SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Microsoft EA Pricing and Alternatives
- Notice Date
- 1/5/2024 6:10:58 AM
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 513210
—
- Contracting Office
- TECHNOLOGY ACQUISITION CENTER NJ (36C10B) EATONTOWN NJ 07724 USA
- ZIP Code
- 07724
- Solicitation Number
- 36C10B24Q0114
- Response Due
- 1/10/2024 9:00:00 AM
- Archive Date
- 01/25/2024
- Point of Contact
- Kalil O'Neal, Contract Specialist, Phone: 848-377-5261
- E-Mail Address
-
kalil.oneal@va.gov
(kalil.oneal@va.gov)
- Awardee
- null
- Description
- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION Microsoft EA Pricing and Alternatives Introduction: This is a Request for Information (RFI) only issued for conducting market research. Accordingly, this RFI constitutes neither a Request for Quote (RFQ), Request for Proposal (RFP), nor a guarantee that one will be issued by the Government in the future; furthermore, it does not commit the Government to contract for any services described herein. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is not, at this time, seeking proposals or quotes, and therefore, will not accept, review, or evaluate unsolicited proposals or quotes received in response hereto. This notice is not to be construed as a commitment on the part of the Government to award a contract, nor does the Government intend to pay for any information submitted because of this request. The Government does not reimburse respondents for any costs associated with submission of the information being requested or reimburse expenses incurred for responses to this RFI. The information provided may be used by VA in developing its acquisition strategy and Performance Work Statement (PWS) or Product Description (PD). Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary; however, any information received shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the respondent. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted, or competition sensitive information contained in their response. This is a request for information and does not obligate the Government in any way, nor does it commit the Government to any specific course of action. Product information, brochures, part numbers, and/or other description information may be included with the submission. Requirement: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has maintained a continuous award of Enterprise Agreements for Microsoft products since 1998. The various Microsoft licenses and subscriptions are required to provide VA end users with a broad range of IT capabilities necessary to meet agency mission needs for over 574,000 users. The current Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) provides the VA with 1) software assurance, 2) core support services, 3) operational support, and 4) additional licenses and cloud credits, and is slated to be renegotiated in 2025. Before renewal of this multiyear agreement, VA will perform a re-baselining of requirements as well as analysis of alternatives to determine the best path forward to maximize enterprise level functionalities and cost efficiencies across VA. VA seeks to identify pricing for specific Microsoft products and/or competitive products and strategies that could be implemented as alternatives to the current Microsoft technologies identified herein. This effort does not indicate VA will move to an alternate technology but only that VA is investigating viability, costs, and impacts associated with specific alternate technologies. To be clear, VA is not seeking proposals but only pricing and/or identification of alternate products, impacts, and market trends. VA desires identification of enterprise proven alternate products that have been demonstrated to operate at a similar level of size, scope, and complexity of the current VA environment. VA owns and maintains licenses and subscriptions for the Microsoft products identified in the attached spreadsheet. The exact number of users/licenses is dynamic and will be revised in any request for proposals. This list is not all inclusive of the Microsoft products being considered but shows those products which are considered critical to VA s mission. Responses: For this RFI, VA has broken apart the current Microsoft EA into key technical domains with its respective MS Product Equivalency to further understand the size, scope and complexity of the VA enterprise. Detailed Microsoft product listings, by technical Domain are provided in the attached spreadsheet. These functional areas are parsed by technology domain with their respective current state descriptions as described below: Table 1: Domain Functional Matrix Domain Functional Matrix Key Technical Domain MS Product Equivalent Current State Description Collaboration Services MS Office, Project, SharePoint, Visio, MS Teams, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, OneDrive, Exchange Online Protection. VA currently owns and operates over 574,000 Microsoft user subscriptions. This includes traditional workstations, laptops, and tablets. Each of these devices is equipped with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Exchange Services, and SharePoint as components of Microsoft 365, an operating system (either Microsoft Windows or Apple iOS), and rights to access Microsoft Server and Cloud products. VA also operates 16 on premise Microsoft Exchange Servers. Desktop Windows 365, Windows 10, Windows 11, Intune VA currently utilizes Microsoft Intune, included with the 574,000 M365 G3 subscriptions