Mark D. Lienhart - Alaska Railroad

Alaska Railroad Corporation
327 W. Ship Creek Avenue, Anchorage, AK 99501
P.O. Box 107500, Anchorage, AK 99510-7500
Telephone 907.265.2355 Facsimile 907.265.2439
May 22, 2008
ITB 08-23-54471
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Management Software System
Addendum 1
This project is funded in part by the Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC).
Addendum number 1 is issued to replace Section A Background Information, Section B
Scope of Work & Services, along with Page 2 in its entirety. All changes made have
been put in bold face and underlined for clarity purpose.
The closing will remain unchanged June 10, 2008 at 10:00AM.
All other terms and conditions remain unchanged.
Sincerely,
Mark D. Lienhart
Mark D. Lienhart
Senior Contract Administration Specialist
1

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
08-23-54471
The Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) is soliciting proposals from interested concerns for the
following:
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Management Software System
Sealed offers in original and six (6) copies will be received until 10:00 am local time, June
10, 2008. The envelope used for the submittal of your offer shall be plainly marked with the
following information:
1. Offeror’s name.
2. Offer number 08-23-54471
3. Date and time scheduled for the receipt of offers.
4. Sealed Offer: Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Management
Software System
The ARRC may award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose
offer conforming to this solicitation will be most advantageous to the ARRC.
ARRC may reject any or all offers if such action is in the best interest of ARRC, and waives
informalities and minor irregularities in offers received. ARRC may award a contract on the
basis of initial offers without discussions. Therefore, each initial offer should contain the offeror’s
best terms from a cost or price and technical standpoint. Any contract resulting from this
solicitation shall incorporate the Standard Terms and Conditions contained in this solicitation
package.
This Request for Proposal is not to be construed as a commitment of any kind nor does it
commit the ARRC to pay for any cost incurred in the submission of an offer or for any other cost
incurred prior to the execution of a formal contract.
Please direct all responses and/or questions concerning this Request for Proposal to Mark D.
Lienhart, Alaska Railroad Corporation, Supply Management, 327 Ship Creek Avenue,
Anchorage, AK 99501, telephone number (907) 265-2355, fax number (907) 265-2439. or email
at lienhartm@akrr.com.
2

SECTION A
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
ARRC Corporate Background
The Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) is a public corporation of the State of Alaska
and the last full service (passenger and freight) railroad in the United States, with a route
that runs from Seward and Whittier at tidewater to interior Alaska just beyond Fairbanks.
The corporation is headquartered in Anchorage. The Railroad employs approximately
950 employees at peak employment.
To support and maintain this transportation network, ARRC’s workforce is spread over a
large geographic area and works in a variety of settings, including offices, mechanical
shops, trains, and along the entire rail system. Although some employees have ready
access to computers, others work in locations without reliable phone or network access.
ARRC is divided into the following divisions:
Executive—Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, Labor Relations, Police and
Security
Finance—Administration, Accounting, including Payroll, and Supply Management
Legal – Risk Management and General Counsel
Operations
o Maintenance—Construction and maintenance of roadway, track
structures, bridges and tunnels; includes MOW
o Transportation—Operation of the trains, including train dispatchers,
brakemen, locomotive engineers, conductors, and trainmasters
o Mechanical—Maintenance of locomotives, freight and passenger railcars
o Passenger Operations—Tour guides, gift shop, and baggage handlers
o Health, Safety, and Environment;
Projects, Engineering, and Grants (PEG)
o Engineering – Engineering and Design
o Grant and Project Administration – Project accounting and support;
federal grant applications and associated grant and project reporting
o Project Management – Design, construction and oversight of ARRC
capital projects;
Information Technology and Signals (ITS)
o Signals – Construction and maintenance of manual and electronic
signalization
o Technology - Hardware and software development and support;
telecommunications support
Markets, Sales & Service—Freight marketing, logistics, passenger sales and
marketing, customer service, reservations, and ticketing
Real Estate—Management of ARRC-owned land and facilities through permits
and leases
Processes
ARRC earns revenue from transporting freight and passengers, and through real estate
transactions. These operations can be organized into the following categories:
Terminal Operations – all operations occurring in any one of our yards
Train Operations – all operations that comprise train movement along the track
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Train Asset Management – all operations that comprise logistical management of
assets in support of Train Operations
Asset Maintenance – maintenance of assets owned by ARRC
Real Estate Asset Management – management of all real estate assets owned
and managed by ARRC
Administrative Services – all services provided in support of ARRC operations
Workforce
Each year, ARRC employs approximately 750 to 900 employees. A number of these
positions are seasonal, particularly to accommodate increased passenger and freight
service and infrastructure projects during the summer months. Of these employees,
approximately 600 to 750 are represented by unions.
