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Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Request for Information (RFI) eDiscovery Software as a Solution and Maintenance 1. Introduction This Request for Information (RFI) is issued for information and pla... Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Request for Information (RFI) eDiscovery Software as a Solution and Maintenance 1. Introduction This Request for Information (RFI) is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation nor does it restrict the Government as to the ultimate acquisition approach. In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. The purpose of this RFI is to identify qualified vendors, who are able to meet Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) requirements for eDiscovery Software as a Solution (SaaS) and Maintenance. Any contract/order that might be awarded based on information received or derived from this market research will be the outcome of the competitive process. The purpose of this RFI is to obtain market information on capable sources of supply. The Government is not responsible for any cost incurred by industry in furnishing this information. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested vendor's expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future solicitation if any is issued. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary. All submissions will become Government property and will not be returned. Interested vendors are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. VA is under no obligation to provide feedback to the company, or to contact the company for clarification of any information submitted in response to this RFI. 2. RFI Response Instructions Provide the following information: (A) Provide Company Information: 1) Company Name 2) CAGE/DUNS Number under which the company is registered in SAM/VetBiz.gov 3) Company Address 4) Point of contact name 5) Telephone number 6) Email address (B) Brief summary describing your company s technical approach to meeting the requirements, to also include: The specific SaaS COTS product you intend to utilize to meet the requirements stated in paragraph 5.2 Are you the OEM of this product or do you intend to team with the OEM? Provide a summary of the licensing approaches, and if/how the licensing costs and structure changes based on the future growth parameters in the PWS. Provide a summary of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) approach, including a description of what O&M services are provided in the product cost, the licensing cost, and what O&M services require procuring separate stand-alone O&M package(s). What is the estimated timeframe from contract award to complete the system configuration to provide the features stated in PWS Section 5.2? Describe your system availability and how you measure your uptime. Does your system have standard SLAs that are normally provided to your customers? Is the Draft PWS clear on the requirements? Do you have any proposed revisions and comments? Please suggest contract vehicles this could be procured through. Responses to this RFI shall be submitted electronically by 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, December 9, 2020 via email the Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) point of contact Contract Specialist, William Waterhouse, william.waterhouse@va.gov and Contracting Officer, Kendra Archbald at Kendra.archbald@va.gov WARNING: Please do not wait until the last minute to submit your responses! To avoid submission of late responses, we recommend the transmission of your response file 24 hours prior to the required response due date and time. Please be advised that timeliness is determined by the date and time an Offeror s response is received by the Government not when an Offeror attempted transmission. Offerors are encouraged to review and ensure that sufficient bandwidth is available on their end of the transmission. All proprietary/company confidential material shall be clearly marked on every page that contains such. TRANSFORMATION TWENTY-ONE TOTAL TECHNOLOGY NEXT GENERATION (T4NG) PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS) DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS Office of Information & Technology Enterprise Program Management Office eDiscovery Software as a Solution (SaaS) and Maintenance Date: 11/16/2020 TAC- Task Order PWS Version Number: 1.0 Contents 1.0 BACKGROUND 3 2.0 APPLICABLE DOCUMENTS 3 3.0 SCOPE OF WORK 3 3.1 APPLICABILITY 3 3.2 ORDER TYPE 4 4.0 PERFORMANCE DETAILS 4 4.1 PERFORMANCE PERIOD 4 4.2 PLACE OF PERFORMANCE 4 4.3 TRAVEL OR SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS 4 4.4 CONTRACT MANAGEMENT 5 4.5 GOVERNMENT FURNISHED PROPERTY 5 4.6 SECURITY AND PRIVACY 5 4.6.1 POSITION/TASK RISK DESIGNATION LEVEL(S) 6 5.0 SPECIFIC TASKS AND DELIVERABLES 6 5.1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT 7 5.1.1 CONTRACTOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN 7 5.1.2 PRIVACY & HIPAA TRAINING 7 5.1.3 TECHNICAL KICKOFF MEETING 7 5.2 COMMERICAL-OFF-THE-SHELF (COTS) EDISCOVERY PRODUCT 8 5.3 EDISCOVERY IMPLEMENTATION 12 5.3.1 REQUIREMENTS 12 5.3.2 DESIGN 12 5.3.3 CONFIGURATION & IMPLEMENTATION 13 5.3.4 PROVIDE NETWORK CONNECTIVITY 13 5.3.5 TEST & EVALUATION (T & E) 14 5.4 EDISCOVERY TRAINING 14 5.5 EDISCOVERY SUPPORT 15 5.6 TRANSITION SUPPORT (OPTIONAL TASK) 