USDA/NASS intends to make a sole-source award to Trustwave. The proposed contract will be a FFP.  USDA/NASS requires efforts to migrate 2 Fortigate Firewall HA Pairs with IPS to 2 new Cisco ASA Firewall HA Pairs with IPS. 

Trustwave is the current firewall manager and is already familiar with current firewall setup, as well as NASS' network environment.  This is critical as one minor error on the firewall migration process could prove disastrous to NASS and may impact its operation in a major way.  This includes major firewall and network outages that would impact all of its users as well as all critical NASS operations.  NASS is currently keeping its network environment's stability due to the ongoing Census of Agriculture.  Unnecessary outages to its network environment could derail its efforts, as well as USDA as a whole. 

The anticipated award date of this contract is August 1, 2013.

 THIS NOTICE OF INTENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS.  This notice is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government.  Potential sources who believe they can provide the services listed above are invited to submit substantiating documentation in writing to the identified point of contact.  Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. A determination by the Government to compete this proposed contract based on responses to this notice is solely at the discretion of the Government.