SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- USITC Enterprise Portal Project
- Notice Date
- 3/17/2004
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 518112
— Web Search Portals
- Contracting Office
- United States International Trade Commission, Office of Facilities Management, Procurement, 500 E Street, SW, Room 414, Washington, DC, 20436
- ZIP Code
- 20436
- Solicitation Number
- ITC-RFC-04-0001
- Response Due
- 4/2/2004
- Archive Date
- 4/17/2004
- Point of Contact
- Deborah Kearns, Contract Specialist, Phone 202-205-3194, Fax 202-205-2337, - Jerome Williams, Contract Specialist, Phone 202-205-2736, Fax 202-205-2337,
- E-Mail Address
-
dkearns@usitc.gov, jwilliams@usitc.gov
- Description
- THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) is preparing for issuance of a Request for Quotes (RFQ) for the subject project. USITC is soliciting comments from interested parties, in order to help draft a Scope of Work (Draft SOW). This procurement will be restricted to vendors from GSA?s Schedule. Your comments will be appreciated and considered as we create the RFQ for the proposed task order. No information on Pricing, Competition, or Evaluation Criteria is available at this time. We would like to ask those responding to this RFI to consider the following issues- 1. Is your firm likely to respond to an RFQ of this type when issued? Would representatives of your firm consider meeting with USITC personnel to provide information on this topic prior to issuance of any RFQ? 2. Are there examples that show that combining the entire web presence of an enterprise into a single portal with common look-and-feel features is a recognized business practice that provides tangible value to users? 3. Are there particular features of a Content Management System (CMS) that would be useful and valuable to the USITC as a tool for creating and managing web content? Are there tangible ways that this value could be recognized and measured? 4. Are there particular features of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and/or a Code Versioning System (CVS) that would be useful and valuable to the USITC as a tool for creating server functions and database access features that support the ITC portal? Are there tangible ways that this value could be recognized and measured? 5. Are there particular features of a control framework that would be useful and valuable to the USITC as a tool for integrating security, new services, and encapsulating legacy systems in support of web content? Are there tangible ways that this value could be recognized and measured? 6. The USITC has prototyped some services using open source software and has been favorably impressed with its reliability and functionality. Are there areas where open source software could lower USITC cost of acquisition without raising the cost of support and operations? 7. Which type of metadata management and website navigation tools are likely to produce the highest level of user satisfaction and productivity for USITC customers? Are there any significant cost trades-offs? Comments may or may not be incorporated in the Statement of Work. Comments will be accepted until April 9, 2004, 4:30 p.m. EST. All comments shall be addressed to Deborah Kearns in writing at (Email preferred: Deborah.kearns@usitc.gov), fax: 202-205-2024, or by mail addressed: USITC, 500 E Street, SW, Attn: Deborah Kearns, Deputy Chief Information Officer for Management, Room 412D, Washington, DC 20436. Attached is a project overview. The document is in MS Word and can be made available in WordPerfect. 1. Project Identification and Scope Background: The ITC is reengineering the usitc.gov website into an enterprise portal, designed to reduce print publishing and mailing costs, while providing users with a more coherent tool for accessing information and services provided by the ITC. This project integrates several other previous projects. The term ?ITC enterprise portal architecture? describes the configuration of a set of several ITC systems merged together using tools that make them work as an integrated platform. The new ITC enterprise portal architecture will present a single point of entry for users on the Internet. The portal tools should consist of centralized resources like those being used by most well run enterprises. We envision a phased build-out with Phase I consisting of basic tools like content management, light application service management, and search engine services that will be used to build our first consumer portal. Initially, a low-impact approach to application integration will consist of simple links to transaction-based web applications, like EDIS and Dataweb. Additional portal architecture tools, more powerful integration layers, automatic data format translation, interactive collaboration, and other functionality can be added in subsequent phases. It is planned that the initial ITC portal project focus on content related issues. Thus the initial strategy described in this document will have the following orientation: instead of custom-developed software applications, the ITC portal should be built using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products whose features meet all current needs as well as anticipating the future of the ITC web portal. Scope: The focus of this project is not solely the web redesign effort. Since many other systems must integrate with the web, this section details areas of responsibility that it is desirable to integrate with the Web redesign project. For the consumer portal portion itself, the following domains of responsibility have been identified: the Internet (http://www.usitc.gov,) Intranet (http://intranet/,) and preparation /management of Electronic Publications. Internet: USITC.GOV & related products With respect to the internet, the project will focus on reorganizing content on the USITC.GOV Web site, improvement of business processes used to maintain that site, and improvements in the overall aesthetic presentation of the USITC.GOV Web site and other web products. Project Responsibilities Improving Web site navigation through usability studies and graphical redesigns. Defining and communicating standards, ensuring the creation of consistent and integrated Web content. Identification and management of Web business processes, including internal controls on content posting and application management. Creating page templates for use by authors. Creating navigation templates, which control the navigational elements to the ITC site. Configuring and maintaining of Web related applications, such as the proposed portal and content management software. Revising future ITC portal structure, designs, and layouts, constantly improving usability and content-posting workflow. Assigning