request for information (rfi) on compression format and

Rapport / Arbetspapper

Författare Datum Utgåva Dokumentbeteckning Marit Mobedjina, C2I 130614 1.0 AK Led

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Request for Information (RFI)

On

Compression format and required tools for

geographical vector data.



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Content

1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 3

2 Scope .......................................................................................................... 3

2.1 Background ................................................................................................................. 3

2.2 Application ................................................................................................................... 4

2.3 System overview ......................................................................................................... 4

2.4 Hardware and operating system ................................................................................. 5

3 System description ................................................................................... 5

3.1 Description of system users and how it will be used .................................................. 5

3.2 Operational requirements ............................................................................................ 6

3.3 Technical requirements ............................................................................................... 6

4 Requested information ............................................................................. 9

4.1 General system information ........................................................................................ 9

4.2 Architecture ................................................................................................................. 9

4.3 External interfaces and API:s ...................................................................................... 9

4.4 Development ............................................................................................................. 10

4.5 User functionality ....................................................................................................... 10

4.6 Commercial information ............................................................................................ 10

4.7 Price information ....................................................................................................... 10

5 Commercial secrecy................................................................................ 10

6 Submission of information ..................................................................... 11

7 Information/ Questions to FMV .............................................................. 12



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1 Introduction

The Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV) has identified a need to gather information about companies selling tools and formats for compressing geographical data in vector format. This document describes the requirements for these tools and formats.

FMV intend to purchase compression tools and licenses for using the compression format as a commercial solution, with a minimum of new development, to the Swedish Armed Forces. These tools will be candidates for replacing a system in use today.

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to provide FMV with a more in depth knowledge of the market with respect to potential suppliers, product performance, functionality, price and lead-time for delivery. FMV does not intend to perform a procurement based on this RFI or pay for any of the information provided. The information supplied in response to this RFI will be used to set realistic requirements for an upcoming procurement. FMV will not consider the responses to be a formal tender or quotation. A procurement will be initiated Q3 2013 using a formal RFQ.

FMV will appreciate any suggestions for functions not indicated in this RFI but that may be of use in the described environment.

Please note that in section 3, there are a number of requirements that must be fulfilled by the system in order to be considered a candidate for the replacement system.

2 Scope

2.1 Background

The Swedish Armed Forces uses a large number of applications that need geographical information of some kind. These systems range from a small standalone computer mounted in vehicles or handheld, to server based Command and Control systems with hundreds of simultaneous users. There are also systems used for helicopter mission planning, radio communications networks planning, hand held GPS systems with map displays and so on.

In order to facilitate an efficient distribution and management of geographical information to all these systems, the number of geodata formats will need to be kept small and the number of different subsets of data must also be kept to a minimum. This means that the same data set will be used on a multitude of hardware and software platforms.

The Swedish Armed Forces has currently two strategic partners, Esri and Carmenta AB, for systems and components used in handling digital geographical information. This means that all new components must be compatible with systems from these two suppliers. Although the Swedish Armed Forces has a number of software systems developed specifically for them, the GIS functionality are based on components from either Carmenta AB or Esri.

The volume of data that the systems need to handle is growing quickly, partly because the data available from commercial operators and partner governments is getting more detailed, but also because the Swedish Armed Forces constantly collects new data during national and international missions.

The current standard formats are proving inadequate when handling large volumes of data because the smaller lighter systems can not fit the data on local disks and the performance when reading and displaying the data is deteriorating when the volume increases.

Because of these factors, we are now seeking a data format, combined with tools that are more space efficient and have better performance than the currently used vector formats, i.e. shape.



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2.2 Application

The compression system shall provide a solution for organisations producing geographical data packs to be deployed elsewhere in the military organisation. It shall also provide software components that can be included in the systems using the geographical data.

Delivery of the compression system should be in the form of one or more software installation tools and relevant documentation of the software.

2.3 System overview

2.3.1 GENERAL A number of different geodatasets are made available to the Swedish Armed Forces. The Swedish Armed Forces Geographic Information Support Establishment, Geo SE, is the hub for all this data. Most conversion and production of configurations for reading the geodata within the consuming systems are being made here, but it shall be possible to carry out some of this work by Geocells in theatre. Geocells are small units, 1-3 persons, specialised in dealing with geospatial information/data.

