National Library of Medicine, Office of Acquisitions Management, Building 38A, Room B1N17, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20894

D -- ADP SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT/PROGRAMING SERVICES SOL NLM/98-043/LTN DUE 040998 POC Liem T. Nguyen, Contract Specialist, (301) 496-6546 E-MAIL: click here to contact the contract specialist via e-mail, liem_nguyen@ccmail.nlm.nih.gov. "The National Library of Medicine (NLM) intends to fund follow-on work by Dr. Peter Paris, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, to further extend and apply the methodology he developed for testing the network and transport layers of Internet connectivity. The methodology uses: echo requests to measure the round trip time, packet loss rate, connection availability, and time-outs for the network layer of specified Internet connections; and IP software to measure the throughput (for entire connection and data transfer phase), peak bandwidth, and trace routes for the transport layer of specified Internet connections. In the follow-on work, NLM is asking Dr. Paris to use his methodology to conduct additional testing of not to exceed 25 connections. These will include some of the connections previously tested plus other sites to be mutually agreed upon, including additional NLM sites (the NCBI and IGM front pages and the IGM and PubMed search pages, inaddition to the NLM front page originally tested) and other problematic or exemplary connections identified by NLM. In addition, the methodology will be adapted to support a self-contained, portable, and user-friendly system for testing and analysis. The portable test unit will be used for testing of not to exceed 10 connections. All test data will be analyzed to attempt to confirm and extend the results of preliminary testing, and to determine whether the test results vary significantly as a function of time of day, day of week, NLM server, or geographic location. The test data will be analyzed to identify and describe any connectivity bottlenecks or problems that may be detected, and to provide an overall characterization of the connections tested and typical Internet routing and performance. Because of his prior efforts to develop an Internet testing methodology for NLM, as noted above, Dr. Paris is the only source who can successfully meet the follow-on requirements within the required time schedule. Anyother source would have to duplicate the efforts already made by Dr. Paris." This is a sole source acquisition. This is not an RFQ (Request for Quotation) nor is an RFQ available. ***** (0083)

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