Notice ID: RFQ1483147
“Scope and Approach – CIT Unified Communications & Collaboration (UCC) Service have dramatically accelerated NIH’s progress to virtual workplace. As such the volume and intensity of the services provided have increased since March 2020. The statistics below capture the work volumes from 2020.
UCC Service directs the engineering, design, implementation, and operation support of NIH enterprise UCC infrastructure including voice, IM/Presence, video streaming, conferencing, web conferencing and collaboration, and messaging infrastructure services for the NIH to facilitate the use of scientific, administrative, and other business applications. Its functions include the following:
- Manages and directs NIH enterprise UCC systems and technical requirements for the NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) and implements telecommunications programs to meet the needs of the NIH community.
- Provides NIH enterprise UCC services support – systems engineering, 24×7 operations, maintenance, critical infrastructure protection and information assurance.
- Researches, develops, and tests next-generation UCC technologies and develops and supports applications using new UCC technologies, such as telemedicine and video conferencing.
- Provides consulting, guidance, and support to the ICs, helping them to meet their UCC requirements.
- Serves as a focal point for UCC service orders, and develops and disseminates recommended standards, policies, and procedures for enterprise UCC service implementation and management of NIH UCC systems.
Currently, the UCC work is outsourced to a Contractor who supports the NIH UCC architecture and Infrastructure which is mostly within NIH Premise and run on NIH owned Platforms. This work is conducted through the issuance of Task Assignments to Contractor staff who provide professional services in areas such as: installing and maintaining Internet Protocol (IP) telephones, desktop/conference room video codecs, audio systems, unified messaging, video streaming, web/desktop collaboration, instance messaging, and presence services delivered via the NIHnet.
Service requirements also include end-to-end support of enterprise solutions that includes development, design, implementation, and day to day (24x7x365) engineering and operational support services. Critical infrastructure services require collaboration with internal and external customers and include things, such as patch management, vulnerability remediation, risk management, information assurance, cybersecurity services, change management, and community outreach …”
“NIH Objectives – As stated above, UCC at NIH are primarily on NIH premise, co-located at NIH data centers and run on NIH infrastructure. The primary objective is to transition UCC into cloud-based services but retaining ability to meet Federal standards for security and other compliancy rules and policies (e.g., OMB, GSA, HHS). Future UCC is desired to be highly integrated but flexible with the ability to leverage a variable cost model and acquiring reliable and dependable service guarantees. As such, NIH envisions that the technical and non-technical professional support service staff will require not only technical skills in a myriad of products but will also require skills and practices in managing cross-functional environments. NIH believes this will require a rapid shift in the service management and delivery focus where highly qualified, knowledgeable, experienced, and dedicated subject matter experts will coordinate operations among OEMs and still having the functional responsibilities for enterprise UCC services.
Overall, NIH requires a dynamic shift from premise-based services to cloud-based services with a goal for the majority of services migrating into the cloud within 5-years. The following present some key service goals that the Government expects to achieve maintain during and after transition to a future state UCC:
- Improve customer service and expanded service capacity
- Improved efficiency and effectiveness by adopting flexible commercial based offerings
- Improved efficiency and effectiveness through OEM alerts and early identification and remediation of issues, technical Incidents
- Ability to maintain a posture for continuous improvement, relevancy, and in line with market changes without cost of re-investment
- Ability to stay current with changes in the market through the Contractor’s ability to proactively identify and plan for changes in staffing (e.g., Microsoft E3 to E5 and Mobility)
- Ability to implement and managed Microsoft E5 subscription services and workflow tools (e.g., SharePoint, Messenger, O365, etc.).
- Provide for continuous improvement and evolution of Service-Level Objectives (SLO) that align with NIH Key Performance Indicators (KPI) …”
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