SRCSGT | D | Request For Information For Electronic Records Archives (II)

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF NOVEMBER 03, 2002 FBO #0336
SOURCES SOUGHT

D -- Request For Information For Electronic Records Archives (II)

Notice Date: 11/1/2002
Notice Type: Sources Sought
Contracting Office: National Archives and Records Administration, NAA, Acquisition Center, 8601 Adelphi Road, Room 3360, College Park, MD, 20740-6001
ZIP Code: 20740-6001
Solicitation Number: Reference-Number-NAMA-03-R-ERA
Point of Contact: LaToshia Madden, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 837-0307, Fax (301) 837-3227, - Sylvia Edwards, Contracting Officer, Phone 301-837-1679, Fax 301-713-6910,
E-Mail Address: latoshia.madden@nara.gov, sylvia.edwards@nara.gov
Description: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Request for Information for Electronic Records Archives</title> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2715.400" name=GENERATOR></head> <BODY> <DIV align=center> Request for Information for Electronic Records Archives </div> The purpose of this Request For Information (RFI) is to identify potential integration contractors, and solicit information from vendors on current or future commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products needed to satisfy critical technical needs for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system. To support this, NARA has clarified key concepts and provided additional ERA background information; and updated the ERA acquisition approach and solicited industry comments. BACKGROUND The ERA system will authentically preserve and provide access to any kind of electronic record, free from dependency on any specific hardware or software, enabling NARA to carry out its mission into the future. To do this, ideally the system would be able to take any type of record, from any entity in the Federal Government, created using any type of application, on any computing platform, and provide discovery and delivery to anyone with an interest and legal right of access, now and for the life of the Republic. The solution must provide for the preservation, management, and access to the records of the Federal Government, not the preservation of technology or technological artifacts. NARA intends to deploy the ERA system nationwide in the National Archives in the Washington area and its regional sites, the Presidential Libraries, and the Federal Records Centers. An enormous volume of data and number of records will be transferred to NARA over the next few years. The projected accumulated volume of electronic records received by the ERA from 2005 through 2010 is estimated to be 0.9 petabytes, and the accumulated volume is estimated to increase to 10.7 petabytes by 2014. The solution must be able to ingest and manage such large quantities of data, and be scalable to support even greater expansion in later years. An essential attribute of the solution is that it must recognize that the problem is inherently dynamic: as long as information technology continues to evolve, new data formats will be developed and new types of electronic records will be created. The system must be able to keep pace with these changes, as well as to take advantage of improved technology in order to improve service and efficiency. For example, the solution should be able to move large volumes of electronic records forward in time onto new hardware, storage media, operating system, and data management environments. NARA considers reliable, long life digital media to be only a part of a solution to its requirements. A solution which provides positive gains such as reduced storage costs or improved data transfer rates through relatively frequent media refreshment or replacement would also be viable, provided that the transfer from older to newer media could be accomplished without corruption of the data transferred. Other key components to the solution include the hardware and software needed to read the media, and present it to users or other systems. Various strategies for long-term preservation of digital data have been proposed and combinations of such strategies may be necessary to satisfy NARA?s requirements fully. One strategy that NARA has investigated is the transformation of electronic records written in formats subject to obsolescence to a "persistent archives" format. In this format the content, structure, appearance, and context of each record are described and stored in an easy to understand, non-proprietary format that is independent of the hardware, operating system, and software used to create the record. This representation will enable future technologies and people to recognize and use the records many years in the future on computer platforms not yet invented. However, NARA will not dictate how its requirements should be met. NARA intends to stipulate functional and other requirements and invite bidders to propose what they believe to be the optimal ways to satisfy these requirements. Detailed background information on the ERA program is available at the ERA web site, http://www.archives.gov/electronic_records_archives. NARA intends to make a significant investment in development of the ERA, providing capabilities to capture, preserve, and provide access to electronic records indefinitely into the future. NARA is developing detailed requirements that will be used as the basis for the ERA solicitation. A set of system features has been identified to assist industry in better understanding the nature of the ERA. Descriptions of these features are distributed for informational purposes only and do not constitute formal system requirements. The ERA feature descriptions and other acquisition related information including the ERA Mission Needs Statement, Vision Statement, and Concept of Operations are located on the ERA web site at: http://www.archives.gov/electronic_records_archives/acquisition_information. One special item of clarification concerns the application of imaging technology to the ERA. The ERA is being developed for records that are either "born digital" or have been converted to digital format by the agencies providing those records to NARA. While NARA will continue to receive paper documents for preservation from Federal agencies, there is no requirement within the context of the ERA to scan paper records for ingest as electronic records. ACQUISITION APROACH: The Government is requesting information to identify potential contractors capable of acting in the role of systems integrator to build the ERA system. The preliminary ERA business and contracting approach outlined below is for a full-and-open competition in accordance