Business Problems
ARRC has inter-related business processes that are critical to the safe and continuing
operation of trains. These business processes rely heavily on various forms of
technology ranging from computer applications and automated data capture devices in
the field to GPS tracking and state-of-the-art locomotives.
ARRC has initiated a business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) planning effort
which requires the deployment of a BCDR software system that will enable efficient and
effective management of BCDR data and processes.
ARRC Standards for Computing Environment
A description of the Alaska Railroad Corporation computing environment standards
follows describing the desired or acceptable technologies for responding to this Request
for Proposal. New business applications should be built upon and use modern
technologies to the maximum extent feasible.
Network
TCP/IP network
WAN connection speeds of 56k at low-end and up to T1 (1.5Mb) to most remote
areas (e.g., Fairbanks). Within Anchorage bowl, bandwidth is T1 or better
XML and usage of Oracle InterConnect and WebSphere MQ, SQL calls, and APIs
are currently supported
Web Services in addition to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are currently
supported
Domain & Server Hardware and Operating Systems
Domain: Netware NDS
Server Hardware: HP DL380, 2+ GB RAM, 2+ GHz, RAID, redundant power supply
(with Virtualized Services) (Optional: IBM Power Platform (iSeries/pSeries) 2+ GB
RAM, 2+ GHz, RAID, redundant power supply)
Application Server Operating System: Linux (Optional: WinX, AIX (for IBM Power
Platform))
Database Server Operating System: Linux (Optional: WinX, AIX (for IBM Power
Platform))
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Server Software
Database: Oracle 10gR2 (Optional: DB2/400 version 5.x) (MS SQL will be
considered as well)
Web: Apache (Optional: Microsoft IIS, Other)
Email: Novell GroupWise/SMTP
Report Writer: Crystal Reports
Remote Connections: Cisco VPN. Cisco VPN required for Internet connectivity
Financial System: SSA Global (formerly Infinium)
Desktops
Desktops are HP dc7300, 2.4-3.2 GHz, 512MB -1GB. Standard software configuration
includes:
Windows XP
MS Office XP
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Internet Explorer 7+
Browser-based applications should be usable at 1024x768 resolution (other
resolution specifications will be considered)
5

SECTION B
SCOPE OF WORK & SERVICES
Scope of Work
The goal of this project is to acquire a fully functional, fully operational BCDR
Management System. Vendors are invited to propose a Commercial Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) software solution that will be installed on computers at ARRC or hosted on
computers outside of its network.
The scope of work includes provision of a software solution and associated services to
support configuration rollout and maintenance. The software solution requirements are
described below in the Product Scope. The service requirements are described next
under Scope of Services
Product Scope
The proposed software solution shall meet the following Technical and Functional
requirements.
Technical Requirements
System Architecture Database
Utilize a client server or Web browser for the primary user interface.
Provide browser support for Internet Explorer 7.0+.
Application forms must display all critical fields on a minimum screen resolution
of 800 x 600.
Application server operating system are AS400 (i5/OS), Unix/Linux, or Windows
2003.
Inter-process communication E-messaging (MAPI, SMTP) Integration with email
server Novell Groupwise.
Database
The product is required to be data-element based and not document-based.
The product maintains the various plans through data points and not an uploaded
document.
Use Oracle 10g or DB2/400 version 5.x as the database.
Provide documentation of the systems components, including a database entity
relationship diagram (ERD) and process diagrams.
Support for data import (for seeding initial system data wherever possible) and
export/extract.
Allow customer-defined codes or modification of existing codes, without requiring
customization and/or violating the software agreement.
