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On June 21, the U.S. Air Force posted a call for white papers for Project Night Owl. White Papers will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. Eastern on July 26.
This Commercial Services Opening (CSO) Call is intended to be as streamlined as possible to allow for the exploration of modern solutions to support a variety of critical national security systems. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) invites vendors to submit innovative and novel technical solutions which address all aspects of Digital Infrastructure (DI), focusing on the user story focus areas below. This requires delivering an enduring, secure, robust, efficient, responsive, agile, elastic and extensible DI solution spanning all classification levels.
Many AFLCMC projects operate in varying classification environments, including highly classified environments (collateral, Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI), and Special Access Program (SAP)). Though some DI Focus Areas may require unclassified work, respondents should be aware that to be eligible for any contract/instrument award, vendors must be cleared to work in SCI/SAP environments at white paper submission. If vendor intends to perform classified work at their facility (or subcontractor or sub-awardee’s facility), they will need to provide a Facility Accreditation Letter (FAL) for each facility to the Contracting Officer/Agreements Officer by no later than (NLT) contract award (anticipated September/October 2024).
This CSO Call may result in the award of a FAR-based contract or an Other Transaction for Prototype Project pursuant to 10 USC 4022. AFLCMC intends to follow the processes identified in the Data Operations CSO unless otherwise noted or annotated in this Call. AFLCMC is not obligated to make any awards as a result of this Call and all awards are explicitly subject to the availability of funds and successful negotiations. The Government is not responsible for any monies expended by any vendor prior to the issuance of any awarded contract/agreement.
AFLCMC reserves the right to modify the solicitation requirements of this CSO Call at its’ sole discretion.
Digital Infrastructure (DI) Technology Focus Areas
AFLCMC is seeking a Managed Service Provider to provide operations and sustainment support for a major SAP Weapon System. Currently, AFLCMC is on contract with a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) who provides edge cloud devices (Azure Stack Hubs (ASH) and hyperscale capabilities. The CSP also provides networking across campus area networks and wide area networks, including purchase and installation of aggregation switches, access switches, Azure access points (AAPs) and Network as a Service (NaaS). Further, the CSP provides disaster recovery and help desks for cloud services, edge, and ASH equipment. Further, the CSP is contracted to provide Network Operations Center (NOC) and Cyber Threat Operations Center (CTOC) services for the network and cloud only.
Within the cloud environments, AFLCMC operates an Azure cloud-based software DevSecOps environment supporting multiple USAF programs (hereafter referred to as Crucible). The Crucible environment contains cloud resources at the IL5 (Controlled Unclassified Information), IL6 (Secret) and IL6+(Secret Special Access Program) classifications. Enrolled USAF programs work within separate, segregated enclaves with multiple security enclaves (ex. Program A has its own IL5, IL6 and IL6+ environment separate from Program B’s enclaves).
Further, Programs access the Crucible environment from varying USAF networks. AFLCMC designed the Crucible environment to permit future USAF programs not currently enrolled to access and establish enclaves to meet specific mission needs. When new programs enroll, the Crucible environment may need to peer to a new network. Therefore, Crucible requires sufficient security controls and artifacts to obtain an authority to operate (ATO). The CSP is providing initial environment automation and establishment.
The CSP will continue to provide these services. Therefore, interested vendors shall not include any of these services in their proposal. AFLCMC is providing CSP responsibilities as contextual information necessary to ensure below requested services are not duplicated to CSP activities.
Review the Project Night Owl CSO.
Source: SAM
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