Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1710 GWYNN OAK AVENUE, BALTIMORE, MD, 21207-5279

70 -- INTENT TO NEGOTIATE SOLELY WITH ADVANCED SOFTWARE PRODUCTS GROUP DUE 111098 POC CYNTHIA SPENCER, 410-965-3369 WEB: Download Solicitation when/if available, http://www.ssa.gov/oag. E-MAIL: Contracting Officer, SSA/OAG, CYNTHIA.SPENCER@ssa.gov. The Social Security Administration (SSA) is attempting to identify responsible vendors that can provide a software tool to assist in aging data files for use in the testing of batch and CICS applications software for the Year 2000 Project. Data aging is an integral and crucial stage in the current year 2000 (Y2k) testing process. Data aging modifies production-input files so they appear as they would in the year 2000. Data aging is also used to age baseline output files for comparison with output from the advanced data testing process. The SSA Y2K certification process relies on the comparison of aged baseline outputs with outputs from the advanced date testing process. A commercial data ager is preferable to specialized in-house data aging programs because ongoing production modifications and maintenance and the current Y2k testing process has caused a shortage of available Office of Software Design and Development (OSDD) programming resources. A copy of the data aging tool is required on both the Software Engineering Facility (SEF) for baseline testing and debugging and the Year 2000 Test Facility (Y2kTF) for advanced date testing and output comparisons. The site location will be at SSA's National Computer Center, Baltimore, Maryland. SSA has only been able to identify one source capable of satisfying its needs. Therefore, if no other responses are received, or if responses received are unable to satisfy SSA's mandatory requirements as detailed below, SSA shall issue a sole source award under FAR PART 13.5 Simplified Acquisition-Test Program for Certain Commercial Items to Advanced Software Products Group (ASPG) for the current and future purchase and support of their DATE/2000 File Aging software as required by the agency. THE SOFTWARE MUST, AT A MINIMUM, have the ability to: 1) automatically increment all dates in a given files by a specified amount; 2) revise dates in batch programs by entering the date into a JCL member via TSO/ISPF for immediate use or later testing; 3) directly update data fields in VSAM, sequential, IMS, DB2 and IDMS files without performing an unload/reload operation; 4) age forward or backward in years, months or days; 5) process a list of files in one job; 6) automatic build of date definitions from user COBOL copybooks; 7) customize dates according to a user defined business calendar; 8) test multiple date versions on the same job concurrently; and 9) software must be TSO/ISPF panel driven. Responsible organizations possessing the requisite expertise and resources are invited to submit information concerning their pricing, capabilities, experience, and other pertinent data (including GSA contract information). Any literature, or information submitted as a response to this notice, must contain enough information attesting to the capability of a product offered to meet SSA's requirements. RESPONSES TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT ARE DUE BY COB NOVEMBER 10, 1998 and should be submitted to the address noted in the beginning of this announcement. When responding to this announcement, respondentsshould refer to AGEDATA software. No faxes are permitted, and the Government does not intend to pay for any information provided. Posted 10/26/98 (D-SN265223). (0299)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0250 19981028\70-0001.SOL)