owned by VA, as part of its endpoint management strategy. VA also leverages Endpoint Management with Microsoft Intune device licensing; providing endpoint, configuration and operations management and Mobile Device Management to maintain mobile devices. Server MS SQL Server, Window Servers, Microsoft Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) VA owns and operates over 26,500 physical and virtual Microsoft Windows Servers to support 574,000 users. VA users will access the numerous shared services of Microsoft Server including but not limited to Active Directory, Kerberos Authentication, Certificate Services, Domain Naming Service, Windows File Service, etc. VA owns and operates over 4,100 Microsoft SQL servers within our physical and virtual environments supporting 574,000 users. Develop GitHub, GitHub Advance Security, Bing Maps, Visual Studio, Azure DevOps, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Actions, GitHub Codespaces VA currently owns over 18,000 GitHub Enterprise subscriptions, with over 7,102 Advanced Security subscriptions. VA currently owns BingMaps transactional licenses supporting up to 180,000,000 transactions per month. Additionally, VA owns over 1,600 Visual Studio Enterprise and 80 Visual Studio Professional Subscriptions. Security Defender VA owns over 574,000 M365 G3 subscriptions, providing Exchange Online Protection, G5 Security suite subscriptions, providing Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Identity and Defender for O365, as well as 27,000 Defender for Endpoint Server licenses. Identity Azure Active Directory, Entra VA owns and operates over 574,000 M365 G3 client licenses, which include AAD (Entra) Plan 1 Conditional Access and Multifactor Authentication, and Microsoft Identity Management included with the M365 G5 Security suite. Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) Dynamics 365 VA owns and operates over 18,000 client licenses for Dynamics Case Management and 35,000 licenses for Microsoft Dynamics Customer Service. Compliance Purview, eDiscovery VA owns 574,000 M365 G5 compliance suite subscriptions providing Data Loss Prevention, eDiscovery, and Compliance Management. Business Process/ Intelligence Management (BPIM) Power BI, Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agent) VA owns and operates over 24,000 PowerApps per user and 23,000 Power Apps per app subscriptions, and over 7,000 Power BI Professional and several Power BI Premium subscriptions, hosting over 3,000 workspaces Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) ExpressRoutes, Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows Remote Desktop VA has access to Azure Virtual Desktop included with each of the 574,000 end user M365 G3 subscriptions. VA also owns 160,000 Windows Remote Desktop User CAL s as well as multiple ExpressRoutes. The ExpressRoutes are connected at each of VA s 4 Trusted Internet Connection 2.0 (TIC 2.0) cloud access points. Platform as a Service (PaaS) Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks VA uses Microsoft Synapse Analytics and Azure Databricks to provide a unified, open analytics platform fur building, deploying, sharing, and maintaining enterprise-grade data, analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions at scale. Professional Services Microsoft Unified Support, Ad-hoc Professional Services VA utilizes Microsoft Professional Support Services to provide reactive problem resolution and high-end technical support for all deployed Microsoft products, providing complete end-to-end managed support across the full Microsoft spectrum of products and services within the VA environment. Cloud Services Azure, Azure Marketplace VA uses the full suite of cloud services as defined in NIST SP 800-145 in both Azure Public and Government Community Cloud (High). There are currently over 100 services utilized and authorized by FedRAMP in the VA Enterprise Cloud. Any alternate product or technology identified in response to this RFI must provide at least the same capabilities as the current commercially available version of the Microsoft product equivalent identified in the attached spreadsheet. VA does not seek to fragment capabilities in an identified Functional Technical Domain. For example, for Collaboration Services, VA seeks a comprehensive alternative and is not interested in investigating only the word processor or other individual components of the Microsoft Office suite. For each technical domain identified, VA desires identification of enterprise proven alternate products that have been demonstrated to operate at a similar level of size, scope, and complexity of the current VA environment. VA also seeks information on associated licenses or resource consumption required as part of acquisition and operation of that technology over a term of 5 years. Please submit a response to each question below, using the Domain Functional Matrix identified on Table 1 above, and the MS RFI Products by Domain Addendum. Responses to questions 1 4 should be entered onto the MS RFI Products by Domain Addendum. Responses to the remaining questions should be no longer than 25 pages, not including the attached spreadsheet (addendum). Questions per Key Technical Domain: Provide pricing information for the Microsoft products identified, or for alternate products recommended, on the appropriate tab(s) on the attached spreadsheet. Where applicable, identify proposed alternate product/solution for products on each key functional area tab that will provide at least the same