15 6.0 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS 16 6.1 PERFORMANCE METRICS 16 6.2 SECTION 508 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) 17 6.2.1 COMPATIBILITY WITH ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY 18 6.2.2 ACCEPTANCE AND ACCEPTANCE TESTING 18 BACKGROUND The mission of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information & Technology (OI&T) is to provide benefits and services to Veterans of the United States. The VA Office of General Counsel (OGC) requires an eDiscovery system to effectively preserve, collect, process, review, analyze, and produce Electronically Stored Information (ESI) in compliance with legal obligations under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). The OGC requires the capability to meet time sensitive requests to process, upload and analyze millions of ESI records as required to meet time sensitive court ordered deadlines for productions in litigation, investigations, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and Congressional Oversight requests to minimize risks of court sanctions and costly unmerited settlements. APPLICABLE DOCUMENTS The documents in Paragraph 2.0 in the T4NG Basic PWS apply to the performance of this effort, there are no additional referenced documents. SCOPE OF WORK The VA requires an enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) consisting of a vendor developed and managed system that fully supports VA eDiscovery needs to increase capacity and comply with Federal eDiscovery Law and VA requirements. The eDiscovery System will provide the following functions and capabilities to the VA OGC eDiscovery needs: SaaS platform capability with application solution. Implementation including software installation, testing, and deployment support. Training support shall be available through the duration of the contract period of performance. 24/7 on-call support. Product service and support including technical support and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Installation of software upgrades, patches, and releases. APPLICABILITY This Task Order (TO) effort PWS is within the scope of the following T4NG Basic PWS paragraphs: 4.1 Program Management, Strategy, Enterprise Architecture and Planning Support, 4.2.3 IT Service Management Implementation, 4.2.5 Cloud Computing, 4.2.9 System/Software Integration, 4.2.13 Current System and Data Migration, 4.4 Test & Evaluation, 4.8 Operations and Maintenance, 4.9 Cyber Security, and 4.10 Training. ORDER TYPE The effort shall be proposed on a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) basis. PERFORMANCE DETAILS PERFORMANCE PERIOD Period of performance is 12 months from the date of award plus two 12-month option periods and one optional task as follows: Base period shall include eDiscovery software solution implementation, 1-year support of the eDiscovery software, and VA staff training. Option Period 1 shall include 1-year support of the eDiscovery solution and training for new and updated software modules as released. Option Period 2 shall include 1-year support of the eDiscovery solution and training for new and updated software modules as released. Optional Task Transition Support: One (1) 90-day optional task for transitional support which may be exercised once at any time during the period of performance. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE Efforts under this TO shall be performed at Contractor facilities. The Contractor shall identify the Contractor s place of performance in their Task Execution Plan submission. Work may be performed at remote locations with prior approval of the Program Manager (PM). The Contractor shall maintain onsite presence during normal Monday through Friday business hours. After-business-hours, emergency, and pre-approved scheduled work may be performed at remote locations with prior approval of the VA program manager as stated in this PWS. TRAVEL OR SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS The Government anticipates travel to perform the tasks associated with the effort, as well as to attend program-related meetings or conferences throughout the PoP. Include all estimated travel costs in your firm-fixed price line items. These costs will not be directly reimbursed by the Government. The total estimated number of trips in support of the program related meetings for this effort is two (2) trips. Anticipated locations include the following, estimated at five (5) days in duration: Orlando, Florida Washington, D.C. CONTRACT MANAGEMENT All requirements of Sections 7.0 and 8.0 of the T4NG Basic PWS apply to this effort. This TO shall be addressed in the Contractor s Progress, Status and Management Report as set forth in the T4NG Basic contract. GOVERNMENT FURNISHED PROPERTY VA shall provide office space, computers, network connectivity, and telephones. The contracting staff shall have access to VA specific systems/network as required for execution of the task via a domain accessible mail enabled account with remote access technology (e.g. Citrix Access Gateway (CAG), or Virtual Private Network (VPN). Onsite and remote access will allow access to VA specific software such as Service Now and Microsoft 365. The Contractor shall not transmit, store, or otherwise maintain sensitive data or products in Contractor systems (or media) within the VA firewall IAW VA Handbook 6500.6 dated January 30, 