SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- CONSTELLATION PROGRAM DATA ARCHITECTURE REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
- Notice Date
- 2/6/2007
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541330
— Engineering Services
- Contracting Office
- NASA/Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas, 77058-3696, Mail Code: BT
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- BT-CPDA-RFI
- Response Due
- 3/1/2007
- Archive Date
- 2/6/2008
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This notice is issued by the NASA/JSC to post a Request for Information (RFI) via the internet and to solicit information from Industry. This document is for information and planning purposes and to allow industry the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of the Government needs, as well as broaden industry participation in meeting government requirements. <br> The National Aeronautics and Space Administration invites you to submit a response to this inquiry to assist in developing plans for the long-term management for Constellation data and defining evaluation criteria for identifying and comparing strategic plans, definitions, techniques, standards and implementation strategies that result in cost effective data architecture, management and sustainment over the multi-decade Constellation program. Data architecture is defined as the collection and organization of information related to the product lines? designs, build records, acceptance, testing, integration, quality assurance, verification, problem reporting, flight history, and mission-specific attributes and conditions. NASA understands the synergistic and important relationships among data architecture, information technology and data management, and is therefore interested in ensuring that those three domains are clearly and logically integrated at the beginning of the Constellation program. NASA recognizes that at the core of defining, developing, deploying and sustaining the long-term, complex Constellation program is a tremendous amount of data that is generated from programmatic and engineering processes. This data must be effectively managed in order to provide timely and accurate information to the program?s designers, decision-makers and stakeholders. To this end, emphasis is being placed on defining, integrating, and organizing program data, from manufacturing/integration/test through pre-launch processing, launch operations, mission operations, recovery and refurbishment and finally disposal of human-rated space vehicles. It is imperative that the data architecture be proactively defined and developed in order to mitigate the issues typically associated with the transient nature of personnel and software applications (including software obsolescence). Additional complexity results from the: 1) communications challenges associated with Lunar and, eventually, Martian operations; 2) utilization of legacy systems and their associated data; and 3) security/sensitive aspects of the data. The data architecture needs to be designed, modeled, analyzed, reviewed and improved just as systematically as the flight hardware and software designs. Thus, NASA will be developing the Constellation data architecture through the use of data maps/diagrams and models that will be used to describe and continuously analyze the data architecture. These are intended to fully describe the type, producer, consumer(s), location, temporal nature (e.g., frequency of deliveries and/or updates), pedigree, and authority of the data, including its relationship with other data items. The framework or structure of diagrams and resulting models will provide a disciplined and structured method to capturing and organizing the program data. It is expected that this type of approach will provide life cycle cost savings that result from the ability to quickly access data, provide the ability to understand the relationships among data (i.e., cause and affect), and create and organize information. NASA recognizes the advances of industry in achieving well-defined data architectures. Industry?s techniques for applying appropriate information technology for data management, defining and using standards/protocols for describing data and modeling the data relationships across numerous organizations and systems provide a tremendous advantage and opportunity over prior generations in addressing this important area. The specific objective of this RFI is to request information on the full scope of activities, tools, models, and evaluation criteria used to define, collect/acquire, manage and govern the data architecture in order to improve the long-term operations and life-cycle affordability of the overall Constellation Program. Responses are requested to any or all of the following topics: 1. Organizational Structure. Where in a company's organization should data architecture efforts be based? Similarly, who should lead data architect efforts (possible options include the Chief Technology Officer, the Chief Information Officer, or Information Technology Director, or perhaps someone else)? 2. Milestones. Which project milestones are best associated with the planning of which aspects of manufacturing, test, integration, operation and sustainment of the data architecture? What should the maturity level be for the manufacturing, test, integration, operation and sustainment data architecture at each of the project milestones? 3. Modeling. What are the current and emerging industry standards and protocols for defining, describing and modeling a program?s data architecture? 4. Technology. What particular tools and technologies are available to implement the recommended standards and protocols? What processes are key to valid ?make versus buy? trade studies? What approaches are best for integrating disparate commercial tools? 5. Requirements and Governance. What are the key requirements, agreements and processes that need to be levied upon organizations (government and contractor), or communities of practice, across the program lifecycle to ensure a proactive and timely development and evolution of the data architecture, and continuous access to the data? 6. Culture Change. What are some key approaches to facilitating the cultural change necessary to effectively develop and manage to a data-centric organization and program life-cycle? 7. Cost. To what degree is data architecture the key to minimizing lifecycle cost? 8. Success. Are there preferred best practices or approaches to data architecture that can assure a successful outcome? 9. Vision. What would the data architecture for Constellation notionally look like and how would it evolve over the next 15-20 years? Please provide a notional description or diagram. NASA JSC is requesting information that responds to any or all of the above topics. Additionally, responses must include the following: name and address of firm; size of business; average annual revenue for past 3 years and number of employees; ownership; and whether they are large, small, small disadvantaged, 8(a), HUBZone, woman-owned, veteran owned, and/or service disabled veteran owned. <br> All information received in response to this RFI that is marked Proprietary will be handled and protected accordingly. NASA will likely provide proprietary information to its support service contractors who are under an obligation to keep third-party Proprietary information in confidence. By submitting a response to this RFI, the responder is deemed to have consented to release of Proprietary information to such NASA support service contractors. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is Industry?s responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. This is a request for information only and does not constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise, that the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) will take procurement action in this matter. Further, neither NASA JSC nor the government will be responsible for any cost incurred in furnishing this information. Respondents will not be notified of the results. Interested parties are invited to submit written comments or questions to: Tiffany Sullivan via email (preferred) or by facsimile transmission, no later than March 1, 2007. When responding, please reference BT-CPDA-RFI and your company name. Ms. Sullivan?s contact information is as follows: Email: tiffany.m.sullivan@nasa.gov Fax: 281-483-0503 Mail: NASA Johnson Space Center Attn: BT/Tiffany Sullivan 2101 NASA Parkway Houston, TX 77058 An ombudsman has been appointed -- See NASA Specific Note "B". The solicitation and any documents related to this procurement will be available over the Internet. These documents will reside on a World Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using a WWW browser application. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/JSC Business Opportunities home page is http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=73 . It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor the Internet cite for the release of the solicitation and amendments (if any). Potential offerors will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments, if any. Any referenced notes may be viewed at the following URLs linked below.
- Web Link
-
Click here for the latest information about this notice
(http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=73#123432)
- Record
- SN01226945-W 20070208/070206221351 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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