with 41 U.S.C. 253, as implemented by FAR Part 6, Competition Requirements. To date, NARA?s acquisition approach is initially to award multiple development contracts using a best value competition. NARA is seeking integrators who can put together teams that offer best solutions from both a technical and cost perspective. Under the initial Requirements and Analysis phase of the development contract the selected contractors will each produce a detailed system requirements specification and high-level system design. At the end of this phase there will be a down-select to a single contractor that will develop the ERA. Contractors will be evaluated on their program management, integration, systems engineering, and software development process maturity. To be considered for selection as one of the developers, contractor and major subcontractor organizations actually performing the work will be expected to demonstrate a Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Software Capability Maturity Model (SW-CMM) Level 3 capability. The Government intends to utilize an Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) contractor to assist the Government in oversight of the Development Contractor?s activities and to evaluate delivered products. The Requirements and Analysis Phase duration is expected to not exceed twelve months. Major products from this phase include a System Requirements Specification (SRS), System Specification, and a Requirements and Design Review. Following this, up to five increments are anticipated for development of the ERA. The development of each increment will be exercised as an option. The first increment will incorporate sufficient core functionality to achieve an Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The Government will retain unlimited rights in data on any systems, processes, or items developed under these contracts, including data developed by contractors who are subsequently down-selected after the Requirements and Analysis Phase. The Government?s contracting approach for the first three incremental options are to award Fixed Price Award Fee contracts. Later increments, if any, may be bound by not-to-exceed pricing. NARA?s plan is to award a separate Operations contract to a single contractor prior to fielding of the ERA system IOC. The Operations contractor will operate and maintain the ERA infrastructure, including servers, archival storage, and communications systems. Specific facility location requirements have not been determined, and may include either NARA and/or contractor sites. Physically separate system instances will be necessary for classified data and potentially for redundant data. In the event that a contractor believes that outsourcing both the System Development and Operations contracts as a single contract is a viable alternative please submit a white paper (not to exceed 5 pages) with your response, explaining why such an approach would be advantageous to the government. These 5 pages will not be considered within the 20-page maximum DESIRED TECHNOLOGY The Government is requesting information from integrators as well as hardware and software vendors to ensure that all available COTS products that can provide capabilities critical to the success of the ERA are identified. In addition to currently available products, the Government wants to understand the capabilities of products under development that will be available by mid-Fiscal Year 2004 and any technology that will be reasonably mature a few years further in the future. The electronic records of the Federal Government are digital objects that satisfy criteria set out in law: they are made or received in the course of government business and are preserved either as evidence of government business or because they contain valuable information. There are no technical limitations on the formats or data types that comprise electronic records. Electronic records include, but are not limited to, the output of office automation products (email, word processing documents, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.), databases, images of documents, digital photographs, video, voice mail, audio, multi-media, satellite imagery, data from scientific instruments, digital engineering and architectural drawings, models, and so forth. Information is requested on: <OL> <LI>Strategies and approaches for preserving data for persistent storage and eventual retrieval. Proposed data preservation techniques should be independent of specific hardware and software architectures and products, and support the natural evolution of computer technologies. Emphasis on the approach's extensibility over time as well as an incremental deployment approach should be addressed. <LI>Mass storage solutions that support archives scalable to tens of petabytes or more. Proposed solutions should provide information on the distributed nature of the mass storage solution, the fault tolerance of the overall solution, the ability to scale over time, and the ability to incrementally deploy the solution. Vendors should provide information on the capabilities of the storage management software to control and manage a large distributed archive. Relationships and discriminators between file systems, database systems, and data management software within the proposed architecture should be highlighted. Provide information on performance, including factors affecting performance characteristics. Provide information on redundant storage capability, including the ability to replicate data at remote locations. Indicate backup and recovery capabilities and disaster recovery strategies supported by the solution. Indicate ability to interface with other physical archives within a larger heterogeneous distributed architecture. <LI>Capabilities for large scale, distributed, flexible, and programmable workflow products applicable to ERA. Products should support a large system pipelined with multi-threaded record movements that must be tracked, monitored, assigned, and controlled. Vendors should comment on how their proposed products/solutions can seamlessly integrate into the ERA operational environment and provide for full maintenance and operations coverage, both for archival science and computer operations personnel. <LI>Software products capable of converting complete electronic records from their native proprietary format to open standard markup languages (e.g., XML) or other non-proprietary persistent formats in such a way as to preserve the content and appearance of the original record. Provide a complete list of all specific source formats that can be converted, including as applicable hardware and operating system