After conversion, creation of configurations to read and render the data, packaging etc., the data is re-distributed to most units within the Swedish Armed Forces where it is inserted into various systems.

The objects covered by this RFI shall be possible to utilize in systems based on the two map engines the Swedish Armed Forces has strategically chosen, and preferably be possible to utilize in other map engines as well.

2.3.2 Overall system description The variety is huge among the systems utilizing the data reader and the data. Some systems are client – server based platform systems on which a huge set of applications are run, and where the geodata is kept on map servers exposing OGC interfaces such as OGC WMS. Other systems are deployed on ruggedized, specially made, laptops or tablet PC:s where geodata is installed locally on relatively space limited hard discs.



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Many systems have only narrow banded radio communication or are stand alone, intermittently connected to other computers or sometimes not connected to other systems/computers.

2.3.3 Cooperative, ancillary system Systems planned to utilize the data reader to be procured consists of Battle Management Systems installed in various ground moving vehicles, Mission Planning Systems for airplanes and helicopters, Command and control systems used in staffs, dedicated GIS desktop applications such as ArcGIS Desktop etc.

The Swedish Armed Forces strives towards using COTS products instead of custom made systems, also for the systems mentioned above.

Most systems are running on Windows operating systems of various versions.

2.4 Hardware and operating system

The Swedish Armed Forces is today primarily using hardware based on the x86-architecture.

The operating system for servers is today either Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and on clients either Windows XP Pro or Windows 7. When new versions are available and approved by the Armed Forces these will be used.

3 System description

This section describes the high level operative and tactical requirements of the compression solution and gives a brief introduction to the Swedish Armed Forces Geo organization.

Since the compression solution is intended to be procured as an existing COTS product, only limited restrictions will be placed on the design of the system. There are however some guiding principles the respondent should follow outlined in this chapter.

3.1 Description of system users and how it will be used

The Swedish Armed Forces Geographic Information Support Establishment, Geo SE, is a joint resource with the main task to support the needs of geographic information within the Armed Forces.

Concerning national geographic information the Swedish Armed Forces have agreements with different kinds of authorities such as The Swedish Land Survey and the Swedish Maritime Administration, among others.

International tasks of the Swedish Armed Forces demands access to geographic information in mission areas and possible future areas of interest. Therefore the Swedish Armed Forces have a need to exchange information between countries. This kind of co-operation is regulated with bilateral agreements. In addition to those agreements the Swedish Armed Forces is also contributing in multilateral co-productions.

The agreements regulate how the Swedish Armed Forces use and distribute the geographical products. Geodata information products produced within the multilateral agreements often comes in a large volume. Therefore, one of the main purposes with a purchase is to provide the Swedish Armed Forces with technology, which simplifies the distribution and other internal management issues when it comes to multilateral produced geodata information products.

The main tasks for Geo SE is to administrate the geographic information that the Swedish Armed Forces purchase from both national and international co-operation partners and to deliver adapted geodata packages and printed charts to the Swedish Armed Forces systems and users. To be able to do this Geo SE have set-up an internal production network with geographical data and adapted production lines. The production lines are made up by COTS and own developed programs, which are used in an environment that corresponds with the



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Armed Forces demands concerning information security. It means, among other things, that the environment has no connection to the Internet, hence the high demands when it comes to licence solutions.

Geo SE is also a competency support to the Swedish Armed Forces and the Defence Materiel Administration in their use of digital geographic information. Included in this task is also to act as “reach-back” support to the geo support units (GeoSG/Geocell) in mission areas.

The exchange of geographic information between a producer to units and systems, and from units, GeoSG/Geocell to producer should be done continuously. The hub in this exchange is Geo SE. To facilitate the exchange of data sets, tool configurations and methods between Geo SE and the Geo support units, the software tools should be as similar as possible.

Geo SEGeo SEGeo SENational

Producers Support units Consuming systems/units

Bilateral

Multilateral

Commercial

NationalNationalNational

BilateralBilateralBilateral

MultilateralMultilateralMultilateral

CommercialCommercialCommercial

Geo SE

Format

conversion

Packaging

Geocell

Figure 1 Simplified organizational view

3.2 Operational requirements

[Req. 1] The compression system shall integrate into existing production environment for geographical data and into existing solutions for reading and using geographical data.

[Req. 2] The compression solution shall support the production of compressed data sets into a format suitable for distribution.

