7.4.4. Supporting Language for Information Technology (IT) System Procurements
7.4.4. Supporting Language for Information Technology (IT) System Procurements
To ensure support of the goals of NCDS, the Program Manager (PM), through his or her contracting specialists, should include the following sections, as appropriate, in Request for Proposal (RFP)/Request for Quotation (RFQ) language for the procurement of IT systems.
The contractor shall ensure that any IT systems covered in this procurement or identified in this RFP/RFQ support the goals of the Defense Information Enterprise Architecture 1.1, dated May 27, 2009, and its subsequent official updates and revisions. The contractor shall ensure that any IT systems covered in this procurement or identified in this RFP/RFQ support the goals of the DoD Net-Centric Data Strategy dated May 9, 2003, and comply with the Department's data strategy as defined in DoD Directive 8320.02, “Sharing Data, Information, and Information Technology (IT) services in the Department of Defense", March, 2013. The contractor shall ensure that any IT systems covered in this procurement or identified in this RFP/RFQ support the goals of DoD Net-Centric Services Strategy, Strategy for a Net-Centric, Service Oriented DoD Enterprise, March, 2007.
Also, the contractor must ensure that any IT systems covered in this procurement or identified in this RFP/RFQ meet the requirements detailed below. Additionally, it is acceptable for vendors and/or integrators to provide functionality (via wrappers, interfaces, extensions) that tailor the COTS system to enable these requirements below (i.e., the COTS system need not be modified internally if the vendor/integrator enables the requirements through external or additional mechanisms. In this case, these mechanisms must be acquired along with the COTS system procurement).
- Access to Data: The contractor shall ensure that all data managed by the IT system can be made accessible to the widest possible audience of DIE users via open, web-based standards. Additionally, the system's data should be accessible to DIE users without 1) the need for proprietary client-side software/hardware, or 2) the need for licensed user-access (e.g. non-licensed users should be able to access the system's data independent to the licensing model of the COTS system). This includes all data that is used to perform mission-related analysis and processing including structured and unstructured sources of data such as databases, reports, and documents. It is not required that internal, maintenance data structures be accessible.
- Metadata: The contractor shall ensure that all significant business data made accessible by the IT system is tagged with descriptive metadata to support the net-centric goal of data visibility.Accordingly, the system data shall be tagged to comply, at a minimum, with the DoD Discovery Metadata Specification (DDMS). This specification is available at: http://metadata.ces.mil/dse/irs/DDMS/. The system should provide DDMS-compliant metadata at an appropriate level based on the type of data being tagged. It is not required that individual records within databases be tagged; rather it is expected that the database itself or some segment of it is tagged appropriately. Additionally, the contractor shall ensure that all structural and vocabulary metadata (metamodels, data dictionaries) associated with the exposed system data be made available in order to enable understanding of data formats and definitions. This includes proprietary metadata if it is required to effectively use the system data.
- Enterprise Services/Capabilities: The contractor shall ensure that key business logic processing and other functional capabilities contained within the IT system are exposed using web-based open standards (e.g., application programming interfaces provide for Web Services-based access to system processes and data). The level of business logic exposure shall be sufficient to enable reuse/extension within other applications and/or to build new capabilities. The contractor shall provide an assessment of how any licensing restrictions affect or do not affect meeting the goals of re-use and exposure as DoD Information Enterprise-wide enterprise services.
Optional Components/Modules: The contractor shall ensure that all standard and/or optional components of the IT system are identified and procured in a manner that ensures the requirements outlined in this document are met.
DAG Tutorial 