2011. All VA sensitive information shall be protected at all times in accordance with local security field office System Security Plans (SSP s) and Authority to Operate (ATO) s for all systems/LAN s accessed while performing the tasks detailed in this PWS. Based upon the Government assessment of remote access solutions and requirements of this TO, the Government estimates that zero (0) VA standard GFE will be required by this PWS. The Government will not provide IT accessories including but not limited to Mobile Wi-Fi hotspots/wireless access points, additional or specialized keyboards or mice, laptop bags, extra charging cables, extra Personal Identity Verification card readers, peripheral devices, or additional Random Access Memory (RAM). The Contractor is responsible for providing these types of IT accessories in support of the TO as necessary and any VA installation required for these IT accessories shall be coordinated with the COR. The Status of Government Furnished Equipment Report under the T4NG Basic Contract requirements is applicable to this TO and shall be delivered to the COR/VA PM as required. SECURITY AND PRIVACY All requirements in Section 6.0 of the T4NG Basic PWS apply to this effort. Specific TO requirements relating to Addendum B, Section B4.0 paragraphs j and k supersede the corresponding T4NG Basic PWS paragraphs, and are as follows: The vendor shall notify VA within 24 hours of the discovery or disclosure of successful exploits of the vulnerability which can compromise the security of the Systems (including the confidentiality or integrity of its data and operations, or the availability of the system). Such issues shall be remediated as quickly as is practical, but in no event longer than 10 workdays. When the Security Fixes involve installing third party patches (such as Microsoft OS patches), the vendor will provide written notice to VA that the patch has been validated as not affecting the Systems within 10 working days. When the vendor is responsible for operations or maintenance of the Systems, they shall apply the Security Fixes within 15 days. All requirements in Section 6.0 of the T4NG Basic PWS apply. Addendum B requirements have been tailored to reflect the security and privacy requirements of this specific TO. It has been determined that protected health information may be disclosed or accessed and a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) shall be required. The Contractor shall adhere to the requirements set forth within the BAA, referenced in Section D of the Request for Task Execution Plan (RTEP) and shall comply with VA Directive 6066. POSITION/TASK RISK DESIGNATION LEVEL(S) In accordance with VA Handbook 0710, Personnel Security and Suitability Program, the position sensitivity and the level of background investigation commensurate with the required level of access for the following tasks within the PWS are: Position Sensitivity and Background Investigation Requirements by Task Task Number Tier1 / Low Risk Tier 2 / Moderate Risk Tier 4 / High Risk 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 The Tasks identified above and the resulting Position Sensitivity and Background Investigation requirements identify, in effect, the Background Investigation requirements for Contractor individuals, based upon the tasks the particular Contractor individual will be working. The submitted Contractor Staff Roster must indicate the required Background Investigation Level for each Contractor individual based upon the tasks the Contractor individual will be working, in accordance with their submitted proposal. SPECIFIC TASKS AND DELIVERABLES The specific tasks and deliverables are described in the sections that follow. PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONTRACTOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN The Contractor shall deliver a Contractor Project Management Plan (CPMP) that lays out the Contractor s approach, timeline and tools to be used in execution of this TO effort.  The CPMP should take the form of both a narrative and graphic format that displays the schedule, milestones, risks and resource support.  The CPMP shall also include how the Contractor shall coordinate and execute planned, routine, and ad hoc data collection reporting requests as identified within the PWS. The initial baseline CPMP shall be concurred upon and updated in accordance with Section B of the TO. The Contractor shall update and maintain the VA Program Manager (PM) approved CPMP throughout the PoP. Deliverable: Contractor Project Management Plan PRIVACY & HIPAA TRAINING The Contractor shall submit TMS training certificates of completion for VA Privacy and Information Security Awareness and Rules of Behavior and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) training, and provide signed copies of the Contractor Rules of Behavior in accordance with Section 9, Training, from Appendix C of the VA Handbook 6500.6, Contract Security . Deliverables: VA Privacy and Information Security Awareness and Rules of Behavior Training Certificate Signed Contractor Rules of Behavior VA HIPAA certificate of completion TECHNICAL KICKOFF MEETING A technical kickoff meeting shall be held within 10 days after TO award. The Contractor shall coordinate the date, time, and location (can be virtual) with the Contracting Officer (CO), as the Post-Award Conference Chairperson, the VA PM, as the Co-Chairperson, the