VA-25-00016458 Enterprise Virtualization Modernization. RFI

Department of Veterans Affairs Request for Information Enterprise Virtualization Modernization October 29, 2024 This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. Do not submit a proposal. This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be considered a Request for Proposal. Additionally, there is no obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services described in this RFI. Your response to this RFI will be treated only as information for the Government to consider. You will not be entitled to payment for direct or indirect costs that you incur in responding to this RFI. This request does not constitute a solicitation for proposals or the authority to enter into negotiations to award a contract. No funds have been authorized, appropriated or received for this effort. The information provided may be used by the VA in developing its acquisition strategy. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. The Government does not intend to pay for the information submitted in response to this RFI. INTRODUCTION It is requested that all contractors interested in participating in this effort please note their interest and provide indication of their respective capabilities to perform the effort described in the Performance Work Statement (PWS) for Enterprise Virtualization Modernization. See draft PWS below for details. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code for this RFI is 513210 Software Publishers, with a Small Business Size Standard of $47 Million, and Product Service Code (PSC) of DA10. If this is within your capability, please provide your response no later than November 5, 2024 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time. Be advised that set-aside decisions may be made based on the information provided in response to this RFI. Responses should be as complete and informative as possible. DRAFT PWS REQUIREMENTS Enterprise Virtualization Modernization Requirements: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information and Technology (OIT) has a requirement to adapt and modernize their virtualization infrastructure to support multi-cloud and expanded automation options. The current environment is predominately VMware by Broadcom, with over 50,000 virtual machines, 4,000 virtualization hosts, at 300+ locations. VA is asking industry to provide capabilities, services, and pricing to scope a possible replacement, to include advanced technical support and migration services from legacy environment. Software and Software Licensing Provide virtualization software, software licensing, and/or managed service provider offerings to encompass VA virtualization infrastructure with the following characteristics: Approximately 200,000 physical compute cores 12,000 physical processor sockets 2.4PB RAM 2PB hyperconverged storage 180PB of traditional storage (FC, NFS, iSCSI, NVMe/TCP) Industry should account for the following existing infrastructure limitations and capabilities: 300+ physical locations, latency of up to 150ms rtt from central data center locations or 250ms rtt from cloud service providers; WAN MTU not to exceed 1460 bytes. Approximately 1000 virtual machines are supported by warm-site replication and automatic disaster recovery and shall be accounted for by replacement offering. Approximately 60% Windows-based, 35% Linux-based, 5% vendor appliance and/or containerized applications. Existing container environment is OpenShift based, proposed solution must support native container hosting and management; as well as OpenShift based containerization. Traditional storage presentation from highly-available appliances, providing NFS, iSCSI, or NVMe/TCP storage presentation. IPv4 and IPv6 Traditional Network Presentation of layer 2 services, routing functions are not extended to virtualization infrastructure. Uplinks are typically trunked, without bonding to highly-available switches using 10 or 25gbe. Hypervisor/OS storage may be utilizing Secure Digital (SD Card) for minority of sites, M.2, or RAID 1 drives for majority of sites. The minority of sites utilizing hyperconverged infrastructure are primarily Dell VxRail or VMware vSAN locations. All hosts are currently supported by existing VMware by Broadcom Hardware Compatibility Guide. All hosts, guests and management infrastructure are configured to FISMA High, with the minority configured to PCI DSS and/or IL5. Solution must support Two-Factor Authentication globally, using principal of least privilege, using VA active directory or Azure Entra AD credentials. Automation Requirements: VA expects a product to support multi-cloud automation and deployments, to include PXE or on-demand ISO boot provisioned virtual machines across all virtualization hosts, allowing customer (product owner) non-administrative console access to the provisioned virtual machines. This product shall support both on-premises and external cloud service providers, both government and commercial offerings. The product shall allow custom scripting or ancillary script engine or automation engine services to provide all Day-0, Day-1, Day-2 customization tasks to include changes to VM provisioning, guest configurations, security configurations and changes. VA requires training be provided integral to software offering. Training shall include virtual instructor led training for at least 8 sessions with up to 24 VA attendees; per-year. On-Demand Computer Based Training shall be available, without limit, to VA employees and designated contractor staff. Virtual instructor led training shall include installation and maintenance of proposed solution; to include advanced design and troubleshooting. VA does not require software providers be a commercial off the shelf (COTS) offering. VA will consider software offerings without integrated support, where the software responsibilities (i.e. security configuration) are provided by the service provider. Provide 1, 3, and 5-year pricing for all encompassing licensing; for this request, managed service providers can include hardware and software providers where the hardware, software, and the services providers are the same (primarily cloud service provider offerings). If the product provided is a commercial offering requiring warranty, support, or maintenance subscriptions, pricing must be included in offering. If a commercial offering is provided, VA requires 24x7x365 day 30-minute initial response support, to include cleared support staff, FboNotice cause analysis and automated and manual escalations. If offering is not a commercial support offering, professional services to provide above support equivalency must be included in overall Software and Software Licensing cost. For commercial offerings, all source code, at no time will manufacturer firmware or subcomponent firmware, source code or software be developed, sourced, or provided by the following countries: Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, Crimea region of Ukraine, People's Republic of China, Venezuela; or any country that is prohibited from export of U.S cryptography modules; or restricted imports, export, reexport or materiel modifications with information technology, cryptography components. Countries included in the Wassenaar Arrangement are generally not included in these restrictions, with the exception of Russia and other countries not identified as country group A:1 exempt in Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Supplement No. 1 to Part 740. Managed Services Provide professional services for two primary functions, design, engineering, installation, maintenance, and lifecycle management of provided Software and Software Licensing. To include scripting, provisioning support of all Day-x tasks and taskings, security vulnerability remediation and high-level operations support. This shall be follow-the-sun support, for US EST 0800-1800 daily; with after-hours support and after-hours maintenance tasks performed. All solutions shall be deployed to a FISMA High (or higher) functionality level. Within the Managed Services offerings, system steward function for ATO shall be included. All staff shall be VA badged, credentialed and cleared; Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) will be provided if needed. All support staff shall be continental-US based. Migration and Implementation Support Services Provide services and any ancillary scripting or expertise to migration from a VMware by Broadcom solution to proposed replacement solution. This shall include hypervisor redeployment, virtual machine migration and any modifications to virtual machines or hardware necessary for these functional migrations. Migrations shall occur during coordinated customer maintenance windows, often after normal business hours to minimize impact. All issues that occur and any ancillary costs of said migration shall be accounted for within this Migration Services. All staff shall be VA badged, credentialed and cleared; GFE will be provided if needed. All support staff shall be continental-US based. RESPONSES Please submit a capability statement describing your company s ability to meet the overall requirement described and responses to the questions below. The capability statement shall be limited to 15 pages. The results of the estimated pricing and technical capabilities shall be used to inform VA s acquisition strategy. Provide a summary of your technical approach for meeting the SOW requirements for Enterprise Virtualization Modernization specific to the following: How does your solution meet VA s virtualization needs described above and currently implemented by VMWare by Broadcom. How does your solution replace the existing implementation; including any functional differences in hosting services or resiliency, benefits, added features or gaps from existing products? What solutions can you offer to address VA's multi-cloud and automation goals? How can your solution improve security and compliance for VA's virtualization environment? Describe any foreseen complications, limitations to support or migration to proposed solution. Provide individual (single host or core) cost breakdown for proposed solution. Provide an estimated timeline for Migration and Implementation Support Services; to migrate all VA infrastructure. For commercial cloud provider offerings, including hardware; please estimate value to government of migration to your offerings. At least two references for previous migration efforts of at least 50,000 virtual machines across 100 geographically unique locations. Please provide a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) for the product/solution being proposed. VA requests assistance in obtaining estimated pricing based on the software and services identified above. Enterprise Software and Software Licensing 1, 3 and 5 year pricing. Managed Services: 1, 3 and 5 year pricing. Migration and Implementation Support Services: provide a summarized price and proposed period of performance. SUBMITTAL INFORMATION: All responsible sources may submit a response in accordance with the below information. NO MARKETING MATERIALS ARE ALLOWED AS PART OF THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. Submit your response via email to the Contract Specialist at luis.lozada-santiago@va.gov and the Contracting Officer at joseph.jones6@va.gov by the time and date indicated herein. Interested Contractors shall at a minimum, provide the following information in the submission: Name of Company: Address: Point of Contact: Phone Number: Email address: Company Business Size and Status: For VOSB and SDVOSBs, proof of verification in the Small Business Administration (SBA) VetCert Database. For firms who are not SBA VetCert verified, please provide VOSB and/or SDVOSB firms you are working with. NAICS code(s): System for Award Management (SAM) Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): General Services Administration (GSA)/ NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) Contract (as applicable): Authorized Distributor Letter: POST RFI PHASE VA envisions that once RFI responses are reviewed, select responders may be invited to provide a face-to-face or telephonic briefing to VA personnel to answer additional questions with respect to the response given. VA retains sole discretion of whether any post RFI briefings are warranted, and which industry partners may be invited to provide additional market research information. Based on market research results, the RFP/RFQ may be made available on NASA SEWP V, GSA or SAM.gov. It is the responsibility of interested parties to regularly monitor the NASA SEWP, GSA or SAM.gov websites for updates. The Government will not provide hard copies of the solicitation once issued. Interested parties are responsible for monitoring the websites 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. OFFERORS ARE ADVISED THAT THIS REQUIREMENT MAY BE DELAYED, CANCELED, OR REVISED AT ANY TIME.

