Request for Information and Sources Sought
Inter-Connection Point (ICP) Colocations
Background and Purpose:
This public posting is for informational, planning, and market research purposes only and constitutes a Request for Information (RFI) and a Sources Sought Request (SSR) only for United States, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This announcement does not constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise that a solicitation or procurement will be issued. This is not a solicitation, Request for Proposal (RFP), or Invitation for Bids (IFB). No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.
All information received resulting from this RFI will be used by CBP for acquisition planning and market research purposes only. However, your response may be releasable to the public under the Freedom of information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, and the DHS FOIA regulation, 6 C.F.R. Chapter 1 and Part 5. If you wish CBP to consider any portion of your response as "confidential commercial information", you should clearly mark the portion as "confidential commercial information". The procedures for identifying "confidential commercial information" are set forth in the DHS FOIA regulation cited above and are available on the DHS website: http://www.dhs.gov/xfoia/editorial0579.shtm. CBP, at its discretion, may request respondents to this RFI to meet with CBP program and contracting officials and to elaborate on information in their written response. Respondents to this RFI will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided. All information contained in this RFI is preliminary and is subject to revision and is not binding on the Government.
The purpose of this public posting is to give contractors the opportunity to provide information regarding their capability to provide services for CBP's existing colocation facilities in Ashburn, VA and San Jose, CA as well as include optional services. In addition to colocation services, the Contractor shall provide high-quality inter-connectivity between ISPs and Public IaaS CSP and Government IaaS CSP connections with the capability to dynamically provision and de-provision infrastructure to meet CBP requirements.
Draft Requirement Overview:
The Contractor shall provide colocation services to implement scalable ICPs and CAPs in up to three distinct, geographically diverse locations on the U.S. east coast, U.S. west coast, and U.S. central region. The Contractor shall provide facilities that support zero-hop connectivity, direct cross connects, Internet peering, cloud peering, traffic exchange, and Ethernet services with numerous major ISPs, CSPs, and XaaS (Everything as a Service, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)) providers.
The Contractor shall offer East, West, and Central hubs that offer Internet bypass services, where major cloud services are directly connected within their private facility network without having to traverse the Internet or multiple hops.
CBP acknowledges and agrees that the services described in this SOW will be provided within the Contractor's data centers and such services do not require the Contractor to access, handle, manage, or control personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive information (SI) described in this SOW (collectively PII and SI). CBP will not disclose any PII and SI to the Contractor unless and until Contractor agrees in writing to receive such PII and SI. If CBP intends to provide PII and SI to the Contractor, CBP shall inform the Contractor of same prior to disclosure.
The Contractor shall provide the space and power as specified in the BOM. CBP personnel will install hardware into the cabinets in the private cage space throughout the life of the task order.
Information Request:
1. Can Zero Hop connectivity to Cloud Service Providers be provided?
2. Can connectivity to a Fabric interconnect that would allow CBP to quickly setup, delete and/or change virtual connections to multiple Cloud Service Providers and 3rd party collocated cages over the redundant 100Gbps connection to the interconnect?
3. CBP requires redundant Zero Hop low latency Layer 2 100Gbps connectivity secured with MACsec to existing DHS Headquarters and ICE collocated cages.
4. Can fully diverse 100Gbps connectivity secured with MACsec to our Legacy Springfield Virginia Datacenter be ordered on the same PR
5. Can fully Diverse Dark fiber 100Gbps connectivity secured with MACsec to our OIT Headquarters office in Ashburn Virginia be order on the same PR
6. Does the vendor have telecommunication agreement for procuring connectivity via Dark Fiber and Point-to-Point Ethernet circuit that support MACSec in bandwidths to include 1Gbps, 10Gbps and 100Gbps.
7. Are you able to support direct CBP contact with colocation provider to directly handle reporting of outage and coordination of repair of telecom order connections, cage facility concerns and ability to open tickets for visitor and shipments, control approved person access to our cage.
8. Can the Vendor provide a solution that allows for the existing co-located environments to remain in place as CBP has neither sufficient time nor funding to building and procure the required equipment to build out a parallel environment to allow for Mission Critical infrastructure and service to remain active and in service?
Instructions:
Interested parties are encouraged to respond to this notice if they have the capability and capacity to provide the identified services. Capability statements are not needed at this time. Please be advised, CBP will not address any questions about this RFI or requirement.
The due date and time for responses is no later than 12:00 PM EDT, Friday, February 7, 2025. Responses to this RFI shall be submitted via email to: Ebrima Conteh: ebrima.conteh@cbp.dhs.gov with the subject line Inter-Connection Point (ICP) Colocations RFI" to be considered.
All responses must adhere to the page limits of 10 pages total. The submission shall be logically assembled. Each response section shall be clearly identified and shall begin at the top of a page. All pages of each response section shall be appropriately numbered and identified by the complete company name, date, and referenced number listed on the Notice in the header and/or footer.
Primary Point of Contact:
Ebrima Conteh
Contract Specialist
Ebrima.Conteh@cbp.dhs.gov
Attachment:
DRAFT Statement of Work
BOM
Background
This Request for Information (RFI) and Sources Sought Request (SSR) is issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The purpose of this announcement is to gather information for acquisition planning and market research regarding contractors' capabilities to provide services for CBP’s existing colocation facilities in Ashburn, VA, and San Jose, CA. This posting does not constitute a commitment to issue a solicitation or procurement.
Work Details
The Contractor shall provide colocation services to implement scalable Inter-Connection Points (ICPs) and Cloud Access Points (CAPs) in up to three geographically diverse locations across the U.S. The services include:
- Zero-hop connectivity, direct cross connects, Internet peering, cloud peering, traffic exchange, and Ethernet services with major ISPs and XaaS providers.
- East, West, and Central hubs that offer Internet bypass services.
- Facilities that support high-quality inter-connectivity between ISPs and both Public and Government IaaS Cloud Service Providers (CSPs).
Specific requirements include:
1. Zero Hop connectivity to Cloud Service Providers.
2. Connectivity to a Fabric interconnect for dynamic provisioning of virtual connections.
3. Redundant Zero Hop low latency Layer 2 100Gbps connectivity secured with MACsec.
4. Diverse 100Gbps connectivity secured with MACsec to existing data centers.
5. Telecommunication agreements for procuring connectivity via Dark Fiber and Point-to-Point Ethernet circuits supporting various bandwidths.
6. Support for direct CBP contact with colocation providers for outage reporting and coordination of repairs.
Period of Performance
Base Period: 9 months; Option Period 1: 12 months; Option Period 2: 12 months.
Place of Performance
Colocation facilities in Ashburn, VA; San Jose, CA; additional locations on the U.S. east coast, west coast, and central region.