users to groups and giving groups rights to subject-area pages. Intranet: HTTP://INTRANET/ Regarding the intranet, the project will focus on reorganizing all content, improvement of business processes and technologies used to maintain the Intranet, and improvements in the overall aesthetic presentation. Project Responsibilities Maintaining and posting content. Managing all intranet related Web projects for compliance with ITC?s strategic plan, ensuring adherence to the approved Web strategy. Identifying and managing Intranet business processes, including internal controls on content posting. Creating page templates for use by content authors. Creating navigation templates, which control the navigational elements to the ITC Intranet site. Assigning users to groups, and giving groups rights to subject area content. Electronic Publications With respect to electronic publications, the project will focus on improvement of business processes used to electronically prepare and disseminate publications. Project Responsibilities Working with the appropriate program areas, assessing the feasibility of transforming research content into an information-centric (rather than a publication-centric) information source. Improving the web presentation of publications in a manner that allows visitors to find relevant documents faster and more efficiently than they can now. Identifying and managing business processes relating to document preparation, ensuring that efficient workflows are being used by authors. Enterprise Portal Infrastructure With respect to the new enterprise portal infrastructure, the project uses the concept of ?layers?. This project will focus on development of a presentation layer ,enterprise security layer, and application control layer. Figure 1 The top three layers of the Portal consist of: general displays and access provided by the presentation layer; authentication (that is users logging in, and finding out what they can access) governed by the security layer, and the control layer acting as a traffic cop for managing applications and data retrieval. Developing naturally interrelated services like the diagram above, but doing so as independent heterogeneous applications could expose the agency to significant integration risks. Therefore, when building the components of the portal, the ITC will stick closely to a documented standard, which simplifies enterprise applications by basing them on common, modularized components. Using a common standard can also supply many details of application behavior automatically, freeing developers from complex programming, and allowing for upgrades of parts or modules of the system later, without breaking the entire system. Maintainability and scalability are important for ITC?s technical infrastructure?s long-term viability. Re-using proven code can help build applications that operate reliably 24 x 7, enterprise-wide. One term for this type of software recycling is repurposeable resources, which are modules capable of working on many of the various systems. Multitier infrastructures like Figure 1 can be hard to architect and are only made more complex if heterogeneous standards and incompatible environments are used by different ITC systems. Doing so would require bringing together a wide variety of development skill-sets and development resources, which is needlessly expensive. The USITC will consider only the most widely accepted and well proven standards for integrating corporate web environments, examples being J2EE and .NET. Even with adopting a standard like these for the portal, ITC?s future environment may still include other existing or canned applications that have to integrate services from a variety of vendors with a diverse set of application models and even other standards. Good standards have ways of coping with this situation, like ?encapsulation?, which resembles putting an adapter in your cars cigarette lighter so you can plug your cell-phone into it. The new USITC standard must be able to sit on top of a wide range of existing systems ? EDIS III, DataWeb, ITC-NET, Library Management System, etc.. ? it must create bridges between these systems. 2. Procurement Approach The USITC intends to issue an RFQ which will utilize resources available from pre-competed contract vehicles such as the GSA schedules. It is currently planned that the USITC will seek a single integrating contractor rather than manage several separate contracts. This integrating contractor may perform all tasks associated with the RFQ, or may subcontract portions of the work, provided that the integrating contractor maintains overall responsibility and accountability for task completion. The RFQ being developed will seek a contractor to both assist the USITC in gathering and analyzing user requirements, and in implementing hardware, software, and infrastructure to fulfill those requirements, as well as ongoing support of any developed systems. Completion of the USITC Portal Project is intended to be accomplished through a combined effort of USITC and contractor resources. Contractor resources will be accessed through a series of task orders which will be executed to implement discrete phases and ancillary tasks associated with the project. It is therefore important that any respondent to the eventual RFQ demonstrate a depth of talented staff necessary to operate effectively in such a task order environment. Resources which will be sought in the RFQ should include the areas below. A) Skilled Personnel with experience in the following: 1) Requirements Analysis and Planning 2) Installation and use of any proposed Content Management Software 3) Installation and system integration with any proposed middleware 4) Development of Java or other appropriate language code using any proposed IDE, and integration and encapsulation of legacy resources such as Oracle servers 5) Server installation and system administration B) Hardware ? any respondent may propose the use of hardware manufactured or sold directly by the respondent. Optionally, the respondent may provide specifications and sources from which the USITC may procure the needed hardware C) Software ? any respondent may propose the use of COTS software developed or sold directly by the respondent. Optionally, the respondent may provide specifications and sources from which the USITC may procure the needed COTS software. Copies of this Project can be obtained by contacting Deborah Kearns at deborah.kearns@usitc.gov
- Place of Performance
- Address: 500 E Street, SW Room 412D, Washington, DC
- Zip Code: 20436
- Country: US
- Zip Code: 20436
- Record
- SN00548345-W 20040319/040317223830 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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