NASA held the first day of an Industry Day for their I3P acquisitions on April 21, 2009. The Industry Day's focuses were discussions surrounding the release of Draft RFPs for four of the I3P acquisitions, which were released on April 20, 2009. The Draft RFP for the EAST contract is anticipated to be released on or about May 11, 2009.

During the course of the Industry Day, NASA provided insights into how the I3P acquisitions fit into NASA's transformational IT strategy, and future Enterprise Architecture.

Overview:

Mike Hecker, Associate CIO for Architecture and Infrastructure provided the introduction and overview to the NASA I3P Industry Day. Mr. Hecker primarily highlighted some of the major IT initiatives that will be fulfilled by the I3P acquisitions.

Among them:

• Define the network perimeter and consolidate network management
• Establish Agency Network visibility of IT assets and consolidate agency security
• Enable cross-center collaboration

At the end of his briefing Mr. Hecker stated that NASA is really looking for Industry comments, to receive guidance on developing the final I3P RFPs.

Enterprise Service Management:

Cliff Ward from the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) highlighted the Enterprise Service Management Model that NASA was adopting for I3P. NASA has chosen ITIL v3 as their process model, and will apply across these processes across all 5 I3P acquisitions. NASA plans to eventually grow into all 27 ITIL process areas.

Enterprise Service Desk:

Ken Griffey the CIO for the NSSC discussed the development of NASA's Enterprise Service Desk. The Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) when implemented will provide the primary customer interface for the I3P contracts, and will be handled out of the NSSC. Initially the ESD will take over Tier 0 and Tier 1 support from the NISC and ODIN contracts.

Because the ESD will provide the customer interfaces to the I3P contracts, it must be active before the award of the I3P contracts. Currently NASA has an Internal Go Live date of January 4, 2010, with a Customer Go Live Date of May 1, 2010. These dates are subject to change.

NASA Integrated Communications Services (NICS) Contract:

Brad Solomon and Jeff Jackson from Marshall Space Flight Center highlighted some key features of the NICS Contract:

• NICS will interact with the Center specific IT contracts and this interaction is outlined in section 4.0 of the Draft RFP
• The NICS contractor will also provide integration of GSA's Networx Services, and provide support to the procurement of telecommunications service from Networx

Mr. Solomon also discussed the major initiatives that the NICS contract is expected to fulfill.

The following projects are active and will continue under the NICS contract:

• Network Communications Initiative (NCI)
• Center Zone Architecture Project (CZAP)

The following projects will be initiated under NICS:

• NICS Consolidated Configuration Management System
• Consolidated Corporate Network Operations Center

NICS Contract Highlights:

• The Contract will be a Cost Plus Award Fee contract for the base period of 3 years, and will transition to a Cost Plus Incentive Fee/Award Fee for the remaining period of performance
• The cumulative small business target for NICS is 32%

NASA Enterprise Data Center (NEDC) Contract:

Tony Anania, of the Kennedy Space Center stated that the NEDC Program Office at the Kennedy Space Center will manage the NEDC Contract and support the implementation of the longer agency wide data center transformational strategy.

NEDC Contract Highlights:

• 9 year period of performance, 5 year base with 4 one year options
• Minimum contract value of $5M and a maximum value of $1.5B
• The cumulative small business target is 12%

Concluding Remarks:

Bobby German, the acting CIO of NASA provided the remarks for the Industry Day. He started by saying that I3P was the vision of his predecessor Jonathan Pettus, the current CIO for the Marshall Space Flight Center, and former NASA CIO. The I3P program currently has the full support of NASA's executive team, and also fits the comprehensive IT strategy of the new Obama Administration. He did however state one of the key fears of moving away from local to agency wide contracts through I3P is local responsiveness. Mr. German stated that as this transition occurs, the I3P contracts must maintain local responsiveness as a key goal in the transition.

Industry Day 2:

Stay tuned for INPUT's follow up blog on Day 2 of NASA's I3P Industry Day. The highlights for Day 2 will include briefings on the remaining 3 I3P procurements, ACES, WEST, and EAST. For further details regarding the I3P Acquisitions please see the Draft RFPs that have been linked to the relevant INPUT Opportunity Reports.