Title

USDA Cloud BOA Request for Information (RFI) for Pool 1 Hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSP)

Background

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is contemplating issuing a suite of department-wide Cloud Basic Ordering Agreements (BOA) to obtain rapid access to hyperscale cloud service providers, cloud integration and development providers, and SaaS providers/resellers. This collection of BOAs, formally known as USDA STRATUS, will provide rapid access to cloud capabilities.

STRATUS is envisioned as consisting of three multi-award pools of services and vendors:

Pool 1: Hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSP)

Pool 2: Cloud Integration and Development

Pool 3: SaaS providers/resellers

Where each pool will have multiple awardees.

The Office of Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) of USDA OCIO’s Digital Infrastructure Services Center (DISC) https://www.usda.gov/disc is the program owner. DISC provides enterprise-wide IT services to USDA Mission Area (MA) (see https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas) customers as well as external Federal Government customers.

Market research indicates that a limited number of sources are capable of meeting USDA’s Pool 1 Hyperscale CSP requirements. Interested parties are asked to identify their interest and capability to respond to this requirement, and provide feedback as requested below.

Environment

DISC serves as the broker for all cloud services within USDA and can also serve as a managed service provider for cloud, hosting and development services to internal and external customers, requiring DISC to have direct privity of contract with each qualified hyperscale Cloud Service Provider (CSP). To fulfill its managed services role in design, implementation, and operations of cloud services, DISC needs to have direct access to all relevant CSP tools and dashboards including those for pricing, ordering, and invoicing. It also needs to have direct communications with CSP pre-sales engineering and solutioning resources, and direct access to CSP technical support services throughout the delivery and ongoing support phases of its customer projects.

For its cloud brokerage role, DISC needs to maintain centralized management of shared services while enabling distributed control within the MAs for those MAs that require it on design, architecture, and deployment. DISC needs to exert appropriate oversight and management of cloud services for the USDA including the ability to apply security policies; monitor security compliance and service usage across the network; and promulgate standardized service configurations; and to automate, to the extent possible, and distribute the account provisioning process, including the management of budgets and expenditures, from DISC to its customers. This complex environment, with DISC functioning as both a cloud broker for some customers and as a managed service provider to other customers, necessitates DISC to have direct privity of contract with the CSPs.

Required Capabilities

The solution must have a mechanism for activating and/or deactivating any cloud service offering for USDA. There must be a mechanism to provision cloud services based on standardized, templated configurations and security policies, as well as user-friendly mechanisms to deprovision any and/or all services. The solution must also provide object and resource access control management, including data and resource tagging for billing tracking, access control, and technical policy management.

The solution must provide universally available, resilient cloud services that are reliable, durable, and can continue to operate despite failure of portions of the infrastructure. The infrastructure must be capable of supporting dispersed users at varied security levels.

The solution must offer efficient self-service of cloud services enabling rapid development and deployment of new applications and advanced capabilities. Additionally, the solution must support the portability of data and applications both out of and into their solution. USDA must retain ownership of its data at all times.

Advanced data analytics services are required that securely enable data-driven and timely decision making both within a single data domain and across data domains. Advanced data analytics capabilities must support batch and streaming analytics; predictive analytics; machine learning; and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Advanced data analytics must be available at all security levels, including disparate and disconnected environments operating on multiple datasets. These capabilities must, at a minimum, be able to import and export streaming and batch data in common data formats.

Baseline discounts are required with transparent mechanisms to increase cost savings to USDA based on measurable and right-sized metrics for the expected range of usage over the life of the STRATUS BOA.

Pool 1 Solicitation Approach

Following extensive internal and external market research, including due-diligence meetings with leading hyperscale CSPs and requests for information, a limited distribution solicitation is anticipated to be issued.

Requested Information

Interested parties are requested to respond to the following, regarding Pool 1 as described above:

1. What is your company information: company name, address, UEI, point of contact, and relevant corporate website.

2. What contracting best practices (e.g., pricing structures, contract types, performance metrics, incentives, etc.) do you recommend for this requirement?

3. Explain if there are any constraints that would prevent your organization from responding to a Pool 1 solicitation based on the description above.

4. Describe your capabilities and corporate experience in providing hyperscale cloud service provisioning, including identifying relevant contracts where you have been a prime contractor providing similar services. In this response section, include a description of how your firm can meet each of the required capabilities listed above.

5. Do you have any recommendations on how best the Federal security, in particular FedRAMP requirements, should be addressed in this solicitation to enable full compliance while allowing innovative solutions to be tested and deployed?

6. Describe your approach and methodologies to define consumption and tiered pricing models that you believe best fit the complex operating environment described above; describe your capabilities in streamlining and automating ordering and invoicing data and processes.

Submission Information

Please submit responses to this request for information by email to:

Charles Freeman, Contracting Officer

Frederick.Freeman@usda.gov

The deadline for submissions is Thursday, May 4, 2023, NLT 5:00 PM EDT.

Please limit your response to no more than 30 single-spaced, single-sided 8.5”x11” pages, with a minimum 11-point font (10 point font in tables or exhibits).

Notes

1. This is a request for information and is not a request for proposals.

2. No awards will be made as a result of this notice.

3. Responses will be used to inform the USDA acquisition strategy.

4. Some respondents may be invited to one-on-one information exchanges with USDA.

5. Not all respondents, and possibly no respondents, will be invited to one-on-one information exchanges with USDA.

6. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued.

7. This is a new contract vehicle. Similar services are currently obtained using a variety of contract vehicles, a listing of which will not be provided.

8. Industry feedback is greatly appreciated!

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