NIST RFQ: High Performance Computing (HPC) Services

Notice ID: 1333ND24QNB180468

NIST seeks to improve the range of High-Performance Computing (HPC) capabilities available to NIST’s researchers by augmenting its on-premises environment with those of a Leadership Class Computing Facility. NIST has an urgent need for external HPC services which includes compute, storage and research software engineering efforts to support continuation of NIST’s research.

The following will be provided to the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST).

1. IT Security
   1. Within 5 business days of award, the awardee must provide recent independently assessed IT security documentation in a form consistent with NIST SP 800-53, NIST SP 800-171, SOC 2 Type II, or equivalent.
   2. Post contract award, NIST will perform a review for a local ATO decision, required for golive, and ongoing security assessments for continuous monitoring thereafter. NIST will determine the risk rating of identified vulnerabilities. The Awardee shall respond to NIST with an action plan and schedule to mitigate security risks found within 10 business days of notification of security risks. NIST will notify the Awardee of whether or not the action plan and schedule are acceptable. The Awardee shall implement the action plan according to the agreed-upon schedule. If a mutually agreeable plan and schedule can not be devised the contract will be terminated for convenience.
2. High Performance Computing (HPC) Capacity NIST will fund the acquisition of HPC capacity with an initial commitment for service credits and subsequent incremental acquisitions for service credits as needed.
   1. NIST management POCs shall convey NIST job prioritization requirements to the awardee to support NIST’s mission priorities. Awardee shall guarantee computational time for NIST projects on requested systems within five (5) business days.
   2. Awardee will provide high-performance HPC data storage for user data meeting the requirements for FISMA moderate data. NIST will fund the acquisition of storage according to NIST’s requirements subject to the bounds previously specified.
3. Allocations, Accounts, and Access for NIST researchers
   1. NIST shall distribute the compute and storage allocation among multiple projects, each of which will be led by a NIST-designated principal investigator (PI). Designated NIST management POCs will have the sole authority to specify the compute and storage resources assigned to NIST projects.  One or more members of the NIST HPC system staff will be added to each project as co-PI(s) to facilitate monitoring and reporting.
   2. Awardee shall provide all user accounts requested by NIST and grant them access to projects as requested by the PI of each project. Account provisioning and administration will be conducted via the Awardee’s portal.  Awardee’s provisioning of accounts and modifications shall be made within two (2) business days of the request.
   3. NIST will collaborate with Awardee to federate identity management of NIST staff such that NIST staff credentials are recognized by Awardee through InCommon …

The period of performance is September 1, 2024 – August 31, 2025.

Read more here.

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