Request for Information Notification - Building and Data Center Tools and Services for Data Center Optimization
THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE FOR THE PURPOSE OF MARKET RESEARCH ONLY - NO AWARD WILL BE MADE NOR WILL FEEDBACK BE PROVIDED AS A RESULT OF THIS NOTICE OR INFORMATION PRESENTED
OBJECTIVE
EBuy Reference Number: RFQ1250505
GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy (OGP), Office of Information Integrity and Access (I2A) is seeking information about data center products and services capabilities of Vendors under all GSA contract vehicles (e.g., GSA Schedules, GWACs, BPAs), to include Partner Organizations, Resellers and Distributors. Information gathered from this Request for Information (RFI) and other market research will assist GSA in developing requirements for a potential new contract vehicle, creation of a Special Item Number (SIN) on IT Schedule 70 or a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA).
The scope of this RFI pertains to the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI) policy requirements, per the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memorandum M-16-19, for automated monitoring and management tools and services in pursuit of optimizing and reducing the number of Federal Data Centers. Due to the existence of the current GSA Schedule 70 SIN 132-40 for Cloud Computing Services, the scope of this requirement does not pertain to cloud solution services.
As a direct result of this RFI, GSA expects to identify Vendors, products and services that will provide expertise in one or more of the following areas: (1) Monitoring/Management tools for DCOI compliance; (2) Energy Optimization Products and Services; (3) Systems Integration/Migration Services; and (4) Commercial Data Center Providers.
REQUESTED RESPONDENTS
● Vendors on GSA contract vehicles (e.g., GSA Schedules, GWACs, BPAs) that support agency contracts and offer data center product and service capabilities
● Non-GSA schedule Vendors interested in sharing information about its data center product and service capabilities with the government
● Companies that only specialize in one particular product or service delivery area as it relates to data center product and service capabilities
SCOPE OVERVIEW
The DCOI policy requires agencies to install automated energy metering tools to measure reporting metrics (e.g., Power Usage Effectiveness, Virtualization, and Server Utilization and Automated Monitoring) as defined in the OMB memorandum, M-16-19. It also directs agencies to continue to optimize and/or close data centers as necessary. GSA's I2A looks to help agencies better understand the tools and consulting services available to achieve DCOI compliance and operational efficiency. To ascertain Vendor capabilities, the government requests interested Vendors to describe how its product(s) or service(s) fits in the following categories and descriptions below.
REFERENCE/BASELINE: CATEGORIES AND DESCRIPTIONS
Area of Focus 1: Monitoring/Management tools for DCOI compliance:
Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) Tools:
● With the ability to automatically collect, display and report required DCOI metric information, as well as additional "Other Examples" listed below
● Must have the capability to interface and receive data from various Building Management Systems (BMS)
● License cost structure and license management information
Other Examples of Monitoring/Management Capabilities:
● Asset Management, Configuration Management Database (CMDB), Capacity Planning, Predictive Planning, Migration What-if Scenarios, Convergent Monitoring, Heat Maps, Virtualization and/or Charge-back Modeling
Area of Focus 2: Energy Optimization Products and Services:
● Energy auditing consulting services with the ability to analyze the entire data center eco-system (e.g., Heat Ventilation & Air Conditioning [HVAC], electricity supply, lighting, water conservation and renewable energy), identify areas of improvement, provide courses of action for operational improvement and cost reduction.
● Containment specialists that can analyze, design, recommend and install high-density hot air or cold air containment systems. This would include information on actual product types, methods and timeframes for installation.
● There is software on the market that can be installed to automatically predict and manage BMS systems like HVAC. Energy efficiencies can be gained in some cases without the need for hot or cold aisle containment. This type of solution would greatly benefit data centers that are not conducive to the installation of a containment system.
Area of Focus 3: Systems Integration/Migration Services:
● Compute and business process analyses to rationalize and leverage appropriate compute services across an agency's entire portfolio. Agencies need assistance to categorize all of their compute that drive their business processes and determine the most effective manner of supplying the requisite compute services to their users.
● Migration Services: Project Management of moves to any new physical compute environment or the implementation of new compute environments would need to include resources, tools, methods, procedures and policies. A typical data migration/implementation project plan might include: inventory/asset gathering, a description of the current environment, service catalog, a description of the process to migrate the data (e.g., tools, standard operating procedures), risks and mitigation approaches for data migration, step-by-step project management and associated professional services costs, a timeline based on operational downtime windows and time estimates of migration, vendor and customer responsibilities during migration, a validation process for data migration, move-group dependency analysis, user acceptance testing, emergency back-out procedures, reporting status to the C-level suite and closure sign-out for completion.