Background
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information and Technology (OIT) is seeking to modernize its virtualization infrastructure to support multi-cloud capabilities and enhanced automation.

The current environment predominantly utilizes VMware by Broadcom, managing over 50,000 virtual machines across more than 300 locations. This Request for Information (RFI) aims to gather industry capabilities, services, and pricing for a potential replacement solution that includes advanced technical support and migration services from the legacy environment.

Work Details
The contractor will be responsible for the following tasks:
1. Provide virtualization software and licensing that supports approximately 200,000 physical compute cores, 12,000 physical processor sockets, 2.4PB RAM, 2PB hyperconverged storage, and 180PB of traditional storage.
2. Address existing infrastructure limitations including latency issues and support for various operating systems (60% Windows-based, 35% Linux-based).
3. Ensure compatibility with existing container environments (OpenShift) and provide native container hosting solutions.
4. Implement multi-cloud automation capabilities allowing for PXE or on-demand ISO boot provisioning across all virtualization hosts.
5. Provide comprehensive training programs including virtual instructor-led sessions and on-demand computer-based training for VA employees.
6. Offer managed services including design, engineering, installation, maintenance, lifecycle management of software licensing, and follow-the-sun support with VA-badged personnel.
7. Facilitate migration from VMware by Broadcom to the proposed solution including hypervisor redeployment and virtual machine migration during coordinated maintenance windows.

Period of Performance
The contract will be performed over a period that includes initial implementation followed by ongoing managed services; specific time frames will be determined based on the final agreement.

Place of Performance
Services will be performed at over 300 physical locations across the United States.