environments, identification of the software product used to create the format, or other pertinent information. Describe in detail the output format of the converted records and the capabilities of any templates, schemas or Data Type Definitions (DTDs), template editors, or viewers. <LI>Software capable of format to format conversion of electronic records from source formats of all types (including obsolete formats) to destination representations that are viewable or otherwise user accessible using current technology. Examples of destination formats include ASCII, RTF, HTML, XML, TIFF, MPEG-4, or widely used proprietary formats. Provide a complete list of all specific source formats that can be converted, including as applicable hardware and operating system environments, identification of the software product used to create the format, or other pertinent information. Describe the output format of the converted records. <LI>Software capable of creating and applying schemas, templates, or models to accept, parse, validate, and reformat electronic records or descriptions of record collections received by the ERA from Government agencies. An analyst using this software should be able to describe the characteristics and order of the input stream, including validation criteria, and to render that information into a schema, template, or model. Users should be able to modify or copy existing schemas, templates, or models, and apply them to electronic records. The software must be able to parse the input stream, perform any specified validation, and render validated records into a standardized format suitable for ingestion by the ERA. Also describe tools for management of the evolution of schemas over time. <LI>Other software products capable of preserving, retrieving and presenting authentic electronic records over unlimited cycles of changes in hardware and software.</li></ol> RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS Responses are limited to a total of 20 pages, and must be in Microsoft Word 97 or PDF format. Page size must be 8.5 x 11", font must be 12 point or larger, and margins must be at least 1". The NARA firewall limits the size of attachments to 10MB. If necessary, responses may be provided within self-extracting Zipped files. Briefly describe your company, your products and services, any projects that you have worked on that may be similar to ERA?s needs, company history, ownership, financial information, and other information you deem relevant. Provide points of contact, including name, address, phone/fax number, and email. Responses from potential systems integrators should describe conceptual technical and architectural alternatives to satisfy ERA mission needs including use of COTS or Government-off-the-shelf (GOTS) hardware and software components. Discuss technical feasibility alternatives and provide non-binding order of magnitude cost and schedule estimates for the alternatives. Indicate experience in forming teams and managing similar efforts. You are encouraged to provide comments on the ERA acquisition approach. Companies seeking to effect a change in the ERA acquisition approach should provide a detailed explanation of the need for that change. Industry may also provide recommendations regarding ERA program documentation provided at the NARA web site, with regard to what additional information would be helpful in responding to future NARA requests for information. Questions from industry will be accepted and will not be counted toward the 20-page RFI response limit. These questions will be used to refine the ERA technical approach and/or acquisition strategy. Some questions may not be answered. NARA will post questions that are answered on the NARA web site and will do so without identifying the source of the question. Within the 20 page limit vendors should submit a concept paper describing potential solutions using your products that relates them to the specific ERA technical needs identified in this RFI. Indicate whether your product is commercially available or is on the General Services Administration Federal Supply Schedule. Excluded from the 20- page limit are supplemental product brochures and marketing materials outlining specifications and capabilities that responders may want to submit. NARA intends to publish on the ERA web site a list of companies responding to this RFI. This will be done only at the request of the company. Companies desiring to be placed on this list should provide company name, a single point of contact (name, title, primary phone, and email address), company size/type (e.g., large, small business, 8(a), woman owned, etc.), and may optionally provide a link to a company web site. Company information will not be posted without the company explicitly requesting to be placed on this list. CONTACT INFORMATION Please submit responses via email no later than 5:00 PM on November 21, 2002, to ERA.Acquisition@nara.gov. The subject of the email should be "ERA RFI 2 Response." Responses submitted after this date and time will not be accepted. Submit 3 copies each of any supplemental hardcopy materials or electronic materials on hard media (CD, diskette), to: ERA Acquisition (NH-ERA) National Archives at College Park, Room B-550 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740-6001 This RFI is the second of several steps NARA plans to take to solicit input and interest from the vendor community and to promote competition in response to our intended Request for Proposal (RFP) for ERA. We expect to optionally issue one additional RFI, issue a draft RFP for comment, and conduct an industry conference. The following is a tentative schedule of remaining ERA acquisition events: <UL> <LI>2Q FY03 Industry Day <LI>2Q FY03 RFI 3 (optional) <LI>3Q FY03 Draft RFP <LI>3Q FY03 Industry Conference <LI>4Q FY03 Final RFP</li></ul> DISCLAIMER This RFI is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this RFI or to otherwise pay for information received in response to this RFI. All information received in response to this RFI that is marked Proprietary will be handled accordingly. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. Information provided in response to this RFI will be used to assess tradeoffs and alternatives available for determining how to proceed in the acquisition process for the ERA and may lead to the development of a specification for the ERA. In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.201(e), responses to this RFI are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. </body></html>
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D -- Request For Information For Electronic Records Archives (II)