capabilities as the current Microsoft product. Insert your answer in the Equivalent Product(s) column in each tab on the MS RFI Products by Domain Addendum. Assess the products compliance with Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. If less than 100%, estimate date when product will be fully compliant. Insert your answer in the Functional Area Matrix Addendum drop down column Section 508 Compliant and additional comments for more details if this product is less than 100% compliant. Is your company currently providing similar services to any government agency or other non-government customers? If so, please identify the agency or non-government customer in the column titled US Government Department/Agency . If you are unwilling to share your customers' identity, please address whether your company offers the same or similar services, commercially (outside the federal government). Is the product FedRAMP authorized and at what level if applicable. Provide your responses in the MS RFI Products by Domain Addendum columns titled FedRAMP and US Government/Department Agency along with any additional comments if needed. Provide recommendations on available tiered pricing based on the identified quantities for each product (if available). For the Microsoft products listed, please identify any alternative licensing models. What contractual or service level agreements (SLAs) do you offer for service outage or degradation processing/equitable price adjustments, when SaaS elements become unavailable or degraded beyond agreed upon levels. VA seeks to understand how user minutes of service are calculated along the published service SLAs and the procedures, with timelines associated with adjustments. Provide details on all available methods for obtaining Microsoft Professional Services (e.g., LCAT, DDDC (flex credits)) and identify the advantages, pricing structure(s), or tiering opportunities associated with each. Provide details on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities (e.g., Copilot, Codespaces) are licensed/priced across Microsoft products, including specific SKU and pricing information. Provide details on associated costs to operate features or entitlements included with any of the identified MS products or identified alternatives (e.g., cloud credit consumption, storage, logging). Provide information on available tools to effectively track, manage, and understand cloud costs across the identified products. What innovative concepts does your proposed solution provide? Does your company and associated subcontractors use a Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) program? For any alternative products identified, briefly describe an implementation approach of this product within similar size, scope, and complexity of VA and a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) for the initial purchase, implementation effort and subsequent years. Describe the transition strategy, timeline, training and associated costs to migrate from the current Microsoft implementation to the proposed solution. What is the end user impact? Specifically, VA seeks to understand how implementation of the identified alternate product/solution will integrate into each area solution currently being operated. The description of this should be as extensive as necessary because seamless integration and interoperability are critical. Please submit a response to each question below regarding your company. Responses should be no longer than 2 pages. Include the following identification information: Name of Company Address Point of Contact Phone Number Fax Number Email address CAGE Number Company Business Size and Status for NAICS (enter in current NAICS code for requirement) NAICS code(s) Any Schedules held on General Services Administration (GSA), Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWAC) held on SAM.gov or any other schedule not mentioned above to assist in determining acquisition strategy if you are included in one or more. Please also include Contract Number, expiration date, etc. Socioeconomic data: If a small business, what type of small business are you? Are you able to comply with FAR 52.219-6 and 52.219-14 in execution of this effort? Are you able to comply with VAAR 852.219-10, VA Notice of Total Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Set-Aside and with subcontracting limitations in 13 CFR 125.6 in execution of this effort? Responses are due no later than Friday January 5, 2024 at 3PM EST via email to both kalil.oneal@va.gov and matthew.newell@va.gov. Mark your response as Proprietary Information if the information is considered business sensitive. Post RFI Phase Based on market research results, the RFP/RFQ may be made available on Contracting Opportunities found at SAM.gov. It is the responsibility of interested parties to regularly monitor the SAM.gov for updates. The government will not provide hard copies of the solicitation once issued. Interested parties are responsible for monitoring the website and downloading the solicitation, its attachments, and any amendments from the internet site identified above when/if issued. All information regarding the procurement is provided herein, and no additional information shall be provided at this time.
- Web Link
-
SAM.gov Permalink
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- Record
- SN06928679-F 20240107/240105230046 (samdaily.us)
- Source
-
SAM.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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