DevOps Platform Support Team

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done HMPO’s 2020 vision moves passport applications online for the majority of customers. The HMPO platform requires ongoing DevOps support to ensure that the services being provided to users continue to operate and meet their availability and security requirements. Digital services are now live and will be launching additional features over the next twelve months at an increasing pace. The platform team are required to provide DevOps support for development and continuous improvement for all HMPO digital services. Problem to Be Solved The HMPO platform deals with a significant amount of data and requires ongoing DevOps support. The Home Office has determined that it requires a supplier to support the provision of DevOps engineers developing and maintaining the HMPO platform. This will include supporting the platform to ensure it is available 24/7. The supplier team will work alongside existing DevOps engineers in the Platform team. The supplier will be required to work to standards and practices set by GDS and the Home Office Centres of Excellence, as well as adopt common agile practices. Who Are the Users As a stakeholder, I need to know that: • The platform is available for use 24/7 so end users can use the HMPO digital platform. • The projects developing the digital services have the DevOps support required to meet their milestones. • The platform is being developed in alignment with HMPO Technical Design Authority Strategy and coding standards. I need to provide: • Digital services to move passport applications online for the majority of customers. • The right level of support to the digital services teams so that digital projects can meet the roadmap and achieve the optimum business benefits. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done A working platform has been developed and is being used for a number of services and developing services. Level 1 support will be in place using the Service NOW system. Standard DevOps tools are already in place to monitor and alert. Sensu/PagerDuty. The service has gone live and is in the process of completing a migration from a private data centre to public cloud. There is ongoing development work across all the HMPO platform. Existing Team You’ll be working with the Platforms team, HO Digital, Data and Technology and HMPO Digital project teams. Preparing to move to a true DevOps environment as part of the BAU need. Supporting Digital Projects to deliver digital services to their agreed milestones. Current Phase Live Work Location Majority of the engagement for development and maintains work will be Central London and other Home Office sites as required. Support can be completed remotely. Working Arrangments We expect the supplier to : • Work collaboratively with existing cross-functional teams transforming application processing • Align service design and development with the HMPO strategic technical architecture and technologies • Be aware that this arrangement may also be used by other Programmes within HMPO and Home Office wide Security Clearance All staff must hold or be prepared to undergo SC Security Clearance to operate on this project. HM Passport Office will support the clearance process. Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience We want to recruit an established team who have a good working relationship – who can work well together and blend their skills set together to meet objectives. Team members need to be self-starters and self-managing, capable of working at a fast pace Excellent communicators both from wider team perspective and with users and stakeholders alike. Looking for clear evidence of how the proposed team has moved an organisation and its people forward on a journey from a staid way of working to a new concept. We want to utilise an outcome based model rather than a headcount one to allow flex in the resources needed to meet the work. All Team members must meet the essential criteria as set out GDS job description requirements for the roles supplied which at a high level are. Nice to Haves Proven experience of working in an agile development environment Previous experience working within government services Experience of managing environments in AWS Experience of providing DevOps services Experience of running service management Experience of using Industry Standard tools to manage Infrastructure-as-Code Experience of maintaining documentation about the environment being managed Experience of monitoring and optimising resource utilisation in AWS Experience of deploying services using Docker and Kubernetes Experience of cross-account VPC peering in AWS No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria Technical solution Approach and methodology How the approach or solution meets user needs How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal Estimated timeframes for the work How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them Team structure Value for money Evidence of ability to provide high quality professionals Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers Take responsibility for their work Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions Share knowledge and experience with other team members Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 15% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers Budget range