Department of the Navy, Naval Information Systems Management Center (Code 02), Bldg. 176, 5th Floor, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC 20374-5070

70 -- ADVANCED COMPUTING EQUIPMENT (ACE) REQUEST FOR INFORMATION SOL N68939-96-R-ACE DUE 032996 POC Contact Point, Mr. Floyd Groce 202/433-3181 The Department of the Navy has issued a Request for Information (RFI) for the acquisition of mission critical Advanced Computing Equipment. The Navy is committed to migrating what traditionally have been highly customized military computing systems for mission critical and/or weapons applications to systems based on commercial technologies and acquisition methods. The benefits of commercial-based strategies include reduced delays in introducing new technologies in the fleet, reductions in software development and logistic support costs, and long term compatibility and re-usability of tactical computing technology investments. This Mission Critical ACE procurement effort is an element of the Information Technology Electronic Commerce (ITEC) acquisition strategy. The ITEC strategy promotes the use of commercial-based information technologies and practices which are built upon Department of the Navy (DoN) approved standards and architecture profiles. This strategy is facilitated through (1) a DoN corporate endorsement, (2) timely adoption of DoN consensus based standards and architectures, and (3) easily accessible standards conforming products and services. The RFI contains a broad range of requirements for ACE and other computing resources needed to support the Navy's mission critical systems. These requirements are intended to be applicable to the acquisition of commercial-based computing products which support the Navy's open system engineering goals. Consistent with the ITEC acquisition strategy, the Navy is considering many approaches to satisfying these requirements. The Navy solicits, via this RFI, any suggested acquisition alternative for all or part of the items. The Navy requests information identifying any items defined in the the specification that are not considered procurable in this fashion. The RFI is available to industry for comments, questions, and recommendations. Responses to the RFI should be submitted by COB on 29 March 1996. Industry responses submitted after this date may or may not be reflected in a Draft RFP. A WWW server and an electronic bulletin board have been established for use in downloading the RFI. The WWW server is the primary means by which the government will make the RFI available with the NISMC electronic bulletin board as the backup. The address for the WWW server is http://204.254.216.31. The telephone number for the electronic bulletin board is (202) 433-3360. The documents contained on the WWW and the BBS servers are in MS Word 6.0. Anyone seeking additional procedures for WWW server or BBS usage should send an E-mail message to the Acquisition Manager, Mr. Floyd Groce at fgroce@aol.com, or call (202) 433-318l. (0060)

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