The U.S. Air Force issued a request for information (RFI) Jan. 4 on products that can virtualize the cyberspace aspects of service weapon systems to support realistic mission rehearsals.
The notice, posted to FedBizOpps, noted “the Air Force has routinely used test ranges and a variety of modeling and simulation capabilities to develop, test, evaluate, and provide training for its air and space systems.”
The Air Force is seeking to increase both the fidelity and complexity of cyber domain modeling and simulation without needing to install a full set of customized computing, storage, and networking hardware for each weapon system to be represented. This translates into a focus on commodity and not custom computing, storage, and network hardware.
The RFI specifically requests respondents to describe products/services for representing dedicated hardware/software systems with virtualized equivalents that can run on commodity hardware; summarize corporate experience in providing these products and services to clients; describe approaches to ensure a virtualized system’s functions accurately perform information exchanges; and identify known challenges or limitations in virtualizing system functionality and mitigating performance differences.
The request also asks respondents to describe approaches for providing long-term sustainment services, explain approaches to quickly execute the virtualization process with types of information or system access required to efficiently execute the process, and identify 3rd party software licenses, products, or services that a customer is expected to furnish as a prerequisite for using described products and services.
Submissions are due by Jan. 31.The requesting office is the Air Force Material Command at Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC), Hanscom AFB, Mass.