SPECIAL NOTICE
D -- Request for Information on Second Draft Specification for Conformant Cloud Providers
- Notice Date
- 12/23/2015
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 518210
— Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Office of Administration, 6011 Executive Blvd, 5th Floor, Rockville, Maryland, 20852-3804, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20852-3804
- Solicitation Number
- RFI-NIHCOMMONS-2016
- Archive Date
- 2/13/2016
- Point of Contact
- Brendan MIller, Phone: 3015940957
- E-Mail Address
-
brendan.miller2@nih.gov
(brendan.miller2@nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Background: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds basic and applied research in the biomedical and health sciences, generating large amounts of new research data every year. As the scope and scale of research data have increased, the standard mechanisms by which data are found and shared (indexes, web portals, journal articles, scientific conferences, direct transmission of data via electronic networks, to name a few) are insufficient. Further, federal policies now require that data generated with federal support be shared, making them broadly accessible, easily computable and readily sharable. As part of its efforts to resolve this problem, the NIH is developing the Commons [1], a shared, virtual space for sharing data, software, digital learning resources, workflows and other products of research. (see https://datascience.nih.gov/commons). The Commons will help ensure that the digital artifacts of publicly funded research are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). NIH is supporting implementation of the Commons concept via a variety of pilot activities within the NIH Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program. Computational infrastructure for the Commons is initially envisioned as employing cloud computing services. A “conformant provider” of cloud services for the Commons would offer an array of options, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). A conformant provider is one that meets NIH defined requirements for business relationships, interfaces, capacity, networking and connectivity, information assurance and authentication and authorization. On Dec 23, 2014, NIH released a Sources Sought Notice [2], SS-NIHCOMMONS-2015, in FedBizOps, requesting information on an initial set of proposed conformance requirements. Comments were received and the initial requirements revised. NIH now wishes to get community input on these requirements prior to identifying conformant providers and is therefore requesting comments on the revised version of the conformance requirements. It is the NIH’s intention to finalize these requirements based on industry and scientific feedback during January/Feburary of 2016, and to open a process for providers of cloud compute services to become conformant as soon as practicable after the requirements are finalized. Although all details of the conformance certification process have not been finalized, NIH intends to utilize a reviewed self-certification process during the pilot phase. Information Requested: The NIH is requesting input in two major areas: 1. The NIH wishes to obtain feedback from potential providers about (a) their ability to meet these conformance requirements, (b) their interest in acting as providers and (c) any requirement deemed by the provider to be sufficiently burdensome that it would prevent the potential provider from participating. 2. The NIH wishes to obtain feedback from potential users of conformant cloud services, that is, from the research community, as to (a) whether services described by the proposed conformance requirements would meet their needs, (b) If additional capabilities are required, what types of capabilities would be necessary to meet general requirements for scientific computing and (c) barriers researchers have experienced in using cloud services to host data sets. NIH is particularly interested in responses from those who already use cloud services to store data and make it widely available The draft conformance requirements are posted at: https://datascience.nih.gov/commons/technical_conformance.pdf. Please direct comments to conformance_requirements@nih.gov. NIH will continue to accept comments on these requirements for 30 calendar days after the posting date of this RFI. Responding to this RFI: Please address the sections listed above, including possible solutions, with a rough order of magnitude of the costs associated, to the extent that is possible. This information is being used as a tool for Market Research Purposes only, and does not guarantee that a solicitation will be issued on the subject matter. The government will use the capabilities submitted from industry to more fully develop any requirement that may be generated in the future. Any/all proprietary data submitted will be kept private. Please send contact information to the contacts listed below, with “RFI-NIHCOMMONS-2016” listed in the subject. Please cc the Contracting Officer as well. George A. Komatsoulis, Ph.D. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health 301-594-7875 komatsog@mail.nih.gov Vivien Bonazzi, Ph.D. Office of the NIH Associate Director for Data Science (ADDS), National Institutes of Health 301-451-8276 bonazziv@mail.nih.gov [1] https://datascience.nih.gov/commons [2] https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=09c44aa4c0877c150e7cb3fc4e83af98&tab=core&_cview=0
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OoA/RFI-NIHCOMMONS-2016/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Bethesda, Maryland, United States
- Record
- SN03977343-W 20151225/151223234358-41b8b5b4e54cb2e0f4af1674e9167fc3 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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