NATO UNCLASSIFIED. : Amendment 2 to RFQ-CO TIP Performance, Measurement, Analysis, Reporting & Benchmarking and Enterprise Control Room

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1 NATO UNCLASSIFIED ACQUISITION Telephone: +32 (0) Fax: +32 (0) NCIA/ACQ/2015/ January 2015 To Subject : Prospective Bidders : Amendment 2 to RFQ-CO TIP Performance, Measurement, Analysis, Reporting & Benchmarking and Enterprise Control Room NCI AGENCY RESPONSES TO BIDDERS CLARIFICATION REQUESTS Reference(s) : A. NCIA/ACQ/2014/8049 dated 03 December 2014 (RFQ) B. NCIA/ACQ/2014/8115 dated 18 December 2014 (Amendment 1 to RFQ) Dear Sir / Madam, 1. In accordance with paragraph 2.6 of Book I - Bidding Instructions of the RFQ in reference, this letter provides in Annex 1 the list of RFQ Clarification Requests (CR) received by the NCI Agency to date and the corresponding NCI Agency responses. 2. Bids shall be submitted against the RFQ requirements, taking into account the Purchaser s published answers, which shall be regarded as the authoritative interpretation of the RFQ. 3. To answer general questions received informally by the Agency regarding the scope of work addressed by the subject RFQ, additional information regarding the scope of work expected to be delivered is provided in Annex 2 that supplements the background information provided in the Statement of Work. We hope that this additional information will provide further clarity to the prospective bidders. 4. The NCI Agency has received requests for extension of the time limit for bids in accordance with paragraph 2.4 of the Book I - Bidding Instructions of the RFQ at Reference A. 5. In response to the above request the NCI Agency is hereby granting additional fourteen (14) calendar days counting from the previous Bid Closing Date as indicated in the RFQ Bidding Instructions under reference A. 6. Therefore, the Bid Closing Date and Time as indicated in the Bidding NATO UNCLASSIFIED Page 1 of 2

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3 N A T O U N C L A S S I F I E D Annex 1 to NCIA/ACQ/2015/734 Index No. Bidder's Question NCI Agency Answer CR#1 Where do you fit in the license terms of the partner? License terms are part of the bid and will form part of the contract upon contract award. Should there be supplemental agreements that need to be executed, there shall be proposed as part of Certificate A7 of the Bidding Instructions. Otherwise, the terms and conditions of the prospective contract related to licensing shall apply. CR#2 Are bids only for software possible? Partial bids shall be rejected in accordance with paragraph of the Bidding Instructions. CR#3 What response is expected for the Visual analytics tool and the Analytical ETL tool from a functional and technical point of view? NATO CI Agency expects the bid to identify the proposed tools, and to provide a comprehensive technical and functional description (accompanied by supporting evidence as required). CR#4 Are we expected to deliver the technical architecture, deployment and integration services? Please confirm Yes/No. No such delivery is required. In Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section II.A, the aim is stated as "infrastructure procurement, customization, setup and installation to support the development [highlight added]of NCI Agency capabilities" in other projects. As further outlined in Book II, Part IV, Section III (Contractor s responsibility), the Contractor shall provide to the Purchaser the Supplies and Services listed in the Schedule of Supplies and Services (SSS) fulfilling the requirements given in the Statement of Work (SOW). CR#5 Are we expected to deliver managed services ([software supplier] remote administration) for the [software supplier] environments in place at NATO ( [software supplier] software layer only). Please confirm Yes/No. Do you have requirements regarding SLAs. Please detail. Are we expected to support the change management process (ITIL). Are we expected to support the release and deployment process (ITIL) CR#6 Are we expected to deliver incident management (ITIL) for the [software supplier] environments in place at NATO ([software supplier] software layer only). Please confirm Yes/No. Do you have requirements regarding SLAs. Please detail. CR#7 Are we expected to deliver problem management (ITIL) for [the software supplier] environments in place at NATO ([software supplier] software layer only). Please confirm Yes/No. Do you have requirements regarding SLAs? Please detail. CR#8 Are we expected to organize the governance structure? No such delivery is required, see response to CR#4 for details. CR#9 How will the governance be set up between the involved parties (NATO [hardware supplier] [software supplier])? Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section VI gives details about the expected project management arrangements. Further governance structures are not deemed necessary. CR#10 Who will be implementing the helpdesk function? No such delivery is required, see response to CR#4 for details. CR#11 In order to provide a sizing estimate, more detailed information is needed on following topics: How many of the named users will have concurrent sessions? An assumption of 5% concurrent users will be made when no answer is received. How many of the named users will be information consumers that consult interactive dashboards/reports? (as opposed to power users that will perform analytics such as decision trees) An assumption of 95% information consumers will be made when no answer is received. Concerning the 30 GB of heterogeneous data to be handled by the tool, what is the average table size table size of a single data source? An assumption of 2GB will be made when no answer is received. What is the expected response time for the Visual analytics tool? No assumptions about the number of concurrent sessions or about the average table sizes have been made by NCI Agency. NCI Agency expects 99 % of all users to be "information consumers" only. The expected response time for the Visual Analytics tool is 20 milliseconds, equalling no perceivable delay. CR#12 How much environments (i.e. production, acceptance, development, ) should be put in place? This doesn't affect bidders, as it is to be specfied and implemented at a later stage by the project(s) supported by this procurement (see response to CR#4 for details). The assumption was that there will be two environments in total, either a production environment with a single failover, or two separate environments (e.g. development & production) without any failover at all. Each environment would be equipped with three servers (one for the Visual Analytics tool, one for the analytical ETL tool, and one for SQL Server). CR#13 How much failover environments in other datacenters should be put in place? See response to CR#12. CR#14 Can the hardware be upgraded to use 256GB RAM? Please confirm Yes/No. This is not foreseen. Requirement R-COTS-SRV-3 specifies 128 GB of RAM in total. It is the responsibility of the bidder to ensure and demonstrate in his bid that providing a different RAM quantity would still meet the requirements and that the equipment would deliver the expected outcome with such a change CR#15 The Excel bidding sheet mentions a quantity of 6 for Server S/W Package and H/W Package. Where does this number come from? Can this number be changed? This number cannot be changed, as it relates to the assumptions clarified in response to CR#12. CR#16 With regards to requirement R-COTS-SRV-10: will bids containing software tools that run on linux be considered as compliant? Please confirm Yes/No. Background of this question: RFQ mentions Stream 5 on Big Data, with Cloudera as an example. Hadoop (and Cloudera) run currently only stable on Linux distributions, not on Windows. Hence if there is need for big data and Hadoop, a Linux server should be available anyway, then why limiting the server infrastructure for this bid to Windows. No, as the work streams described in Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section II.B merely provide contextual information on the "projects and work streams supported by this procurement" (see response to CR#4 for details). The servers used to run complementary Big Data solutions are out of scope for this acquisition. CR#17 With regards to requirement R-COTS-SCR-6: will bids containing the following software tools be considered as compliant? Please confirm Yes/No. A Visual analytics tool that relies purely on the browser s capabilities for multi-touch events. Yes, this appears to be a compliant solution for a fully browser-based visual analytics tool. N A T O U N C L A S S I F I E D

