Predictive Lake Analytics Nextgen eXchange Services (PLANXS) II (RFI # 70SBUR25I2)

Vermont

10/29/2024 11:26 AM EDT

11/07/2024 03:00 PM EST

Request for Information (RFI) Announcement 70SBUR25I2

This RFI is issued solely for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal, or Request for Quotations. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract, nor do responses affect a potential respondent's ability to respond to any future synopsis/solicitation that may or may not follow or restrict the U.S. Government's eventual acquisition approach. Additionally, the U.S. Government will not provide reimbursement for any information that may be submitted in response to this RFI. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Respondents will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided; however, information gathered may be utilized for technical and acquisition purposes.

PLANXS II RFI

Predictive Lake Analytics Nextgen eXchange Services (PLANXS) II Contract

PLANXS II will support the Data and Business Intelligence Section (DBIS) Portfolio’s development, operations and maintenance, customer engagement, and training for the program missions and technical stack listed below.

DBIS Overview

DBIS is a program under the Systems Development Division (SDD), Office of Information Technology (OIT), Management Directorate, of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

To execute the mission of USCIS, the agency needs to have complete oversight of all aspects of its operations, which is supported by the DBIS program through the implementation of an operational data lake used to build analytical reports and enable data exploitation via several Information Technology (IT) capabilities. The mission of DBIS is two-fold:

• Manage existing and implement new operational data stores as part of the USCIS Data Lake for analytic or adjudicative use in DBIS tools or via data service Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), web services, or other methods mutually agreed upon.
• Maintain enterprise reporting capabilities, which include ad-hoc reporting, pre-configured reports, analytical capabilities via dashboards, data visualization, and statistical analysis, and supporting Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) innovations for reporting.

Currently DBIS provides these capabilities via its seven (7) system components:

• The enterprise Citizenship and Immigration Services Centralized Operational Repository (eCISCOR) - eCISCOR is a collection of databases that transforms and houses the agency’s data in relational and dimensional data model format.
• Standard Management Analytics and Reporting Tools (SMART) - SMART is an Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) commercial product and provides access to data stored in eCISCOR for the purposes of operational and analytical reporting and analysis.
• SAS-Predictive Modeling Environment (PME) – a commercial product of the SAS Institute. Provides access to data stored in eCISCOR for the purposes of business intelligence reporting, statistical analysis, statistical modeling, and forecasting.
• eCISCOR Bigdata - Using Databricks, Bigdata is a back-end system that provides dynamically scalable multi-processor computing power behind the existing tools (SAS, SMART, Tableau) in place today and enables data scientists to perform advanced analytics using tools to extract value and reveal insights from datasets that are diverse, complex, and of a massive scale. Bigdata enables the use of distributed computing technologies. This allows for much faster processing times on large volumes of data that would otherwise take several hours to run within a single database. This is also referred to as the USCIS enterprise data lake.
• eCISCOR Bigdata Analytics - Bigdata Analytics (BDA) using Tableau is composed of licensed based creator and user tools and a web server to publish content. BDA excels at visualizing data, unlike some of the other eCISCOR Reporting Tools used throughout USCIS. Additionally, BDA has the capability to merge unrelated datasets together with less effort. BDA uses data from eCISCOR to develop and create analytics and visualizations. Furthermore, BDA can also serve as the means in which eCISCOR Bigdata data is presented.
• Graph Data Services: - GDS organizes information into an interconnected network of relationships, enabling data to be analyzed in context for deeper insights. By linking related entities with semantic connections (nodes and edges), GDS creates a flexible web of knowledge rather than siloed data points using Senzing and Databricks to create modeling relationships between people, locations, accounts, assets, events and case details, knowledge graphs give investigators a 360-degree analytical view of the case context.
• eCISCOR Social Media Platform for Analysis and Response (SPAR) – This is a new cloud-hosted commercial platform (Sprinklr) that enables social listening, analysis of USCIS-related posts, customizable dashboards/reports, and services to enable automated posting of official responses across social media channels. The capability provides translation services and benchmarking capabilities that will improve and make more effective USCIS’s social media presence. Data is also feed back into eCISCOR BigData for aggregation and analysis with other data sources housed within the data lake.

