Introduction
CRGT Inc. is pleased to be a part of the TEAM  DSA in support of ENCORE II.  CRGT Inc. is a large business under all of our qualified NAICS codes except NAICS 517110 under which we are a small business.

About Us
Originally founded in 1983 as DataStudy, Inc., CRGT is a systems integration and consulting firm headquartered in Parsippany, N.J.   CherryRoad GT, our federal practice based in Vienna, VA., has many years of hands-on experience helping federal clients more effectively achieve their missions.  Our seasoned consultants – all of whom have security clearances – combine their technological, organizational, and people expertise to deliver innovative yet practical solutions that work – on time and on budget.

CRGT, the federal division of CherryRoad Technologies, provides seasoned consultants who have deep experience and highly successful track records.  We combine our best-practice expertise with a customer-centric approach that’s tailored to your needs.  And, in everything we do, we demonstrate the “roll up our sleeves and get it done” determination that permeates CherryRoad’s culture.

Practical experts who provide solutions that work.  That’s how our clients describe us.  And, that’s why they keep coming back.  When assessing systems integrators and consulting firms, make sure CherryRoad GT is on your short list.  We’ll clearly demonstrate – through our proven performance – why we’re the best partner to help you meet your mission.

Corporate Capabilities
CherryRoad GT has the experience and expertise needed to meet your ENCORE II requirements.  With experience as both a prime and sub-contractor, CherryRoad GT provides a wide range of services and solutions to both defense and civilian agencies.  We understand the regulations, processes, competing requirements, budget constraints, and other unique intricacies of the federal marketplace.  So, we can immediately get to work, helping you ensure the success of your program or project.

To demonstrate our experience in ENCORE II requirements, we have chosen to provide a summary of our work at Army Knowledge Online (AKO), and Pentagon Renovation (Pen Ren). 

Army Knowledge Online (AKO)

Summary: As the Prime Contractor, CherryRoad GT Inc. has forged a strategic partnership with senior government executives and in-house IT professionals to build enterprise strategies - defining, designing, and deploying IT solutions to solve persistent data-sharing problems.  Army Knowledge On-Line includes the Army Homepage and the AKO Portal (intranet). The Army Homepage provides highly available and secure hosting of public content.

CherryRoad GT is responsible for Data Center Operations, Web Development (Knowledge Management – Army Home Page), Network Security, Search (Knowledge Management), Help Desk (Call Center), and Training support for portal and web content managers. CherryRoad also designed and built the Disaster Recover (DR) Site.

CherryRoad GT develops secure business processes, security policies and security organization practices assisted the IA manager with implementation and investigations when necessary and provided weekly updates to ITS IA manager. CherryRoad also maintains certification and accreditation in accordance with the DITSCAP and continually assess network security.

CherryRoad GT implements and maintains a web based call center management solution, the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system and the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) database. CherryRoad also provides Tier I/II/III level help desk support for AKO’s 1.7+ Million & AKO-S’s 84,000+ users on a 24x7 basis, Tier IV users are forwarded to computer operations for assistance. 

CherryRoad has provided direct operations and maintenance for systems infrastructure for the AKO Versions 1 to 3 and the AKO-S Versions 1 and 2. These services included hosting army organizations and or applications/ programs, help desk operations 24x7x365, anti-spam/anti-virus applications, AKO mail servers and software, knowledge center user manuals, local directory application protocol, and technology enhancements and recommendations. CherryRoad’s current contract was augmented to include the O&M of the portal including applications, and data storage. CherryRoad currently is responsible for maintaining reliability and availability of the internet site, as well as web design and hosting for the Army Homepage.

For ITS, we are the systems engineer responsible for the analysis and configuration of AKO IT operations.
Under a managed services contractual approach, CherryRoad is responsible for a large multi-facility solution that provides a high availability solution with redundancy, back-up and recovery. This complex IT infrastructure provides for full continuity of operations both at the multi-facility complex. More than a passive back-up facility, our disaster recovery solution provides for full continuity of operations both at the primary facility and the secondary site. Additionally, we are responsible for providing the search engine for AKO to include all data sharing initiatives and software documentation for applications.
Finally, we are the program manager for both sites, to include system accreditation and master planning for core ITS and AKO IT systems.

As a result of our seven years of AKO leadership experience we have established relationships with key users of the portal and Army Homepage to include the DOIMs major commands (MACOMs), and communities of practice.

Further evidence of our strong leadership and commitment to bringing forth the best ideas in industry is our partnership with Northrop Grumman Corporation on the disaster recovery solutions tasks.  Through a collaborative effort led by CherryRoad, the AKO infrastructure has evolved into a world class portal platform providing services to the warfighter in a highly survivable manner.  Our innovative active-active solution provides the highest level of availability and allows the Army to leverage this solution for other applications in support of logistics and tactical functions. 

Performance Measures:  Although not required by the contract, CherryRoad has been reporting performance measures on a weekly basis to the ITS Management. CherryRoad primarily reports help desk performance measures which are outlined below as well as System Status and Availability, Number and Type of Outages, and Mean Time to Repair, as well as Corrective and Preventive/Planned Maintenance.

The information below defines the customer requests that come into the Help Desk via telephone that is provided by CherryRoad.

