SOLICITATION NOTICE
99 -- Air Traffic Arganization (ATO-S) Visual Analytics (Q&A-2)
- Notice Date
- 11/2/2007
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, AJA-48 FAA Headquarters (ASU)
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- 6185
- Response Due
- 11/9/2007
- Archive Date
- 12/9/2007
- Point of Contact
- Elisa Brown, (202) 267-3610
- E-Mail Address
-
Email your questions to elisa.brown@faa.gov
(elisa.brown@faa.gov)
- Description
- The following are additional industry Questions and FAA Answers regarding the Air Traffic Organization (ATO-S) announcement posted on 9/12/2007. The reference posting number is 6057. Initial Q&A's were shared on 10/15/2007. The reference posting number for the inital Q&A's is 6145. 1. The software must provide: Interactive visualizations; dynamic queries; drilldown capabilities; interactive reporting; user management; application management. In the context of "application" here, does the FAA use an J2EE Application Server today? Yes Does the FAA have a required standard for application servers today? Yes, but standard is based upon disaster recovery and government security requirements and the system. Does the FAA have or use an Java applications or application servers today? Yes Is there any reason why the FAA would not consider Java for a future direction if not currently in use today? Java is used for development of applications, but this market survey is for existing software. 2. The software must be able to connect with existing FAA data stores such as Oracle 10g, Microsoft SQL Server, Access and Excel. The software must provide for ready access to data without extensive data registration requirements. Can you please share the percentage of FAA data in each of the 4 mentioned data stores? It would be beneficial that the software not be dependent on how much of one type of data. The term "without extensive data registration requirements" should suggest that the data source can be varied. A majority of the data is in Oracle (various versions). 5. The software must provide the ability to develop, store, retrieve and share analysis results and workflows in multiple formats such as PDF, MS Office standards and HTML. Please provide the FAA's definition of workflow here. Also, is there a workflow engine or system in place today? Workflow in this instance means the process/actions of analysis. To see what was done so it can be done again or avoided. 7. The software must run on a PC with a Microsoft Windows XP Professional Operating System. For this mandatory feature, is XP required for the server or just the client machines? The original intent was to allow the users to be able to do analysis on their individual machines, regardless of whether there is a server. We did not restrict the software to a server nor solely on a single machine. If not required for the Server, which server platforms are acceptable? Windows, Unix, Linux, Solaris. If a server is required the more platforms the system will work on the better. Desirable features: The FAA desires that the software, without modification, include the following features/capabilities but they are not minimum mandatory requirements: 1. The software should support the analysis of data in OLAP cubes such as Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services or SAS OLAP Server. Which version of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services are being run today? Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services or SAS OLAP Server are examples of systems that use OLAP cubes, not the systems that we use. Excel, Access, MySQL, and Oracle are other examples of software that can use OLAP cubes. These are "desirable" but not required. How many cubes are in use? That will depend upon the software. Are these cubes populated from SQL Server tables only? Or are they also built from star schemas within Oracle 10g? That will depend upon the software. In general, we are looking to understand the amount of OLAP available today vs. where the FAA wants to be in the future. Also, it would be great to understand any existing data warehouse, data marts and the overall ETL process that is in place today and any limitations currently existing within these areas. This scope is not part of the market survey. We are looking for software that will assist in doing analysis of current data some of which is in the form of OLAP cubes. ETL, data warehouses, and star schemas are not a part of the current request. 2. The software should support the ability to integrate with SAS datasets either directly or through an OLE DB connection. Can you give more details on the content of these "SAS" datasets and how they are generated today? The intent is to allow for future systems to be incorporated. Another division uses SAS and we would like to know if the software will be able to link to it or other systems that might be up for review of inclusion in datasets in the future. We do not current have SAS datasets. These are "desirable" but not required. 3. The software should support the ability to link to SAS Software for integrating existing software routines and features. The SAS 9 provides a large collection of APIs that enables access to SAS Intelligence from J2EE, and MOM, which version of SAS do you currently have? The intent is to allow for future systems to be incorporated. We do not current have SAS. These are "desirable" but not required. 4. The software should be able to integrate maps from ArcGIS Server into the visual analysis. Can you provide more details on the ArcGIS system and how it is used today? Also, what level of integration are you looking for? Any example would be very helpful here. The intent is to allow for future systems to be incorporated. We do not current have ArcGIS Server. These are "desirable" but not required. 5. The software should allow for the extension of the software capabilities through additional programming languages such as Visual Basic. Is Visual Basic the only language you would like to use? Is Java acceptable? Is Java Script acceptable? Java, PERL, JavaScript, .NET, COBOL, Fortran, it really doesn't matter the language as long as it meets the basic government restrictions previously mentioned ("disaster recovery and government security requirements"). These are "desirable" but not required. Is Oracle used to hold your data warehouse and/or data marts? Do you use star schemas within Oracle today? Also, can you provide more details on what your SAS system is today along with any limitations you currently see within that system? I'm sure one of the systems that we get data from is a warehouse and probably one or two are in star schemas. The information comes from various sources depending upon the type of analysis. One of the statistical analysis systems used is Business Objects. 7. Is the FAA seeking the Server/Client implementation of the software? Or the standalone desktop implementation? Five people to use whichever best fits. Is five the total number of users for this solution? If not, what is the total number of users for this new analytical system? Yes, five users. Could you please provide us some information about your current architecture domain: diagram or the link to the Web page? Five desktop computers linked via secured government architecture. Unfortunately we do not have the authority to share the government architecture, it would be a violation of FAA security policies.
- Web Link
-
FAA Contract Opportunities
(http://faaco.faa.gov/?ref=6185)
- Record
- SN01445639-W 20071104/071102223528 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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