Clinical and Research Architecture Services Partner

Tender description

Summary of the work Genomics England (GEL) operates the National Genomics Informatics Service to provide faster diagnoses of rare diseases and to provide personalisation of cancer treatments, alongside Trusted Research Environments to enable genomic research. GEL is looking for a partner to work alongside internal delivery squads evolving the architecture which underpins these services. Expected Contract Length 18 months Latest start date Sunday 14 November 2021 Budget Range Anticipated spend under this contract is £750k. This is will not be committed but will be called off, as required, under SOW arrangements during the period. Why the Work is Being Done GEL is extending its core services and requires additional solution architects to assist in new designs in line with enterprise architecture. Data volumes and complexity are growing and require new solutions. GEL manages complex infrastructure and requires assistance in hybrid approaches to storage and compute. Problem to Be Solved Example areas of improvement include: (i) Options analysis and architectural designs for the storage, indexing and retrieval of increasing volumes of genomic data across a hybrid estate (ii) Work with the product teams to componentise the architecture in order to improve agility and product feature velocity. (iii) Define standards for microservices, review existing API's and propose a roadmap for delivery (iii) Define a AWS cloud first target architecture for genomic varient storage and API's to support whole genome at scale real time analysis (iv) Review existing cloud product architectures to optimise for resiliance and scale. (v) Security architecture work to ensure our solutions are secure by design (vi) A review of our identity and access management architecture to define a target state for a rationalised and high availability and secure service Who Are the Users Users are a combination of clinical, informatics and data entry staff at Genomics Laboratory Hubs or internal staff within Genomics England working in logistics and software delivery. Work Already Done NGIS and GEL's research environments are live services, requiring transformation. Several overlapping discoveries are running to define future needs. Architectural transition states to AWS public cloud have been defined for some products. New initiatives to extend the scope of GEL's overall offering are underway. Existing Team Genomics England has internal multi-disciplinary Digital / Technology / Bioinformatics teams with embedded Service Owners, Product Managers, Engineers and Bioinformaticians. GEL has an internal architecture team of 10 architects across data, infrastructure and solutions. The successful strategic supplier will be required to work alongside these existing teams, to take responsibility for specific design areas under the guidance of the Director of IT Strategy and Architecture. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Provide evidence and experience of supplying architcture specialists to work inside an enterprise scaled organisation • Provide evidence and experience of working in a successful agile delivery environment developing architectures as part of a multidisciplinary team • Provide demonstrable evidence and experience of delivering projects using enterprise architecture methodologies (TOGAF) and AWS best practices (Well-Architected Framework) • Provide evidence of architecture expertise and capability across architecture domains (application, data, infrastructure, security, integration) • Provide demonstrable evidence and experience of architecting solutions for AWS public cloud with a particular focus on Fargate, API Gateway, Aurora, Lamdba, S3, Lustersfx, Secrets Manager, CloudTrail and Serverless technologies • Provide demonstrable evidence and experience of using big data technologies such as redshift, Hbase on AWS, documentDB, MongoDB, RDS, Spark /EMR • Provide demonstrable evidence and experience of using web application frameworks such as Python (Django / Flask), Docker, React, HTML5, CSS 3, D3 and Docker • Provide evidence of experience in identity management architecture including OpenID Connect, OAuth, Okta, AD, Azure AD Nice to Haves • Demonstrate compliance with health interoperability standards HL7/FHIR • Provide evidence of domain experience in LIMS systems, Genomics, or High Performance Compute Work Location Genomics England, Queen Mary University of London, Dawson Hall, London, EC1M 6BQ but remote delivery as required. Working Arrangments Suppliers will deploy specialist architects as part of multidisiplinary sqauds . They will work with GEL's Product Managers and Architects to deliver outcomes against specific statements of work. Progress against outcomes will be managed through transparent agile ceremonies with clear KPI reporting built into GEL's standards weekly MI. Given the sensitive nature of GEL's business, all development will be conducted within GEL's technical infrastructure and environments. All work will be compliant with GEL's architectural and engineering standards and will be governed and approved by Genomic Englands design authority. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Describe how you will provide the essential skills and experience outlined in stage one, at a sufficient level of expertise to meet GEL's requirements • Describe how you will mobilise rapidly (up to 5 FTE from November) to meet the specific needs across each domain • Explain your approach to working as part of an integrated, effective, and efficient multi-disiplinary team • Provide examples of where your organisation has mobilised rapidly, delivery outcome based archietcture deliverables in a collaborative manner and transferred knowledge to the host organisation • Provide clear examples of working to re-architect legacy applications, to better separate concerns. Cultural Fit Criteria • Be able to work as part of an integrated, effective, and efficient delivery team, integrating into, and improving client culture and capability • Be willing to share best practice and deisgn • Have experience of outcome based delivery in an empowered multi-disciplinary environment sharing knowledge within and external to the team with clear processes for transferring knowledge to permanent staff • Be able to communicate effectively to express freedom of thought and innovation, positively challenge and advocate positive change Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you please clarify the ir35 position for this outcomes / SoW based contract. An “inside IR35” determination seems unusual for this type of contract. The IR35 position is indeed as described in the posted opportunity. The off-payroll rules will apply to any workers engaged through a qualifying intermediary, such as their own limited company. 2. Is there an incumbent or existing supplier directly involved with the project that this contract is for, and will they be submitting an application? No there is no incumbent supplier. We have previously engaged various suppliers for architecture projects, but none of them are currently providing this level of service to GEL 3. For the avoidance of doubt, could we please check that there is nothing missing from the end of this sentence under the Nice-to-Have skills “Provide evidence of domain experience in LIMS systems, Genomics, or High Performance Compute” There is nothing missing from the end of this sentence. 4. Can you please provide some information around the timeline for procurement? (Shortlist, Stage 2 proposal submissions, Presentation and Award) Shortlist by 24th SeptemberIssue RFP documents by 30th SeptemberRFP responses by 15th OctoberPresentations w/c 18th OctoberSupplier selection by 22nd OctoberThis timeline is subject to change based on GEL availability 5. What is the expected time utilization of the Architect resources? Are they expected to be part-time or full-time? At GEL we follow an agile delivery model and architects will be assigned to one squad full time. 6. Are offshore based resources acceptable or is there a preference for UK-based resources? All of Genomics England's systems and data are expressly resident only within the UK. It is possible for staff to work outside of the UK. However, all appropriate controls would need to be in place to ensure that access is granted only to non-sensitive systems. Teams would generally be expected to operate during UK core hours to ensure smooth communication. English is an essential language for smooth communication.