RFI cover letter - Oak Ridge National Laboratory



Date: March 3, 2020 To: All Prospective Respondents Subject: Request for Information (RFI) No. 01-Data Center-2020Issued By: This Request for Information (RFI) is being issued by UT-Battelle, LLC, (Company), management and operating contractor for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for the US Department of Energy (DOE) under prime contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.RFI PurposeORNL is conducting a market survey to assist with the exploration of the availability of current or future offsite data center space where compute, storage and networking resources could be located over the next decade. This RFI is forward-looking and is for informational purposes in support of ORNL and DOE Office of Science (SC). A subsequent solicitation or subcontract award may not follow.IntroductionORNL is located in Oak Ridge, TN and is home to several large-scale supercomputers and storage systems that are among the world’s largest and most powerful. For example, the 200 petaflops CPU/GPU Summit system is currently the No. 1 system on the Top500 list of machines; the Frontier system to be deployed in 2021 will be among the early exascale systems world-wide; the Spider parallel file system offers 250 petabytes of short-term scratch space, and the file system in 2021 will offer 2-4x that capacity. In addition to such specialized, extreme-scale resources, ORNL also hosts several general-purpose, medium-scale resources for data analysis and institutional computing. All of the aforementioned systems impose significantly on the laboratory’s space, power and cooling infrastructure. To field such systems, ORNL has so far built multiple, data centers in-house with over 65,000 sq. ft of floor space and tens of megawatts of power.Moving forward, over the next decade, ORNL anticipates deploying several other storage systems and computational clusters that may be well suited for an offsite data center. These resource deployments may collectively range in footprint from a few tens to a couple of hundred racks, consuming up to a few megawatts (2-4MW).To support this growing need in the next decade, ORNL is seeking innovative solutions and availability of an offsite data center that can provide desirable power, space, cooling, floor loading, network connectivity, physical security, proximity to the laboratory, on-demand use, modularity, scalability, sustainability, speed of deployment, long-term viability, sustainable business model, and ES&H (environmentally, safety and health conscious) offerings. RFI ResponsesORNL is seeking an innovative, forward-looking, data center solution to address growing facility needs. As an RFI, the response should describe the proposed plan or availability for the following: identifying a location in Oak Ridge, TN or surrounding counties/region, with the ability to grow the footprint as needed, building physical security, installing the needed power and cooling infrastructure with growth options in mind, ability to run network fiber, timeframe for completing the site preparation, business model for long-term viability, ES&H issues (environmental, safety and health e.g., dust remediation if needed) among others. As this is an RFI, forward-looking concepts that are not part of an official plan of record can be described as such, and the feasibility and appropriateness of those features can be openly discussed with the Company. See Attachment A for a list of features desired in the design space of a data center and other information required. It is understood that responses may include discussions involving property development or constructing a data center. The Respondents should understand that the Company will not sign on to being part of any joint venture type agreement in support of developing/constructing a data center. Responses Due: Responses to this RFI are requested no later than 4:00 PM EDT on or before Friday, April 5, 2020. Questions and Responses should be sent to besancenezwr@. Please reference “RFI-” in the subject line. The anticipated model is that we will contract for the use of the facility resources (space, power, etc.). Current, possible data center needs may be late in calendar year 2020 or early in 2021. Disclaimer This notice does not obligate The Company to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response to this RFI or any future requests. Any information submitted in response to this RFI is strictly voluntary. This RFI is for information planning purposes and The Company will not pay or otherwise reimburse respondents for information submitted. It is the responsibility of potential respondents to monitor this site for the release of any follow-on information. All documentation shall become the property of the Company. Respondents are advised that the Company is under no obligation to provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. All proprietary, classified, or sensitive information must be marked in your response. The Company reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation. UT-Battelle’s employees and subcontractors may have access to all information provided. In accordance with the terms of UT-Battelle’s prime contract with DOE, DOE will have access to all information provided. Questions and ResponsesNon-proprietary questions and responses will be published for all concerned. Proprietary questions and their responses will not be made available to third parties. If there are any questions, please contact the undersigned. Sincerely, William R. Besancenez, Procurement ManagerManaged by UT-Battelle for the Dept. of Energy Attachment A – RFI-, Features of the Offsite Data Center Below is the list of desired features to be considered while developing the RFI for the offsite data center. It is strongly preferred that the RFI describe the overall solution at a high-level and then describe how the solution specifically addresses the below items.Location: Please describe your approach to identifying a site that is optimally situated to ORNL so the Company staff and vendors can administer the resources. ORNL has a strong desire to keep the data local (or nearby) and not put it in a remote data center.Floor space: What is the total floor space that will be available in the data center? What is the maximum number of racks (standard storage/computer cabinet size) it can hold, and the minimum number of racks expected?Power: It is anticipated that over the next decade, we may need to accommodate 2-4MW of power and the associated cooling. These are nominal projections based on anticipated procurements and growth and can therefore vary. Describe the approach to provision and scale the power and cooling as needed with a plan to accommodate as much as 10MW of load.Floor loading: We anticipate each rack to weigh around 3,300 lbs. or more and may deploy hundreds of them over time. Describe how your proposed floor solution will address this requirement. Network connectivity: ORNL systems need 100 Gbps connectivity today, up to 400 Gbps in 2023-2024 timeframe and connections to ESnet (DOE’s Energy Sciences network ). Thus, there is the need to run the needed network fiber to the data center. Describe how your solution will factor the connectivity requirement as part of the facility.Security: Describe how site safety and protection of the property and data will be addressed in your proposal. The systems contemplated or discussed in this RFI are NOT classified. The respondents should understand that there is no classified work associated this RFI. On-demand use: ORNL expects an on-demand usage model to accommodate surges in infrastructure growth. Describe how your business model will allow such an approach.Speed of deployment: Describe the timeframe that will be needed to deploy the data center. Long-term viability and a sustainable business model: Describe your business model and how it lends itself to long-term sustenance. ORNL expects to use the facility over a long-term period of time and needs the solution to be viable. Describe what other business infrastructure you anticipate co-locating with ORNL business.ES&H: Explain how the solution is cognizant of (and will address) environment, safety and health issues that may arise during the operations of the data center.Scalability: Describe scalability of the solution in all aspects, e.g., power, on-demand use, etc.Resiliency: Describe how the data center solution will be resilient in the face of failure. Failure may be in the form of power outages, natural causes. Identify the challenges you foresee and describe your approach to resiliency.Support: Explain the support model for handling maintenance issues related to the data center.Pricing: Please include budgetary pricing estimates in your response. It is anticipated that pricing for the use of a scalable building block is adequate, given the ability to scale that budgetary price upward for larger configurations. Please include any other cost considerations. Contracting: We would like to understand the complexities of a typical contract agreement. Please provide a copy of a typical agreement. Please describe how pricing is developed and the factors that influence pricing. Personnel Access: Describe your approach to authorizing and granting personnel access to the data center. How will security be ensured for ORNL’s systems and kept separate from your other customers? ................
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