[Req. 3] The data format shall have software tools that make it possible to read the data using the platforms from the two strategic partners to the Swedish Armed Forces.

[Req. 4] The distribution of data from central production facilities to isolated users require the format to be file based, or at least be possible to distribute as files.

3.3 Technical requirements

[Req. 5] The compression solution shall consist of:

• An efficient format for storing geographical vector data

• Functionality importing source data and converting it to a compressed format



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• Functionality for setting compression parameters and characteristics

• Functionality for reading the compressed data formats

[Req. 6] The format needs to be able to preserve an undistorted version of the original data to be requested by the reading application.

[Req. 7] For performance reasons the format and reading tools shall be able to supply a low resolution (distorted) version of the data set when requested.

[Req. 8] The data format shall be file based and shall be able to preserve the data such that an undistorted version of the data can be requested by the reading application.

[Req. 9] The data format or the data reader shall support the use of lower resolution (simplified) data when the system requesting the data indicated that the full resolution is not necessary.

[Req. 10] The production tool shall offer both interactive operation and batch processing without manual intervention.

Production

tool

Source

data

Source

data

Source

data

Compressed

data

GIS Tool

Data

reader

GIS Tool

Data

reader

Figure 2 Overall system components

One of the most important aspects of the format and tools are the compression rate and read performance for client applications. The tables below give an example of a typical data set and the least compression rate which we expect. These figures are based on existing solutions in use in the Swedish Armed Forces today.

Data set Source format Source size Note ENC Sjöbev Esri shape 2.68 GB Swedish Navigational Charts

Terrängkarta Sve Esri File Geodatabase 6.5 GB Swedish terrain map

Vägkarta Sve Esri File Geodatabase 3.8 GB Swedish road map

Figure 3 Typical data sets

[Req. 11] After compression the current system produces datasets according to the table below. We expect to see resulting data sets with sizes similar to these in future systems. FMV can accept small deviations from the results listed in table 3. If your



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system does not meet these compression rations, you should state what numbers you are able to achieve.

Data set Size of resulting data set ENC Sjöbev 250MB

Terrängkarta Sve 1GB

Vägkarta Sve 400MB

Figure 4 Expected sizes of compressed data sets

The specified information can be obtained from:

Försvarets Materielverk Inköpsadministrationen 115 88 Stockholm Sweden

Fax no: +46 (0)8 661 8220

Refer to “374115 RFI-Geographical Vector data” in your request.

The specified information is subject to monitoring confidentiality and therefore every potential respondent must sign for the document at FMV.

[Req. 12] Typical hardware configurations for client systems using the compressed data sets are listed in the table below. These are the systems in use today, and because of the large number of systems deployed, any solution to be considered by FMV shall work on these configurations.

Attribute System1 System 2 System 3 Name Vehicle computer Laptop Map Server

Processor Intel Pentium Mobile T3200 2GHz

Intel Core i7 2.7GHz CPU 2st AMD 6174 2.2GHz 12 core

RAM 2GB 8GB 32GB

Hard drive 120GB 250GB 146GB

Graphics card FirePro M4000 Server card

Network card 100Mbit/s Gigabit HP Gigabit OS Win XP Pro Win 7 Win Server 2003

Figure 5 Typical client hardware



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[Req. 13] Typical hardware used in the production environment to convert the compressed data sets are listed in the next table. The compression/conversion components of the solution shall work on these systems.

Attribute System1 System 2 System 3 Name Laptop Geo SE Client Server

Processor Coreduo P8600 2.4GHz

Xeon X5570, 2.93GHz

CPU 2st AMD 6174 2.2GHz 12 core

RAM 4 GB 6 GB 32GB

Hard drive 200 GB 256 GB SSD 146GB

Graphics card Nvidia quadro FX2700 M

Nvidia FX580 Server card

Network card Broadcom netextreme 57xx 100/1000Mbit

D-Link 100/1000 Mbit HP Gigabit

Figure 6 Typical production hardware

4 Requested information

In this section FMV describes what information the respondent should supply in the response to this RFI. FMV will appreciate responses that are focused on the requests in this section and not just general product information.

Each requested information item are numbered with [RI x]. Please refer to these numbers in your response.

4.1 General system information

[RI 1] Supply an overall description of a possible solution for the Swedish Armed Forces Geo Services based on your existing systems.