Contract Specialist (CS), and the COR. The Contractor shall provide a draft agenda to the CO and VA PM at least five (5) calendar days prior to the meeting. Upon Government approval of a final agenda, the Contractor shall distribute to all meeting attendees. The Contractor shall prepare and distribute the meeting minutes of the kickoff meeting to the CO, COR and all attendees within three (3) calendar days after the meeting. The Contractor shall obtain concurrence from the CS on the content of the meeting minutes prior to distribution of the document. Deliverables: Kickoff Meeting Agenda Kickoff Meeting Minutes COMMERICAL-OFF-THE-SHELF (COTS) EDISCOVERY PRODUCT The target eDiscovery platform shall provide the following business capabilities that are required to comply with Federal eDiscovery Law and VA requirements, and to ensure that the OGC will be capable of producing ESI in a timely, repeatable, and defensible manner: Provide the capability for an average of one hundred (100) concurrent users or the ability to support approximately one thousand (1,000) named users, depending on platform user licensing model. Support the opening of 300 new cases per year, average case size 300 GB. Allow for the issuance 400 Legal Holds per year, average number of 30 custodians per hold. Support the hosting of 30 TB of deduplicated data available for review at any time. Support the collection of 40 TB of data annually from various data sources with potential to reach 200 TB annually. Accommodate anticipated 15% annual user growth. Support a single tenant cloud hosting architecture, with the capability to support two internal VA business organizations and requiring no access to each other s workspace. Must support role-based access with 2-factor authentication. Allow for future interoperability with Office 365, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft (MS) Teams. Complies with VA Section 508 Office requirements shall be implemented and successfully tested within 90 days of all software update/upgrade releases. Support utilization of VA security protocols to automate discovery and collection. Support Litigation Hold (LH) communication resulting from current or anticipated litigation, audit, government investigation, or other such matter that suspends the normal disposition or processing of records. The eDiscovery solution shall provide OGC staff with the ability to initiate, update, and track legal holds as part of standard legal practice with the following attributes: Interface for submission of legal hold requests by VA staff. Issuance of legal holds to VA staff. Tracking of legal holds and tracking of acknowledgement of legal holds. Notification to OIT operations teams of legal holds issued. Conversion of existing legal holds to eDiscovery document collection/processing requests. Detailed and high-level LH reports. LH dashboard. Mandatory two factor authentication requirement for custodian LH acknowledgment. Security: Provide support to obtain full Authority to Operate (ATO). Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Authorization at the Moderate Level. Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliance at the Moderate level due to the sensitive nature of the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in the ESI collected. Prepare responses to Congressional, constituent policy inquiries, and GAO requests. Perform Identification, Authentication, and Access Management to validate parties attempting to log on to a system or application as authorized users to include tracking access credentials for the protection of federal information assets and to prevent unauthorized access to those assets. Manage Knowledge Capture Services to include the processes, techniques, and technologies for collecting information so that it can be stored for publishing and reuse. Manage official Government records to enforce policies and rules for the retention and disposition of government information and records. Conduct data governance to establish and manage policies, processes, and standards for the management of VA data to include the identification and designation of VA common data, appoint data stewards for information subject areas, and identification and designation of Authoritative Data Sources for VA data. Provide business intelligence services to deliver the applications, tools, services, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize VA decisions and performance. Perform business analytics using VA data to perform statistical analysis, reporting, and visualizations to provide meaningful information to VA and to external Federal entities as required for regulatory and oversight purposes. The eDiscovery solution shall conform to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) framework guidance as follows: Analysis - Perform analytical functions in a legally defensible manner, matching current industry standards as of 2020 for reliability, user friendliness, and customizability. The solution shall accommodate evaluation of ESI for content and context, including key patterns and topics, to search, triage, predictively code, organize, and report on large volumes of data as follows: Audio search. Automated identification of Social Security numbers (SSNs) or other PII. Concept clustering. Database reporting, visualizations, and exports. Email threading. Full search capabilities - including Boolean