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70 -- SOURCES SOUGHT FOR ENTERPRISE-WIDE AUTOMATED BATCH SCHEDULING CONTR OL SYSTEM. DUE 042299 POC JOANNE TARR, 410-965-9474 WEB: Download Solicitation when/if available, http://www.ssa.gov/oag. E-MAIL: Contracting Officer, SSA/OAG, JOANNE.TARR@ssa.gov. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. Reference: 040599JT when responding to this announcement. The Social Security Administration (SSA) seeks to identify vendors who can provide a hardware and software solution that will give SSA an Enterprise wide automated batch scheduling control system. The salient characteristics of the proposed automated scheduling system follow. Provide an integrated seamless multiplatform scheduling package to control batch activity across the Agency's 2000+ Windows NT file servers and 100+ UNIX machines. -- Optionally interface this package to New Dimension Software's Control-M/R (the agency's existing OS390-JES3 mainframe scheduling system) to extend the multiplatform scheduling capabilities to the mainframe -or- Integrate this package to a mainframe scheduling package of your choice and extend the multiplatform scheduling capabilities to the mainframe. The scheduling software must provide the following: 1)The hardware must be able to handle the scheduling workload volume expected in the coming two years: 4000 mainframe jobs daily between 6pm and 6am; 8000 NT jobs daily, 400 UNIX jobs daily; 2)Management of schedule status by color; 3)A single or centralized control center that can monitor the entire network; 4)A method to alert programmers and control center operators of critical failures. The alerts should be via alphanumeric pagers and SYMON message board (products in use at SSA which may assist include NETMON and OPS/MVS2);5)A method to develop scheduling algorithms and to simulate future processing in order to test the scheduled job flow; 6)A utility which allows a scheduling algorithm builder to replicate an existing schedule but change the target platform name throughout in order to quickly build thousands of identical schedules for the various NT or UNIX platforms; 7)Support for mainframe restarts/reruns and NT/UNIX reruns; 8)An online query to cross-reference mainframe data sets with creating/using jobnames; 9)Allow scheduling algorithms to be developed using drag anddrop technology and to permit the use of templates to standardize formats and minimize keying; 10)Allow users to view scheduling for any platform via graphical user interfaces; 11)Provide a security matrix which will allow the administrator minimally to define some users as read-only, others as having the ability to make temporary changes to previously scheduled jobs, others as being allowed to build and modify schedules; 12)Provide a logging ability to determine who made changes to an otherwise automated system and what the changes were; 13)Tracking current system user activity and providing the facility to automatically logoff users based on inactivity; 14)The ability to have external processes such as Connect:Direct trigger events within the scheduling package; 15)The ability to report activity based on user, workload, target computer, run times, failures, etc; 16) Graphical tools for accessing the scheduling data base. -- -- - Provide hardware to host a centralized job scheduling control center for the agency's mainframes, Windows NT servers, and UNIX platforms. -- - 1)The hardware must be redundant and must support immediate failover (also known as "high availability") for software pplications and all critical hardware devices. Included in this redundancy are processors, disks, network cards, and power supplies; 2) The hardware must be able to communicate with the SSANET via TCP/IP and the mainframes via IBM System Network Architecture (SNA); 3)The hardware/software must be robust enough to permit at least 60 concurrent users of the scheduling software; response times must be under 5 seconds; 4)The hardware must have at least three independent partitions or processor groupings to facilitate production, integration testing, and system software testing. Depending on the hardware design, a fourth partition may be needed to serve as a redundant partition ("hot backup") for production. 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 APRIL 22,1999 and should be submitted to the address noted in the beginning of this announcement. When responding to this announcement, respondents should refer to 040599JT. THIS IS NOT AN RFQ/RFP and requests for a solicitation will not be honored. No faxes are permitted, and the Government does not intend to pay for any information provided. Posted 04/05/99 (D-SN316223). (0095)

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