Notice ID: NIH-NINDS-SBSS-24-007304
This is a Small Business Sources Sought Notice.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s leading medical research agency and the primary Federal agency whose mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and apply that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, reduce illness and disability, and conduct, support, and make medical discoveries that improve people’s health and save lives. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is an institute within the NIH that conducts research into the causes, treatments, and preventions of neurological disorders and stroke.
The NINDS mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease. The NINDS Division of Intramural Research (DIR) Information Technology Program (ITP) plays a critical role in providing and supporting the information technology resources necessary to further the mission of NINDS and other collaborating ICs (Institutes or Centers) at NIH. ITP provides customized software applications, database applications, and other solutions not available in off-the-shelf modular software applications.
Support includes, but is not limited to, planning, requirements analysis, designing, developing, testing, implementing, documenting, and training. Software development also includes, but is not limited to, software upgrades to accommodate back-end database schema modifications; software modifications for emergent business requirements; ad-hoc reports; dashboard business intelligence and AI/ML automation; system migration/integration and maintenance to cover all aspects of software life cycle development, database development, backup & recovery, monitoring, and full application support services. As the neuroscience and neurological disorders are dynamic, the software applications, support needs, and priorities for NIH stakeholders may change.
Purchasing Online Tracking System (POTS) assists with the submission and tracking of purchase orders through a Web-based system and facilitates the transactions between the end-users in each IC and the central NIH Business System (NBS). POTS is a role-based workflow system. The user administrators can configure the workflows for one or more approval processes based on the IC’s or organization unit’s needs easily. It tracks the procurement life cycle of any types of purchases orders across scientific and administrative functionalities, from initial submission, approval, cancellation, status, through partial/final receiving, and acknowledgement of receipt for completed transactions of goods and/or services. POTS is expected to ensure the compliance with the requirements of the FAR and is used as a workload management and acquisition trending tool.
Specific Requirements: NINDS has divided POTS development and solution support into three sections. First is the Application Development, a general section that explains the services and solutions provided to the NIH user communities and requirements that cover each of the core functional areas. The second section, Operations and Maintenance, and the third, Innovation and Modernization Solutions section will cover items specific to its core functional area to better address emerging needs for full software development life cycle support.
Application Development
For each software solution implementation and delivery, the Contractor works directly with the customers and stakeholders of POTS user committee to perform business requirement analysis and testing in a fast-paced environment for new initiatives, prioritized changes, and end-user support to meet the business demand as the business evolves. It is imperative to avoid disruption of current initiatives and ongoing projects. It is expected that the Contractor need to support future new technologies, including evaluating, planning for, and implementing new technologies in response to policy and regulatory …
Operation and Maintenance
The Contractor shall perform the following tasks that are specific to software engineering including but not limited to the following support activities:
- Design and implement iterative or agile software development life cycle methodologies to achieve efficient delivery, rapid responses to changes in business priorities and requirements, and increase customer satisfaction.
- Maintain product backlogs and incorporate desirable functionalities into future releases.
- Support cloud adoption with full-stack automation capabilities and migration of existing application portfolio to NIH/NINDS IT-managed cloud environments …
Innovation and Modernization
Solutions System modernization will require a robust, scalable, and reliable infrastructure that can handle the demands. The Contractor shall provide qualified cloud architects and application engineers with appropriate certifications to implement efficient cloud operation delivery, including but not limited to the following support activities:
- Discuss and analyze cloud adoption/deployment feasibility and considerations such as cloud service provider selection, cost estimates, migration strategies and options (e.g., rehost, revise, rearchitect, rebuild and replace), engineering and architectural options, security requirements.
- Build resilient applications and data analytics to generate insights, create cloud-optimized designs and architectures using cloud native capabilities that are compliant with HHS, NIH, and NINDS architectural and security standards …
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