Allow user-defined tables and GUI fields to be created and referenced by the
system via forms and automated routines.
Provide a user interface to easily populate lookup data tables (e.g., calendars,
locations, GL accounts, etc.) with user-defined values.
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System Security, Reliability and Performance
Client demonstrated system uptime of 99% if hosted solution is proposed.
Support a minimum of 10 concurrent users at one central and seven remote
sites.
Establish user access permissions at the user, user group, menu, screen, and
action level.
Establish pre-defined access permissions such as create, modify, delete, view
only, etc.
Support internal user configuration and external authentication (i.e., system
should authenticate against a corporate single sign-on server yet have the ability
to configure the users with different permissions inside the system).
System administrative functionality includes self diagnostics for error logging,
notification and problem resolution.
Reporting and Outputs
The system should be ODBC-compliant or JDBC-compliant and provide open
access to all data to facilitate custom reporting via SQL queries or third-party
reporting tools.
Provide report scheduling capability with multiple report delivery options such as
local or network printer, fax, e-mail, and save electronically.
Provide the ability for interfaces to produce batch files or data to be extracted via
SQL queries.
Documentation, Training, and Support
Technical documentation must exist for the base product as well as for all
customizations, API’s, or other changes not covered in the base product
documentation. This is to be provided at a minimum with each major release.
Provide either online or onsite training.
Online help capabilities to supplement the user training and documentation along
with resolving and understanding user errors.
Established customer support organization that is available during Alaska hours
for business operations and in an emergency available within 15 minutes of the
call.
Defined process for vendor maintenance and modification.
Functional Requirements
The application must provide the following capabilities:
Data Collection and Storage:
Facilitate the assimilation of data per established industry standard BCDR
guidelines that are incorporated into the work processes inherent in the
application.
Work allocation, scheduling and progress monitoring capabilities to assign data
definition tasks to user groups throughout the organization
Plan Development
Automatic generation of plans and assessments based on data collected.
Develop plans for simulation exercises separate from those from actual events.
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Plan Implementation
Work management addressing task allocation, communication, resource
management and progress monitoring for exercises and for actual events that
require the plan to be implemented.
Capture and maintain a historical record of plan implementations including, at a
minimum, a record of planned vs. actual activities and associated schedule and
resource information.
Generate performance reports to reflect the completeness of the plan and level
of success during the execution of the plan.
Communication to users through customizable alerting and notification.
Plan Maintenance
Administrative user interface to manage data, users, user features, access
security, and utilities to minimally import/export data and backup/restore the
database.
Monitor the history of plan maintenance, current status of plans, plan verification,
and user training.
Predefined reports in addition to the ability to generate reports to support the
maintenance of the plan.
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Scope of Services
As part of the scope of services, the vendor must understand that they will be partnering
with ARRC in the development of the deliverables related to rollout of this system. The
service areas and vendor deliverables are noted below.
Project Management
Project Management for the configuration and rollout of the system. Deliverables
include:
Work Breakdown Structure and procedures for the Installation, Configuration and
Maintenance/Upgrade plans
Hardware & Software Environment Specification
System Configuration
Configuration of the system as required for ARRC functional and BCDR process needs
Final Configuration Specification defining system settings and describing the
rationale that correlates the settings to the ARRC process
System configuration guide detailing the setting options and descriptions
Testing
ARRC will test the system, based on guidance from the vendor. This guidance should
clearly define the testing strategy and responsibilities, as applicable.
Test Plan and Test Cases
List of known issues/ bugs, planned fixes/patches
Training
Preliminary training for a core group of users must be provided after the initial software
installation If available, Web-based and/or computer-based training is acceptable. If
Web-based and/or computer-based training is not available, the vendor must offer onsite,
instructor-led preliminary training.
System Administrator training and training materials
End User training sessions for all other initial users of the system
Support and Maintenance
The successful vendor will provide ongoing support and maintenance for their product.
Service Level Agreement, if applicable
Support contact information
Procedures for reporting critical incidents and/or application faults and submitting
support requests or self-service queries
Definition of how critical incident and/or applications faults will be resolved and the
time frames for resolution
Procedures and available schedules for application upgrades.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan if a hosted-solution
9