[RI 2] Describe any existing installations you would like to use as references. Also describe the type of work performed using your system and the parts of it that are in use at the reference installations. In this RFI it is not necessary to supply customer names related to the reference installation.

4.2 Architecture

[RI 3] Supply technical information regarding overall architecture.

[RI 4] Describe the data storage technique used.

[RI 5] Describe network requirements if any.

[RI 6] Describe the technical requirements imposed by any licensing technology used in the system. This includes licensing server, hardware keys or other licence validation schemes.

[RI 7] Supply information about scalability with regard to the size of the source data set.

4.3 External interfaces and API:s

[RI 8] Describe the interfaces or API:s for import and export of data to and from the production tool.

[RI 9] List any industry or other standards you support.

[RI 10] Describe possibilities of integration into OGC server products.



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[RI 11] List support for different GIS systems.

[RI 12] List supported data formats for source data to the production tool.

4.4 Development

[RI 13] Describe estimated changes to your current tools to fit the described requirements. This includes new development and changes to the format or tools.

4.5 User functionality

[RI 14] Describe tools/systems/methods for controlling the production of compressed data sets.

[RI 15] Supply information on the compression system user interface.

4.6 Commercial information

[RI 16] Describe the licensing structure including update and upgrade programs.

[RI 17] Is there a possibility for site licenses or volume discounts?

[RI 18] Are there any planned changes and/or development of the system?

[RI 19] Describe available options for technical support.

[RI 20] Describe the process of upgrades. Will all new versions be backwards compatible?

[RI 21] What is the estimated delivery time for the system?

[RI 22] Are there any export regulations related to the product?

[RI 23] State if your company is certified according to ISO 9001 or any equivalent standard.

[RI 24] Describe the title and right of use associated with this system.

4.7 Price information

[RI 25] Give an estimated price for the suggested system. Any cost driving factors related to the described system should also be indicated. The price will be used for budgetary purposes only and will not commit the respondent in any way.

5 Commercial secrecy

Data pertaining to submitted information may be subject to secrecy pursuant to the Swedish Official Secrets Act [Offentlighets- och sekretesslag 2009:400]. A Respondent's data will only be subject to the protection of commercial secrecy if the data refers to the Respondent's business- or operating circumstances and there is special reason to assume that the Respondent will suffer damage if the data is disclosed.

If the Respondent considers that the data the Respondent has submitted fulfils the requirements for commercial secrecy as above, the Respondent should in writing request commercial secrecy, giving details of the data involved and what damage the Respondent might suffer if the data was disclosed. FMV will thereafter conduct an independent examination of whether commercial secrecy in accordance with the above referred law may be deemed to apply.



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6 Submission of information

Information should be submitted no later than 2013-08-31.

Send your answer to both Hanna Nordeman (Contract manager) and Marit Mobedjina (Project Manager). If the size of your answer exceeds 5 MB is it not possible to send as e-mail. If this is the case you can split up in several e-mails of maximum 5 MB or send as computer disk (CD) or memory stick. 1 (one) paper original shall also be sent to Hanna Nordeman. The addresses are listed in section 7:

The envelope or email shall be marked with the file code: 374115

Early submissions will be read on arrival

The information may be submitted in Swedish or English.

Submitted information should include:

• Description of your solution in text and with relevant illustrations.

• Responses to the specific Requirements described in section 3. The response can be a general statement about the requirements and need not refer to each requirement separately.

• Responses to the specific Requested Information described in section 4.

.



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7 Information/ Questions to FMV

For further information to this RFI please contact:

Commercial representative: Technical representative:

FMV FMV AK Led/ Hanna Nordeman AK Led/Marit Mobedjina S-115 88 STOCKHOLM S-115 88 STOCKHOLM SWEDEN SWEDEN E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Please note that all communication, including questions, shall be submitted in writing either by email or by mail. All questions and associated responses will be made available to all recipients of this RFI without the identity of the person submitting the question or the company identity being revealed.

The file code of this RFI shall be stated in all correspondence with FMV. Questions shall be submitted to FMV no later than 2013-08-20. Relevant answers will be distributed on FMV´s website www.fmv.se/ under Procurements/ RFI under reference no. 374115. Updates will be published regularly however not after 2013-08-25. FMV will not respond to any questions during the period 2013-07-08 – 2013-08-12.

FÖRSVARETS MATERIELVERK

Anders Wretö Hanna Nordeman

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