logic, fuzzy or stemmed searching, saved searches, search history, and dynamic or scheduled search updating among many search features. Keyword highlighting. Near-duplicate identification, searching, and clustering. Predictive coding and Technology Assisted Review (TAR), including Simple Passive Learning, Simple Active Learning, Continuous Active Learning, and/or other eDiscovery-focused AI capabilities. Processing - Reduce the volume of ESI and convert it as needed for review and analysis. The solution capabilities shall consist of: Data De-duplication in the way of Duplicate suppression and Near-duplication. Removal of all files on a specific list of file types deemed to be of no evidentiary value; De-NISTing utilizing the list created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Moving documents containing certain file paths. Omitting certain MIME types (e.g. system files and executables). Eliminating files that fall below a size threshold. Processing ESI based on date range restrictions. Not extracting certain types of "children" or "embedded objects" as separate records (e.g. inline images in office documents and emails). Clustering the data using semantic analysis. Grouping by date and custodian. Allowing manual custodian assignments. Processing digital audio files. Email threading and reconstructing communication threads. Full text indexing. Providing logs of what was accomplished and what failed during processing, such as: no document text. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) being extracted from the ESI. encrypted or password-protected files. errors encountered due to corrupted files. Review - Evaluate ESI for relevance and privilege in a simple, efficient manner, matching industry standards as of 2020 for reliability, maintainability, scalability, and user interface design. Capabilities shall include: Maintenance of at least 30 TB of deduplicated case data for review by up to 100 concurrent, geographically dispersed VA users. Accessibility (508 compliance, use within various browsers, dual screen functionality, ability to adjust test/font size, security/permissions options). Audit logging of user actions. Automatic OCR for image and PDF file formats. Batching for review. Document redaction. Document printing and downloads or exports by end users. Document tagging and bulk tagging. Family group tagging/review flexibility. Keyword highlighting including folder or review batch-based persistent highlighting. Proprietary document viewer capabilities, true native document view options or integration. Scalability for VA use. Visibility of metadata, hidden data, and Microsoft in-document tracked changes or comments. Production - Deliver ESI to others in appropriate forms and using appropriate delivery mechanisms as follows: Produce in Load File format and create Load File Exports Templates. Export or package case data in a format that can be more readily and directly loaded into a downstream application for review and analysis. Produce metadata exports. Capability to export with Nested Attachments. Execute image-based productions. Support custom headers and footers. Support watermark labeling of documents. Support Bates stamp or unique file identifiers for native files. Enable a reviewer to undo highlighting or other native attorney work product appearing on documents. Hash ESI prior to production. Presentation - Display ESI data findings before audiences at depositions, hearings, trials, etc., especially in native and near-native forms, to elicit further information, validate existing facts or positions, or persuade an audience. Information Governance - Implement data governance processes that alleviate risk and expenses in the event of an electronic discovery request using a framework and responsibility model for cross-functional and executive dialogue that serves as a catalyst for defining a unified governance approach to information by linking business value and legal duties to the information assets. Preservation - Ensure that potentially e-discovery-relevant ESI is properly stored and protected against inappropriate alteration or destruction using measures such as retention and deletion schedules. Deliverables: eDiscovery software solution EDISCOVERY IMPLEMENTATION REQUIREMENTS During the base period, the Contractor shall complete requirements sessions with the VA business customer, users, and OI&T staff (hereinafter VA Team ) to properly understand and refine business requirements for implementation. The outcome shall be a review of VA business customer needs. Deliverables: Requirements Session Meeting Notes DESIGN The Contractor shall ensure that the design includes software configurations, interface specifications, screen and report designs, and security control specifications. The design document shall reflect the physical, functional and operational architecture of the Contractor s solution including constraints to functionality and any gaps. The system/software information shall be captured in the System/Software Design Document (SDD). The SDD shall address the following: Establish the system architecture to include key interfaces between the cloud application and VA systems. Include design considerations for security and audit procedures; archival of historical data, data migration and data handling criteria, scheduling, disaster recovery, and quality assurance factors. Identify, define, and design