DBIS Technology Stack

Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS)

Databricks, Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS), Oracle, Oracle Analytics Server (OAS), SAS PME & Viya, Tableau, Senzing, CopyStorm, Sprinklr

Code Base

Apache Groovy, Python, Scala, PL/SQL

Interfaces

USCIS:

• > 130 inbound connections for data sources in eCISCOR
• > 12 (?) outbound connections sharing eCISCOR ODS or Mart data

External:

• > 12 (?) inbound connections for data sources in eCISCOR
• > 3 outbound connections sharing eCISCOR ODS or Mart data

Development & Test Environments

Development and Test environments are on AWS Commercial Cloud, Open Shift with Oracle and PostgreSQL database. Jenkins CI/CD pipeline triggered deployments in Dev/Test

GitHub: Used for Code Repository, Source Control, Branching and Merging

OS Side: Amazon Linux 2, CentOS 8, RHEL 8, Ubuntu, Windows 2019

Production Environment

Stage and Production environments are on AWS Commercial Cloud, OpenShift with an Oracle and PostgreSQL database. Code and database changes are deployed to Stage/Production environment via Jenkins/Liquibase.

Github: Used for Code Repository, Source Control, Branching and Merging

OS Side: Amazon Linux 2, CentOS 8, RHEL 8, Ubuntu, Windows 2019

Cloud Services

Amazon Web Services

• Athena
• CFT (Cloud Formation Template)
• CloudWatch
• DMS (Data Migration Services)
• Dynamo DB
• EBS (Elastic Block Store)
• EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
• ELB (Elastic Load Balancer)
• Glue
• Copy Storm
• Kinesis
• Lambda
• Redshift
• RDS (Relational Database Service)
• S3 (Simple cloud Storage Service)
• SNS (Simple Notification Service)
• SQS (Simple Queuing Service)
• Timestream (Time Serie Database)

Development Tools & Functions (maintained internally)

Major Tools

Databricks E2 (Unified Data Analytics Platform)

• Delta Lake
• MlFlow

Informatica (Extract, Load and Transfer)

• Address Doctor v5.13.0.45184
• Data Quality and Data Governance Enterprise Edition version v10.5.2
• Data Validation Option v10.5.2
• Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services v68.17

Oracle Analytics Server 7.x (Enterprise Application)

SAS® Enterprise, Version 9.4 (Enterprise Application)

• SAS® VIYA v4
• Enterprise Guide
• SAS® Studio
• SAS Visual Investigator

Tableau Server 2023.1.5: (Enterprise Application)

Senzing

• Senzing Runtime API v3.10.2

Sprinklr

• Sprinklr Social and Sprinklr Insights, v19.8

Functions/Minor tools

Operations:

• CentOS 8
• Cloudbees controller v2.235.2.6
• CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise v2.235.2.6
• Harness.io
• CostPerform 2021.1 (12831) Application Server for CostPerform
• CostPerform - SQL Server 2019 Database Server for CostPerform
• CostPerform - Microsoft Windows 2019   Host for CostPerform
• Harness.io
• Jenkins  2.332.3
• Linux RHEL 8.6
• New Relic
• Ubuntu
• Microsoft Windows 2019, 2022

Databases

• Grafana 7.3.6; 10.0.3
• AWS Timestream (Time Serie Database)
• MySQL 5.x, 8.x
• Oracle Database Enterprise Edition v19c
• Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control v13.4
• PostgreSQL database 12.x

Data Exchange & Additional Microservices:

• Ansible 2.x
• Erwin

Development Tools & Functions (maintained by external teams)

Agile Project Tracking Tools

• Atlassian Jira
• Atlassian Confluence

Data Exchange & Additional Microservices

• Docker 18.x/Kubernetes: Application containers for deployment
• Kafka
• OpenShift:  Enterprise Container platform