4 N A T O U N C L A S S I F I E D Annex 1 to NCIA/ACQ/2015/734 CR#18 With regards to requirement R-BB-SHR-1: will bids containing the following software tools be considered as compliant? Please confirm Yes/No. A Visual analytics tool that has the removal of Adobe Flash plug-in for information consumers on the roadmap for April 2015, and for power users on the roadmap for October An Analytical ETL tool that has a browser interface for explorative purposes in a sandbox by end users and a thin client (Java Web Start) for industrialization purposes by power users. No, tools requiring proprietary plug-ins at the time of bidding are not compliant with R-BB-SHR-1. CR#19 With regards to requirement R-BB-VA-17: will tools providing XML export be considered as compliant? Please confirm Yes/No. No, as HTML5 is a discrete sub-set of XML allowing for end-user formatting markup rendered by a browser. XML as the superset doesn't include this capability, and NCI Agency has no interest in developing a converter for this purpose. CR#20 There are multiple streams defines in the RFQ : SQL/ETL, Dashboards, predictive Analytics, Big Data innovation. How does this relate to physical servers? Some of these streams require a different use and/or configuration of the server components. How should this be handled? Is this foreseen in the 6 systems mentioned in the bidding sheet 1.1 Hardware? The work streams described in Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section II.B merely provide contextual information on the "projects and work streams supported by this procurement". This doesn't affect bidders, as it is to be specfied and implemented at a later stage by the project(s) supported by this procurement (see response to CR#4 for details). Also, as outlined in the response to CR#16, the servers used to run complementary Big Data solutions are out of scope for this acquisition. CR#21 CR#22 CR#23 About Microsoft Licensing : does NATO have Enterprise License Agreements for Microsoft technology? Is the software mentioned in this RFQ that needs to be pre-installed (Windows Server 2012 R21 and MS SQL Server 2012) already covered by existing license agreements between NATO and Microsoft? The RFQ indicates that the main control room is located in the Hague, with other users in Brussels and Mons. Can you specify how many users will be located at each location? Can you clarify as to how the training is to be conducted? 5 sessions in each location or a total of 5 sessions in all three locations? Yes, there is an Enterprise Agreement in place. The software in question (Windows Server 2012 R21 and MS SQL Server 2012) is covered by this Enterprise Agreement. The related licenses will be provided to the contractor as a Purchaser Furnished Equipment (PFE). The RFQ does not state that there will be a main control room in The Hague. In fact, as Figure 1 in Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section II.C shows, the intention is to provide a "distributed Control Room access" capability, following NCI Agency's distributed geographical footprint. As such, access will not be limited to the three major locations only. Also, as no location-specific usage scenarios have been created, NCI Agency cannot specify how many users are expected at each location. A total of 5 sessions is expected, with locations for each of these to be determined based on the training contents and the size of the targetted user base. CR#24 Is there a time frame to completing the 5 sessions? Looks to be 5 working days per each session? Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section IV.C specifies that "each training session shall not exceed 5 working days". If trainings meeting the other requirements require shorter sessions only, this will be acceptable as well. CR#25 Are we allowed to provide a train the trainer(s) course? The nature and structure of the trainings required to address requirements in Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section IV.C are at the Bidder's discretion. As such, "train the trainer" courses can be adequate. CR#26 Can you provide a list of what hardware is to be delivered to what location? It appears that the servers and data storage equipment will go to the Hague, but we need a breakdown on what multi touch interface hardware will go in to each of the 3 facilities? Given the upcoming construction works in NCI Agency's major locations, no delivery address has been specified in advance. Bidders can assume, however, that all multitouch interface hardware can be delivered to one single location as appropriate (either the Hague, Brussels or Mons), whereas the servers and data storage equipment may need to go to another (or the same) location - also either the Hague, Brussels or Mons. Individual devices will be dispatched further by NCI Agency as appropriate. CR#27 Is there a technical support user support services element assumed with the warranty, or is it a warranty only on replacement? Can we propose a technical support break/fix option in addition to a total replacement if needed? As the hardware in question may be used to store classified information up to NATO RESTRICTED (NR) level, equipment replacement is the only option to