Digital Services at the Border - DevOps

Tender description

Summary of the work the Border Force are looking to increase their development capability, to work across the Digital Services at the Border programme (DSAB). Expected Contract Length 6 months with the option to extend for a further 6 Latest start date Monday 27 November 2017 Why the Work is Being Done Digital Services at the Border (DSAB) is an Agile programme within the Border Systems Portfolio that is transforming the way the Home Office manages the UK Borders. Problem to Be Solved The Border Force require an increase in development capabilities to work on the following projects within the DSAB programme: Border Crossing (BX) Advanced Freight Tracking Capability (AFTC) Advanced Border Control (ABC) You will join the team responsible for managing the build, deployment, and continuous integration of the project through development, test, and production. The supplier will be required to work to standards and practices set by GDS and the Home Office Centres of Excellence. Resources are expected to work as part of a delivery team focused on a specific outcome. They will be required to adopt common agile practices. Who Are the Users Users include citizens, Border Force officers and wider government agencies to secure UK borders Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done There are currently resources in place on the programme and there are existing services that have already commenced work and are live Existing Team The existing team consists of in-house and outsourced specialists. Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Knowledge of and experience with Docker, Kubernetes, Hadoop, Postgres, and CoreOS • Knowledge of and experience with Hortonworks, Kafka, Zookeeper, Artifactory • Knowledge of and experience with AWS • Knowledge of and experience with Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, Prometheus • Knowledge of and experience with Git, Github, Gitlab • Knowledge of and experience with nginx, HAProxy, Unicorn • Experience deploying, profiling, and debugging distributed systems • A keen interest in open source and a desire to contribute back to the community and other departments • Ability to operate in small cross-functional engineering teams to build supportable, sustainable, and reliable services • Reasonable fluency in at least one of: python, go, BASH • Knowledge of HIDS, NIDS and security hardening • Deep knowledge of GNU/Linux • Knowledge of configuration management tools (Puppet/Ansible) • Solid understanding of CI and build engineering • Understanding of cloud concepts • Experience of IP networking and physical networks Work Location Croydon as well as other Home Office locations on request Working Arrangments The team is expected to work on client site, the main site is to be Croydon and be available during standard HO working hours. Expenses will confirm to HO internal policies and will not be payable within the M25. Security Clearance This supplier's personnel will all require (SC) Security Clearance Additional T&Cs This role is deemed to be outside the scope of IR35 of the Intermediaries legislation. Candidates may be working towards obtaining SC clearance and must possess this by the latest start date. The HO may support the candidate with this process, but this must be in place by employment commencement. Candidates with DV Clearance have already undergone SC level checks will also be considered. Expenses conform to HO internal policies and will not be payable to Westminster, Croydon, Stansted, Gatwick or or Heathrow. Those Travel and Subsistence expenses that apply will be payable in addition to the day rate. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Value for Money • Availability of experienced staff • Experience in the industry • Previous experience • Ability to embed within existing team • Systems to measure customer satisfaction Cultural Fit Criteria • How the supplier solves problems • How the suppliers works with other people • How the supplier shares knowledge and experience Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. There is no indication as to the team size or how many Dev-Ops engineers are required from day one, can this be confirmed prior to our proposal? Currently we have approx. 24 including scrum masters, however, the requirement is for a team to deliver against a delivery plan which may require fluctuation in resources 2. How many people are you looking for or do you have a budget in mind? As Above 3. Is this opportunity for an individual or a Dev Ops Team? A team will be required to deliver outputs for the DSAB programme with continuity of cover rather than individual resources envisaged 4. Please can you let us know what the current team size is and what the key roles are? 2. What is the team size that you are looking for? 3. What is an approximate budget or budget range you have allocated for this opportunity? 4. There is a constraint on the number of examples per question. However, some of your questions request for capability in 4 or more technologies. How would you like us to address this given that one example may not cover all 4 technologies or skills? Currently we have approx. 24 including scrum masters, however, the requirement is for a team to deliver against a delivery plan which may require fluctuation in resources. We would not expect every individual to have all technologies 5. Approximately how many resources are being sought and are the roles for developers/software engineers (the “Problem to be solved” section refers to “an increase in development capabilities”), for DevOps build/deployment/continuous integration specialists (as referenced in the title, later in the question and to which most of the skills relate), or both?” Currently we have approx. 24 including scrum masters, however, the requirement is for a team to deliver against a delivery plan which may require fluctuation in resources. It’s the later DevOps build/deployment/continuous integration specialists 6. With respect to the skills and experience listed, are all of these in the context of DevOps / platform engineering to deploy and configure these tools, etc or is there also a need for application developers to develop solutions using these tools? This is restricted to DevOps 7. Unicorn is mentioned. Is this the HTTP Server for Ruby? There is no mention of Ruby in the skills list, are Ruby skills also required?Approximately how many resources are being sought and are the roles for developers/software engineers (the “Problem to be solved” section refers to “an increase in development capabilities”), for DevOps build/deployment/continuous integration specialists (as referenced in the title, later in the question and to which most of the skills relate), or both?” Currently we have approx. 24 including scrum masters, however, the requirement is for a team to deliver against a delivery plan which may require fluctuation in resources. We do not use Ruby. 8. Requesting that candidates must be working towards SC clearance implies that they must already be engaged in government work. Are you able to sponsor an accelerated SC clearance process for candidates who are not currently engaged in government work? Is NPPV3 clearance acceptable? We would sponsor, there is no fast track option available for SC. A minimum of SC clearance is required. 9. Under Work Setup you state that expenses are not payable within M25, that implies that expenses are payable outside M25. In Additional Information you state that expenses are not payable for Gatwick or Stansted both locations are outside the M25, please clarify? Expenses are not payable within M25 nor for visits to Gatwick and