Operations

• 508 Testing Tools: WAF / WAT / ANDI / Inspect
• Cloudbees controller v2.235.2.6
• CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise v2.235.2.6
• Cloudflare
• CrowdStrike
• Eclipse: Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
• EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service)
• Fortify: Static code analysis helps eliminate vulnerabilities and build secure software before production deployment
• GitHub
• Harness.io
• Junit: used for unit testing of application
• Kong with OAuth2: currently being implemented for ICAM for SSO authentication
• Prometheus 2.x
• Node Exporter 1.x
• Tenable IO
• Selenium: used for functional tests
• SonarQube: used to check code quality and Security/Vulnerability before allowing automated deployments to the Dev environment.
• Splunk
• Twistlock: Automated tool that scans active services and determines use of deprecated dependencies

Section 508 Compliance

Yes

W10 & IE11 Compliance

N/A

Windows 10

Compliance

Yes

Security/ATO Expiration

Ongoing ATO Authorization

Additional Service Characteristics or Capabilities

The Government seeks to obtain additional information relevant to an upcoming contract, which will provide the design, architecture, configuration, development, and maintenance of the existing technological solution and enhancement of the analytical capabilities of USCIS by evolving the legacy environment with  emerging innovative technologies, such as data visualization, no- SQL (Structured Query Language) querying, data analytics for decision-making, big data analytics, open source tools, deep learning and data science, and the latest AI/ML trends.  The Contractor will be expected to: discover and develop  innovative, sustainable design capabilities to transfer into and properly expose data in the enterprise data repository; develop deep analysis on this data for business-function-specific data ponds and data marts that will provide for cross functional linear mart reporting; monitor and improve data quality to ensure accuracy and completeness; and develop new reports, dashboards, and ad-hoc reporting capabilities in various analytical tools to meet USCIS mission needs and in support of key decision makers.  The Contractor will be expected to: successfully maintain all previously developed systems capabilities, maximize usage of the tools procured by the Government, while adhering to required security and governance; engage with and provide training for the user community on existing and new tools; maintain system and cloud infrastructure; and provide proper program management and program support. 

Scope

This PLANXS II task order will be the primary vehicle to obtain professional services in development of new and enhancement of existing capabilities in advanced analytics and reporting of USCIS data as well as the brokering of data for information technology systems and applications. The development scope of the program involves transforming agency-wide analytical capabilities and enhancing the agency’s ability to use its large data pool for decision-making, operational improvement and predictive and prescriptive analytics; any USCIS, DHS, or external federal agency system can become a source of data for DBIS, if dictated by the mission. Priority tasks will also support in accordance the OIT Strategic Plan and the USCIS Data Strategy.

This task order support will include program management, operations and maintenance of all DBIS system components in the cloud, research and analysis of emerging technologies, training and security, while complying with all Federal, DHS and USCIS standards, policies and procedures.

PLANXS II will include the following task areas:

• Advanced Data Analytics: The contractor shall provide capability for USCIS to invest in advanced forms of analytics to leverage big data and find new business intelligence discoveries using advanced technologies to do deep learning and analysis on data. Implement self-service models and data visualization for next generation business analytics and business intelligence. Make advanced data discovery accessible to business users irrespective of their technical knowledge and skills.
• Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): The contractor shall capitalize on advances in AI and ML creating intelligent data models and automated analytics. The goal is to make acquiring new data easy, so it can be available for data science explorations and quick decision-making analysis for past and future predictions.
• Dashboard Metrics and Reports Development: The contractor shall develop and communicate valuable and insightful business metrics along with the partnership various product owners and stakeholders and project metrics. Metrics may include but are not limited to dashboards, Agile burn down charts, release roadmaps, and schedule.
• Systems Integration: Coordinate, integrate with internal and external engineering divisions and sections to achieve and implement sustainable and manageable end-to-end digital workflow processing.
• Architecture Design, Implementation and Support: The contractor shall continuously improve and evolve the product architecture as per industry standards and adapt to the evolving modern technologies to produce cost effective leaner architecture. Empower and enable user experience, manage fast paced Agile and Scrum development cycles, and DevSecOps practices. This includes establishing consistent and effective use of cloud-based environments and continuously seeking better advanced and efficient methods to meet USCIS mission requirements.
• Modernization of digital services and security operations (DevSecOps):  The contractor shall work collaboratively and cross functionally with engineering and operations to implement automated continuous integration, continuous delivery, production monitoring, and production support. The contractor shall support its own code while in production.
• IT systems Innovation:  The contract shall review, experiment with, and potentially adopt different technologies, tools, practices, processes, and techniques in order to drive innovation and facilitate continuous delivery, continuous feedback, continuous improvement, and encourage rapid and flexible response to change.
• Enterprise Solution and Code Delivery: The contractor shall use a modern technology stack to define, author, and deliver application code that conforms to requirements and application architecture provided by the government (see Technical Stack). This includes but is not limited to customizing COTS products for government use, developing, executing, and reporting on unit testing, and performing and documenting software code peer reviews. The contractor shall discover and reuse existing code, along with making newly developed code reusable on other government projects.
• Operational Maintenance (O&M):  The contractor shall continue to sustain current capabilities and maintain the current existing Architecture and Capabilities.
• Automated Testing and Deployment Activities: The contractor shall create and maintain an automated test suite for the purposes of performing automated testing on user stories and for ongoing regression testing to ensure functionality and quality of the overall system. This includes but is not limited to, testing methodologies such as Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Test Driven Development (TDD), and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). The contractor will work with the DevOps and Testing Services (DOTs) vendors for additional testing. The contractor shall also plan, create and validate the implementation and deployment of scripts for use during application deployment.
• Configuration Management and Change Control: The contractor shall support effective and efficient release planning/configuration management and change control to support the agile development processes.
• User Training: The contractor shall provide user-centered, task-based training to users in support of system deployment and relating to capabilities in operation. This includes structured training courses and customized training, as required by USCIS users. 
• Cross-functional Collaboration: The contractor shall participate in integrated program/project teams and agile teams to enhance communication, share lessons learned and facilitate rapid identification of dependencies between various functional entities to ensure that the projects deliver the right solutions and value to the business and end-users. This collaboration may include coaching government staff as the government attempts to stand up or execute an agile project. This includes developing and communicating project metrics, such as dashboards, Agile burn down charts, release roadmaps, and schedule.
•  Graph Data Service (GDS) and knowledge graph: The contractor shall maintain and enhance the GDS that models relationships between people, locations, accounts, assets, events and case details, knowledge graphs give investigators a 360-degree analytical view of the case context in accordance with Government priorities and feedback.
• User and Identity Access Management: The contractor shall maintain and own Identity and User management to securely govern and manage user access to various system resources and data. Enable and have proper vigilance and control to these data sources to protect sensitive information by enforcing policies and processes related to user access and identity within an organization.
• Data and Schema management: The contractor shall develop and implement strong data governance to include privacy, security, and management as per USCIS mission. Revolutionize and improve data management by automating processes, improving data accuracy, and enhancing decision-making capabilities. Design advanced data management automated tools and platforms that can streamline these processes and enhance data accuracy and can significantly improve data handling and reduce risks.
• Decommissioning of Legacy Technologies: The contractor shall brainstorm ideas to remove or upgrade from legacy applications and tool set to improve efficiency and sustainability of the product life cycle. The contractor will be responsible for designing and transition plans to new modernized solution that meets the performance and cost effectiveness.
• Documentation on SOP (Standard Operation Procedure and CONOPS (concept of operations)): The contractor shall be responsible for completing and updating timely documentations as part of standard cycles to manage and maintain smooth operations on all technology that they support and regularly meet with the USCIS security team to make sure they have the risks mitigated.

