The General Services Administration, Federal Acquisition Service (GSA-FAS), on behalf of the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP), is issuing this notice to inform industry that an initial Request For Quotation (Phase I), for the Technology Insertion FY09 (TI-09) will be issued on or about April 21, 2008. Phase I of the RFQ will be issued primarily to determine general pricing, performance (via a set of DoD Benchmarks) and related high performance computing (HPC) functional capabilities for HPC systems that can be delivered on or before July 2009. The application benchmark codes that are anticipated to be included in the TI-09 application benchmark suite are recognized by the following names: CTH, HYCOM, GAMESS, OOCORE, AMR and LAMMPS. It is estimated that a system with approximately 1024 cores will be required to execute the benchmarks. Note that all benchmark times submitted in response to the RFQ are considered guaranteed benchmark times that will be verified at time of system acceptance. Phase II of the RFQ will request offerors to provided detailed pricing, configuration, performance (via a set of DoD Benchmarks), maintenance, and delivery information for one or more specific HPC system configurations to significantly improve the DoD?s HPC capability and capacity. Issuance of a final RFQ (Phase II) is anticipated on or about September 5, 2008 and contract awards are anticipated in late December of 2008. The HPCMP and GSA have conducted annual Technology Insertions since 2001 and have learned that the assembly and delivery of large (TI-08 awards consisted of several systems exceeding 10,000 cores each) production ready HPC systems between December and the following July is challenging. It has been determined that an important element for success includes contractual relationships directly between the Government and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of HPC class systems. As a result, responses to the RFQ will only be considered from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who: (1) have offerings obtainable via existing GSA Contracts under Schedule 70 ?General Purpose Commercial Information Technology Equipment, Software, Services?; (2) have demonstrated the sustainment of a commercially available HPC system?s product line with success in large scale manufacturing, deployment and maintenance of commercially available, production HPC systems; and (3) have clearances allowing access to sensitive DoD technology and facilities. Furthermore, the Government financial appropriation associated with this acquisition does not permit the purchase of any supercomputer which is not manufactured in the United States. Additionally, note that the resulting contract(s) will contain consideration clauses citing four (4) percent of the purchase price per month for late delivery and the right to reject the system. Interested vendors are required to submit a NTE 10 page paper providing evidence of their ability to meet the above requirements to Ms. Deborah Joeckel at
[email protected] with a copy to Mr. Eddie Mills at
[email protected] by COB March 21, 2008. In cases where the OEM is acquiring substantial portions of a potentially offered system from third party suppliers, please be specific in justifying your role as an OEM with a sustainable HPC product line versus, for example; a reseller, an assembler or an integrator of HPC systems. An evaluation of the information submitted will be conducted and letters of eligibility will be distributed to qualified vendors by April 11, 2008. An information briefing will be offered to pre-qualified vendors. The briefing is currently scheduled for the morning of April 29, 2008 beginning at 9:00AM EDT and will be followed by vendor-specific, one-on-one information exchange meetings and question and answer sessions individually scheduled for the afternoon of April 29 and, as needed, on April 30 to host all qualified vendors. Each vendor will be allowed 30 minutes for their April 29 or April 30 one-on-one session. For more details about the HPCM Program visit the website at www.hpcmo.hpc.mil. Examples of previous TI-XX RFQs can be found under ?Community? then ?Technology Insertion? in the left hand window of the HPCMP homepage. Note the requirement to use the left hand window?s vertical scroll bar to find ?Community?. Questions can be submitted to GSA at any time during the RFQ process.