capacity and performance requirements and any associated limitations. Specifically, coordinate with the Government to identify limitations and considerations during the design phase. Apply VA standards complying with security requirements, enterprise architecture, data standardization, format, transmission, and storage in adherence with VA standards identified in the One-VA Technical Reference Model (TRM). Deliverables: System Design Document (SDD) CONFIGURATION & IMPLEMENTATION The Contractor shall provide eDiscovery application configuration services that are consistent with its standard implementation and deployment methodology. The Contractor shall configure the application to meet all VA s requirements as stipulated in this PWS. The Contractor shall provide guidance on alternative approaches to minimize future customizations of the application. The Contractor shall perform all configuration of the systems prior to deployment. The Contractor shall prepare a Change and Configuration Management Plan in accordance with all applicable regulatory policy and guidance. The Change and Configuration Management Plan shall contain all information relevant to defining and modifying the application from the initial baseline configuration and subsequent re-baselining activities. Deliverables: Change and Configuration Management Plan PROVIDE NETWORK CONNECTIVITY The Contractor s hosted cloud environment shall have established and approved direct access to the VA Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) 2.0 Gateway Connection by the Kick-Off Meeting (within 10 days of award). Connectivity between the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and the VA TIC shall comply with TIC Reference Architecture Document Version 2.0. The Contractor shall not send or receive data to the VA network without an approved Authority to Operate (ATO) from the VA. Any deployment outside of the VA firewall is subject to VA TIC 2.0 Gateway Connection requirements for communication with other VA systems within the VA Firewall. The Contractor shall provide network solutions for connectivity between the primary and secondary site, subject to Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)-140-2 certification of equipment and configurations and the criteria set forth by the System Security Plan (SSP). The Contractor shall deliver the following network functionality: Provide network connectivity that complies with FIPS 140-2, Section 1, Table 1, up to and including Security Level 3. The Contractor solution shall support Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) in accordance with the directive issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on September 28, 2010, IPv6 technology, in accordance with the USGv6: Technical Infrastructure for IPv6 Adoption and the NIST SP 800 series applicable compliance shall be included in all IT infrastructures, application designs, application development, operational systems and sub-systems, and their integration. In addition to the above requirements, all devices shall support dual stack connectivity without additional memory or other resources being provided by the Government, so that they can function in a mixed environment. All public/external facing servers and services (e.g. web, email, DNS, ISP services, etc) shall support native IPv6 users, and all internal infrastructure and applications shall communicate using native IPv6 operations. All user connectivity to the cloud hosting environment shall be through the TIC gateway. Role Holders shall not be capable of accessing the Case Management System or background investigation data through an internet connection direct to the cloud that bypasses the TIC gateway. The Contractor shall provide a Service Level Agreement (SLA) document identifying the expected availability of the application. Availability of 99.9 percent is required, with a maximum amount of unplanned downtime per year not to exceed 8 hours. TEST & EVALUATION (T & E) The Contractor shall support the testing by the VA (e.g. unit, functional, accessibility, system, reliability, usability, interoperability, regression, security, performance) throughout the implementation cycle using industry best practices. The Contractor shall also provide documentation to support possible testing of critical requirements such as Disaster Recovery. EDISCOVERY TRAINING Training shall be available throughout the duration of the contract period. Training shall be role-based (user, admin, etc..) and shall be provided as follows: To assist the VA project teams with data migration from existing eDiscovery software to be completed within 60 days of receipt of order. Provide four Web training sessions to train approximately 300 VA staff. Provide Train-the-Trainer support. Provide pre-recorded training for on-going VA staff training. Provide training for new and updated software modules as released. The Contractor shall deliver or provide links to training plans, manuals and other training documentation or training aids. Electronic training tools such as video teleconferencing and computer-based training shall be employed to enhance the effectiveness of training materials and courses. The Contractor shall identify and/or provide any additional training required by end-users, technicians, or any other staff for implementation, maintenance and use of deliverables specified in individual Task Orders. EDIS...