It is expected that throughout the execution of this task order the Government will invest in new tools, technologies, and conceptual pilots that will further enhance DBIS capabilities in meeting its mission.  Such transitions and new tools’ implementation shall be supported by the Contractor. DBIS may also integrate with other portfolios, divisions, and contract teams in accomplishing cutting edge innovations to include proof of concepts for most viable products and successfully implanting this solution into production for business use.

USCIS reserves the right to change the strategic direction of the technical implementation of the task order.  The task order work includes adapting to new and/or evolving technical approaches, as well as providing technical and program support to research, consult, and implement emerging technologies that the USCIS Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO) deems appropriate to support the Agency’s goals and objectives.  Such shifts in the technical approach under the umbrella of the Business Intelligence (BI)/Data Warehouse (DW), data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence are within the scope of this task order. 

RFI Response Requirements:

Responses are due by 3:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) on Thursday, November 7, 2024.

Responses should be submitted to jennifer.l.harling@uscis.dhs.gov with a CC to monty.n.kurtz@uscis.dhs.gov.

1. Responses should include a cover letter and the information requested in the questions below. Interested parties may include other relevant information as desired, but the total response should not be more than six (6) pages inclusive of the cover. Please include the RFI number 70SBUR25I2 on the cover. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and clearly marked. 

2. (Optional) Respondents may choose to supplement the paper submission via an unlisted YouTube video that is less than three minutes in length. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and the video should be appropriately marked.   A link to the video should be submitted to the points of contact identified above. 

Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

RFI Questions:

1. Experience with Government Contracting (or similar) and USCIS Technical Stack: Highlight your previous experience on programs that involved enterprise data solutions and products, specifically how it aligns with Advanced analytics, DevSecOps or data management and governance. Detail your familiarity with the USCIS tech stack as outlined in this RFI. Where applicable, include all current federal contract vehicles and the contract numbers associated with those vehicles (ex:  GSA Schedule 874 GS-00X-1234Z). If no contracts are currently held, please indicate size status in NAICS 541512 or others that may be applicable.
2. Collaboration and Innovation: Discuss your company’s experience building and maintaining analytics and reporting environments, especially any Big Data or Data Science Platforms.  Additionally, give examples of how you've leveraged innovative data management or analytics practices to modernize processes, including any obstacles encountered and resolutions.
3. User Experience Strategy: Detail your experience in implementing and scaling technologies within organizations that have diverse mission boundaries with embedded artificial intelligence and machine learning requirements. Describe how you accomplish user centered design and manage complexities, measure the impact on business outcomes, and ensure alignment within distinct lines of business.
4. Operations and Continuity: Describe the strategy used to ensure the performance, security, maintainability, and scalability of the solution is consistent and successful. Explain how you ensured code reuse, reduced code redundancy, and promoted repeatable coding patterns with monitoring capabilities.
5. Contractor collaboration and teaming: Describe your experience working within a multi-vendor or joint vendor environment to achieve successful mission outcomes. Please provide experience with performing services within a teaming arrangement and the ability to maintain subcontractor support throughout the life cycle of a task order.
6. Contractor Strategy feedback: Please provide recommendations and feedback on the contract type (FFP, T&M, etc.), CLIN structure (by team, by tool, etc.), solicitation strategy (single-award, multiple award), and any other information that would assist team in finalizing the acquisition strategy.
7. Federal Contract Vehicles: Please identify DHS-specific contracts or Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWAC) you have that could be utilized to obtain these types of services. Responses should also include the recommended business size status under each contract identified.
8. Small Business: Please identify whether or not you are a small business.  If you are a small business, please identify the type: HUBZone small business; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small business; women-owned small business; and/or small disadvantaged business.  This information will assist the government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible.
9. Vendor Information: a) Vendor’s Company Name, Address, Contact Person Information (including telephone number and email address), b) Vendor’s UEI number, and c) Business Size and Size Standard / Classification related to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code.

Reminder: This RFI is for information and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal, or Request for Quotation.