Area of Focus 4: Commercial Data Center Service Providers:
● We request information across the breadth of commercial data center offerings. This would include information about: onboarding, migration of services, space availability, pricing structure, change management integration, power systems capabilities, energy optimization, physical security and site access, reliability, resiliency, tier rating, performance, bandwidth and connectivity to commercial services, disaster recovery and continuity of operations plans.
Area of Focus 5: Other Information that would be beneficial for the government to consider when executing a contract for the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI)Optimizing and reducing the number of Federal Data Centers.
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Briefly describe the nature of the product(s) and/or service(s) you provide. Include a description of your staff composition and management structure.
2. Describe your product or service capabilities that meet the scope of this RFI.
3. Identify which of the focus areas your products or services fall under and describe how it meets the details of the focus area(s).
4. Provide any other information that would be beneficial for the government to consider when executing a contract for optimizing and reducing the number of federal data centers in support of DCOI.
5. Describe what acquisition vehicles, if any, your product or services are currently on.
6. Provide a description of the labor categories your company would use per focus area. Licensing cost model and renewal information as it applies is also requested.
7. Describe your past experience on previous projects similar in scope. Include contract numbers, a brief description of the work performed, a period of performance, agency/organization supported and individual points of contact (phone number and email address).
8. What is the preferred/most common pricing structure for this type of service?
RFI QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS INSTRUCTIONS
Interested Vendors may submit questions and clarification requests for this RFI during the Questions and Answers (Q&A) period via email ONLY, no later than (NLT) 12:00 PM ET, November 21, 2017. All responses shall be submitted via email, noting in the subject line: Questions for Building and Data Center Tools and Services for Data Center Optimization RFI to the attention of the DCOI Team at dcoi@gsa.gov. The government intends to respond to any questions posed by NLT November 27, 2017.
RFI SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Interested Vendors may submit responses to this RFI no later than 12:00 PM ET, December 11, 2017. All responses shall be submitted via email, noting in the subject line: RFI Response-Building and Data Center Tools and Services for Data Center Optimization to the attention of the DCOI Team at dcoi@gsa.gov. In addition to the responses to the QUESTIONNAIRE above, Vendors are encouraged to include the following in RFI response submissions:
● Vendor's (Company's) name
● Company's point(s) of contact's name, phone number and email address(es)
● Vendor's physical address
● Product(s)/Service(s) name, stock number, unique identifier, if applicable
● GSA Schedule contract number and SIN listing (if applicable)
● Company size classification and socioeconomic status (as applicable)
VENDOR RFI RESPONSE FORMAT INSTRUCTIONS
General questions regarding this RFI may be submitted under the title: "Questions for Building and Data Center Tools and Services for Data Center Optimization RFI", in a typed document, MS Word or PDF preferred, (with a font no less than 12 point, Arial or Times New Roman), within no more than two (2) pages. Vendors interested in responding to this RFI shall include the title of this RFI in the subject line: "RFI Response-Building and Data Center Tools and Services for Data Center Optimization" in a typed document, MS Word or PDF preferred, (with a font no less than 12 point, Arial or Times New Roman), within no more than 15 pages. Both response types should be identified in the subject line of the email correspondences. Vendors' responses to this RFI are requested, and will be received via electronic submission ONLY.
GOVERNMENT'S LEGAL DISCLOSURE
PUBLIC RECORDS AND REQUESTS FOR CONFIDENTIALITY
Any document submitted that contains confidential information must be watermarked as containing confidential information, and each page upon which confidential information appears must be marked as containing confidential information. The confidential information must be clearly identifiable to the reader wherever it appears.
COPYRIGHT
By submitting a response, the vendor agrees that the government may copy the response for purposes of facilitation of review or to respond to requests for public records. The vendor certifies that such copying will not violate a copyright of the materials submitted.
CONTENT OF RESPONSES
Responses should be based on the information contained in this RFI and any other relevant information the vendor considers as appropriate. Respondents will not be notified of the results of this source sought notice, and no responses presented will be returned.
COSTS TO VENDOR(S)
Participation in this RFI is strictly voluntary with no cost or obligation to be incurred by the government. The government is not obligated to and will not reimburse any respondents for information received as a result of this.
NO OBLIGATION TO ISSUE REQUEST FOR QUOTE/PROPOSAL/BID
The issuance of this RFI does not obligate the government in any way to solicit for this requirement or will result in an award of a contract. The objective of this RFI is to promote collaboration with the vendor community and give vendors an opportunity to comment on their data center product and service capabilities. At the government's discretion it may decide to hold industry exchange meetings with some/all/none of the interested sources to gather more information after RFI responses have been submitted.
DCOI Team, Email dcoi@gsa.gov - Charles Wingate, Supervisory Contracting Officer, Phone 404-331-1632, Email charles.wingate@gsa.gov