exercise warranty functions. CR#28 In Book II Part IV of the RFQ Section II C, the ECR/PMAR project deliverables supported by the procurement has a list of six bullet items. Our assumption is that the work effort required by the RFQ does not include any labor hours to implement any of those six bullet items. Is this a correct assumption? This assumption is correct, also see response to CR#4. CR#29 In Book II Part IV of the RFQ Section IV C-1, it is stated that The contractor furnished training shall enable the Purchaser to fully understand all function of the Software Tools and further customize them to the Purchasers need. (Sic). Will NATO provide access to the SMEs that are involved in the supporting task areas specified in Section II to develop a contextual training curriculum for the training sessions? In order to obtain a better training experience, NATO CI Agency will aim to provide access to SMEs involved in the implementation project(s) mentioned in response to CR#4. CR#30 In Book II Part IV of the RFQ Section IV B-3-a, Items R-BB-ETL-1 through R-BB-ETL-8 details requirement for an ETL tool, whereas in Section B-1 Procurement Approach, the referenced Gartner MQ for Analytical ETL Software references the Analytical Platform that is a quadrant for Analytical Platforms like SAS, IBM SPSS etc. Is NATO looking to purchase a comprehensive Analytical Platform? If not, can we use the 2014 Gartner MQ for Data Integration Platforms (available at ) as the basis for our recommendation? Bidders are reminded that Book II Part IV of the RFQ Section IV B-1 specifies the intent to procure an "analytical ETL tool", whose functionality goes beyond conventional Data Integration Platforms. Requirements R- BB-ETL-6 through R-BB-ETL-8 are indicative of this extended functionality, as is requirement R-BB-ETL-4 to some extent. CR#31 In Book II Part IV of the RFQ Section IV-D-2- Licensing, it is mentioned that the contractor is required to cover named users, is there a split up of the user count across the NATO member countries? In line with the response to CR#22, no such user count breakdown scenarios have been specified. CR#32 Pragraph 3 of the prospective Special Contract Provisions mentions a different scope of work than the one of the cover letter. Please clarify Paragraph 3 of the prospective contract Special Provisions shall read as follows: 3. SCOPE OF WORK PROVISION OF PERFORMANCE, MEASUREMENT, ANALYSIS, REPORTING & BENCHMARKING AND ENGINE CONTROL ROOM 3.1. The Contractor shall perform the activities to deliver Performance, Measurement, Analysis, Reporting & Benchmarking and Engine Control Room as per Part IV - Statement of Work and in accordance with Part I - Schedule of Supplies and Services for the firm fixed prices stated in this Contract. CR#33 Paragraph 4.2 of the prospective Special Contract Provisions mentions potentially placing sub-contrats with firms in Afghanistan. Please clarify Paragraph 4 of the prospective Special Contract provisions is cancelled. Paragraph 9 of the prospective general contract provisions apply. N A T O U N C L A S S I F I E D

5 NATO UNCLASSIFIED Annex 2 to NCIA/ACQ/2015/734 RFQ clarification Ref.: RFQ-CO TIP Performance, Measurement, Analysis, Reporting & Benchmarking and Enterprise Control Room In response to informal comments about the content of the aforementioned RFQ, the following clarifications are hereby offered: 1. The RFQ in question concerns hardware and software procurement only. The Schedule of Supplies and Services (SSS) delivers a compact overview of the anticipated order of delivery. 2. The RFQ is merely the vehicle to provide hardware and software assets required to complement existing Agency capabilities. Additional services beyond the ones outlined in the SSS are not required. Section II (Introduction / overall project context) of Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work) merely describes the overall Agency business context in which these procurements are made. None of the content therein constitutes a requirement of any kind. 3. Hardware requirements are specific due to data centre interoperability needs. No deviation from these requirements can be accepted. 4. As indicated in Book II, Part IV (Statement of Work), Section IV (Requirements), subsection B1, Gartner Magic Quadrant references are given for the required best-ofbreed software. These are in the areas of a. Business Intelligence and Analytics (with highlighted data discovery strengths reference given for the Visual Analytics tool), and in b. Advanced Analytics Platforms (reference given for the analytical ETL software). NATO UNCLASSIFIED Page 1 of 1