Nancy Gorman • over 10 years ago
Clarification Regarding External Servers or SaaS
External servers and SaaS were acknowledged as potential approaches in the Federal Register and Challenge Updates. In the Contestant Process Overview, “Contest rules require that the contestant commit to not modifying any of the components of the submission that may remain under its control (for example, external servers, or Software as a Service (SaaS) components) from this time until the completion of the evaluation period.” Also, under Role of this Contest, “As used in this notice, ``product'' means either a discrete software module which is installed on VA servers or a software service.”
However, in the Submission Checklist, you state additional required documentation should consist of: “Software as a Service (SaaS) code while the evaluation is underway (if Software as a Service is used) … These items must be stored in each one of the VMs, with the content corresponding to that specific VM.” Licenses to use and inspect the software in the VM are also required.
In the Instructions on Use of Testing Environment, you state “CTest is a powerful automatic testing fixture with the ability to interact through the web with remote repositories and dash-boards. For the purposes of this contest, your version of the environment has these network capabilities removed to enhance confidentiality during the contest.”
Please provide further clarification regarding the test environment.
1. Does the VA require the Scheduling COTS product (to include the server and clients) to be installed on the 3 VMs that host the VistA environments?
2. What network services will be available in the virtual environment to allow an external server or SaaS to communicate with the VA-provided VMs for the purposes of evaluation?
3. What services are available to support communication among VMs?
4. You state, “the virtual environment is composed of a collection of VMs that will be made available to contestants through remote connections via username/password secure logins”. How will the evaluation team communicate with the VMs during the submission review/evaluation process?
Comments are closed.
2 comments
Ken Rubin • over 10 years ago
Along the same lines, the contest indicates within the virtual testing environment that “Contestants will have sufficient control of the virtual machines in which they will prepare their submissions.” Is it correct to assume that ‘sufficient control’ will allow contestants to establish connectivity to externally-hosted software-as-a-service.
steven oster Manager • over 10 years ago
External servers and SaaS were acknowledged as potential approaches in the Federal Register and Challenge Updates. In the Contestant Process Overview, “Contest rules require that the contestant commit to not modifying any of the components of the submission that may remain under its control (for example, external servers, or Software as a Service (SaaS) components) from this time until the completion of the evaluation period.” Also, under Role of this Contest, “As used in this notice, ``product'' means either a discrete software module which is installed on VA servers or a software service.”
However, in the Submission Checklist, you state additional required documentation should consist of: “Software as a Service (SaaS) code while the evaluation is underway (if Software as a Service is used) … These items must be stored in each one of the VMs, with the content corresponding to that specific VM.” Licenses to use and inspect the software in the VM are also required.
In the Instructions on Use of Testing Environment, you state “CTest is a powerful automatic testing fixture with the ability to interact through the web with remote repositories and dash-boards. For the purposes of this contest, your version of the environment has these network capabilities removed to enhance confidentiality during the contest.”
Please provide further clarification regarding the test environment.
1. Does the VA require the Scheduling COTS product (to include the server and clients) to be installed on the 3 VMs that host the VistA environments?
Reply:
Any licenses needed to access the service during the testing have to be listed in the specified location on one of the VMs along with instructions and scripts on how to connect to such services. The goal is for VA to have access to all the resources and permissions needed to run the tests that verify compatibility with VistA.
2. What network services will be available in the virtual environment to allow an external server or SaaS to communicate with the VA-provided VMs for the purposes of evaluation?
Reply:
Contestants have Administrator (in Windows) and root (in Linux) level access to the three VMs. They can install and configure any network services that they consider necessary.
3. What services are available to support communication among VMs?
Reply:
The contestant knows the IP address assigned to each one of the three VMs and has Administrator and root access to all of them. Therefore, the contestant can install and configure any communications mechanisms needed between the three VMs and with external network services.
4.a. You state, “the virtual environment is composed of a collection of VMs that will be made available to contestants through remote connections via username/password secure logins”. How will the evaluation team communicate with the VMs during the submission review/evaluation process?
Reply:
At submission time, the contestant surrenders all passwords and access to the VMs.
•VA will change passwords and take control of the VMs for Test 1. During this phase, contestants no longer have access to VMs.
•During Test 2, VA may temporarily give back control to the contestant, for the purpose of running the demonstration.
4. b Along the same lines, the contest indicates within the virtual testing environment that “Contestants will have sufficient control of the virtual machines in which they will prepare their submissions.” Is it correct to assume that ‘sufficient control’ will allow contestants to establish connectivity to externally-hosted software-as-a-service.
Reply:
Yes, contestants have Administrator and root level access in the VMs. They can connect to any external services they need. They can open ports in the VMs and they can install in the VMs any software needed for communicating with externally hosted software-as-a-service.