The Government of Canada (GC) is undertaking an initiative to transform the way in which systems interoperate. In the new model, the private sector will provide managed services related to GC Interoperability Platform (GCIP). The service provider will apply GC security standards and all operational activities will be performed within Canada by Canadian citizens and all infrastructures will reside in Canada. Canada may invoke a National Security Exception (NSE) for any future procurement.
The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to better understand industry capabilities and maturity levels that a service provider can provide in the context of interoperability involving Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts and principles. The RFI will be used to clarify GCIP draft requirements and inform a potential procurement. Should Canada decide to proceed, information gathered through this RFI may be used in upcoming phases of this procurement process, including development of a business case to analyze the cost, benefits, and risks of the service.
The service supplier will not be involved with or be responsible for business or process transformation. The GC will be responsible for the enterprise architecture (EA) with participation from the service provider. The service provider will work with the GC business owners to render enterprise applications interoperable with the GCIP. It is expected that all procurement activities and the transition to the service provider will be complete within 1 year of contract award.
The goals of this RFI are to:
Gather specific information related to options for a GC Interoperability Platform (GCIP) that will be managed by a vendor(s) as a service.
Gather information on future options for interoperability up to and including the cloud.
Throughout this document there will be frequent references to the GCIP Architecture Vision found below in Figure 1. Where possible, suppliers should reference it within their responses. The GC has provided potential options and is open to vendor input on different options (refer to Section 5.2).