• Weekly Average of Total Calls Answered – 8,000 minimum

• Weekly Help Desk Average Talk Time – maximum 3.5 minutes

• Weekly Average Call Abandon Time – maximum 8 minutes

Pentagon Renovation (Pen Ren)

Summary: CherryRoad GT provides project management support to the PENREN/C Program in the areas of planning, coordinating and executing all activities required to develop and implement an Enterprise Operational and Maintenance (O&M) strategy.  The CherryRoad Program Manager coordinates with the PENREN/C Alternate Sites Project Manager to establish and staff an O&M organization to support current and future implementation phases of the storage area network, to include servers and data storage, and other Alternate Sites Project activities. CherryRoad develops, maintains, and distributes the project plan and detailed project work plans. We manage assignments, milestones, schedules and budget execution for the storage area network program. CherryRoad ensures that the overall strategic mission objectives are integrated into an overall storage area network plan. CherryRoad resolves or evaluates project issues in the area of operating policies, staffing, and project scope.  We are implementing a collaborative environment that provides the automated tools for document management, program lessons learned and configuration management.

Program Management
Throughout the course of this contract, it is the job of CherryRoad to develop and motivate the on-site team to provide the PENREN/C with the superior level of IT expertise required to meet their mission.  The CherryRoad management team includes Task Leaders for Overarching Operations and Maintenance; Operational Support, Configuration Management, Information Assurance (network security), and for Independent Verification &Validation (IV&V). 

CherryRoad furnishes the PENREN/C PM with weekly status reports that identify deliverables, schedules and status.  In addition, CherryRoad supports PENREN/C program management office in the areas of planning, coordinating and executing all activities required to develop and implement an Enterprise O&M strategy.  Support for the monitoring, administration, management and troubleshooting of the total storage area network also comes from CherryRoad.  Tasks included in this support are storage administration and management, system and network administration and management, and storage and network connectivity monitoring.

Configuration and Change Management Support
For the PENREN/C project, CherryRoad has established and staffed a Configuration Management Organization (CMO) to support current and future implementation phases of the storage area network (SAN).  Through the CMO, CherryRoad has developed and documented SAN and alternate site SOPs for managing and requesting changes to the configuration.  The CherryRoad CMO also identifies all major storage, network, server and workstation components as well as their connectivity, communication components, and the hardware and software required to support DOD continuity of operations (COOP) and build a SAN Configuration baseline.

To record, track, and manage all changes to the existing SAN baseline, CherryRoad has implemented an automated CMO system and Established Change Advisory Boards (CAB) for each of the SAN tenets.  The CABs offer a forum to review the technical, operational and cost impacts of implementing change requests.

Information Assurance
Through the ESMC, CherryRoad has set up a full Enterprise Defense program.  As a part of this program, CherryRoad has developed and implemented an Information Assurance (IA) support structure and documented Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Information Assurance.  In addition, CherryRoad is responsible for security assessments and the development and implementation of Enterprise level policy and guidance to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the SAN system.

The IA policy developed and implemented by CherryRoad ensures compliance with the Information Assurance Vulnerability Alert (IAVA) process, incident response process and Connectivity Approval Process (CAP), as well as compliance with DoD policies. The system-wide IA guidance developed and supported by CherryRoad also complies with all service participant policies.  CherryRoad has been diligent in following the Department of Defense Security Certification and Accreditation Process (DITSCAP) and Department of Defense Intelligence Information System (DODIIS) process to support the system-wide accreditation.

To ensure security posture is at an acceptable level, CherryRoad performs ongoing Level I, II and III vulnerability assessments.  An IA reporting structure developed and implemented by CherryRoad for PENREN/C tracks, coordinates and reports compliance and mitigates risks.  As a part of the overall Enterprise Defense System, CherryRoad also maintains full intrusion detection system (IDS) and forensic capabilities.

Performance Measures:  The CherryRoad management team, on behalf of the customer, PENREN/C, has developed, staffed and published Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between PENREN/C and its numerous tenants.  These SLAs establish a common understanding of Continuity of Operations (COOP) services support and define the functional responsibilities between the PENREN/C and its tenants. The detailed SLAs, developed by CherryRoad, define roles and responsibilities and outline the common understanding of services and priorities.   The SLAs provide a common definition of operations and maintenance (O&M) services, and delineate acceptable, measurable levels of service.  CherryRoad staffs the customer Roles and Responsibilities, Governing Authorities, tenants, and support contractors level of service.  The general scope of the SLAs includes purchasing of hardware and software, implementation of network architecture, network storage configuration, change requests, configuration management and control, and Network Defense and Information Assurance (IA) considerations.

Due to the sensitive nature of this program, we are not able to include specific SLA information or details in this document.  The SLAs developed for the various contractors are protected from distribution by various classifications and contractual obligations.  If further information is required, please contact Ms. Debra Hoffman who will handle specific questions on a case specific basis with personnel possessing appropriate clearance levels and with the need to know.

Innovative Approach: At the inception of the PENREN/C contract, the customer had no formal process for approving and implementing changes to the storage area network systems and policies.  To bolster efficiency within the program, CherryRoad GT developed a process by which changes are requested, reviewed, approved and implemented.

A web-based intranet portal was created by which change requests can be entered, tracked and reviewed by the supported agencies and departments within PENREN/C.  CherryRoad GT then created CABs to review and approve the requested changes.

Once a change is entered into the system through the portal, the CAB receives and logs the request.  The CAB then performs an impact assessment to determine the affect the request will have on the overall system.  Once the change is approved, and a migration path for the change has been set, CherryRoad can implement the request.  Throughout the process, the status of the request can be tracked through the intranet portal.

CherryRoad GT also implemented the EMC Control Center consisting of 28 Symmetrix 8000 series storage systems. This change in the architecture enabled the network management and monitoring functions to be consolidated to one location rather than each location having its own system. This design in this unique environment produced cost savings to the customer by reducing the hardware and software footprint, reduced O&M costs, and having the ability to reduce or reallocate staff to other functional areas.