated faxing processes to multiple vendor electronic faxing solutions. Across VA, multiple stove-pipe solutions exist, and additional requirements are being contracted locally, resulting in inefficient implementation and sustainment costs. In addition, with the federal Governments drive towards cloud first and cloud smart strategies this represents a critical opportunity to improve and simplify a vital VA communications requirement while simultaneously reducing the physical footprint and capital expenditures cost to VA. At this time, there are multiple faxing vendor services locally configured and implemented across VA. A centralized managed cloud hosted faxing service will allow for increased efficiency and security, thus decreasing the time and cost associated with VA staff manually processing documents and support new operational requirements. RFI Response Instructions: Attached below are key questions for the VA related to this requirement. Any interested party should provide detailed answers to the questions below in their response. From the response to these questions the VA will determine respondents that will be included for one on one industry day meetings. These meetings are planned for early October and availability is limited so only the most complete and compelling responses will be scheduled for one on one briefings. These briefings will be scheduled by the contracting office if and when they are conducted. Please review the PWS thoroughly before responding to fully understand VA s requirements. Questions Does your prospective cloud application have a FedRAMP authorization and at what categorization level? If not, what is your readiness level to achieve FedRAMP authorization? (e.g., have you completed any work on a System Security Plan-SSP? Have you engaged a 3PAO? Etc.) Has your cloud environment received any other commercial certifications that would make the FedRAMP authorization easier to achieve? Will your implementation be specific for VA (e.g. single-tenant) or is it a multi-tenant cloud environment? Is there any limit on the number of fax pages that can be received and transmitted in a day/month/year, and what factors affect the limits.? How scalable is your cloud environment for future expansion and what factors if any, limits future growth? What are your primary concerns or risks with this procurement? How does your solution align with the following definition of Software as a Service (SaaS)? SaaS Definition SaaS is an application delivery model in which the application is hosted on a cloud infrastructure outside the security boundary of VA and is provided to the Cloud Service Customer (CSC) over the internet (Software hosted in VA Enterprise Cloud does not meet this definition of SaaS). The CSC uses the SaaS offering via a thin-client interface, such as a web-browser or a program interface. The CSC subscribes to the SaaS offering and is only responsible for limited application configuration settings. The Cloud Service Provider (CSP) offering the application is responsible for management of the application, safeguarding of data stored or processed by the application, and all elements of the underlying infrastructure. In order to qualify as SaaS for use at VA, and to align with FedRAMP requirements, the hosting for the offering must conform to the NIST 800-145 definition of Cloud Computing and thus contain following key characteristics: On-Demand Self-Service: The CSP fully automates the provisioning of both the customer interface and the underlying cloud components of the SaaS offering. In some cases, the CSP may provision internal resources manually, while providing the CSC an automated interface to request and track the service. Broad Network Access: The SaaS capabilities are available over the internet or over a network that is available from all access points the CSC requires. The SaaS offering is accessible through common platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations). Resource Pooling: The computing infrastructure supporting the SaaS offering is shared among more than one CSC using a multi-tenant model, and resources are dynamically assigned depending on customer demand. Rapid Elasticity: Computing capabilities are automatically provisioned and released in a manner that scales with customer demand. In some cases, the scaling of resources may not be fully automated, but it should be fast enough to support the needs of the CSC, which the CSC would have to define. Measured Service: Resource usage, such as storage, processing, bandwidth, and user activity are measured and reported on in a manner that is relevant to the SaaS offering. The SaaS offering must be hosted within the United States and data stored/processed/transmitted within the offering must remain within the United States. NOTE: The response must be clear, concise, and complete. VA is under no obligation to provide feedback to the company, or to contact the company for clarification of any information submitted in response to this RFI. Due Date: Submit responses to this RFI by email to Matthew Newell at Matthew.Newell@va.gov no later than September 18, 2020. Please limit responses to no more than 20 pages. All proprietary/company confidential material shall be clearly marked on every page that contains such. VA reserves the right to not respond to any or all emails or materials submitted. All VA current requirements identified herein are subject to change at any time. VA envisions that once RFI responses are reviewed, select responders may be invited to provide a face-to-face or telephonic briefing to VA personnel to answer additional questions with respect to the response given. VA retains sole discretion of whether any post RFI briefings are warranted and which industry partners may be invited to provide additional market research information. Contract Specialist: Matthew Newell Contracting Officer: Juan Quinones See attached document: Draft PWS ECFax.
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- Record
- SN05894313-F 20210121/210119230106 (samdaily.us)
- Source
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