Azure Migration

Tender description

Summary of the work Partner to assist with migration of infrastructure from co-location DC to Azure. Provide consultancy in building a landing zone inline with best practice, design and implementation plans for migration and services eg backups and DR. Provide co-managed support and help with upskilling existing staff. Project management services also included Latest start date Monday 31 October 2022 Budget Range £100,000 to £149,000 Why the Work is Being Done NFDC's strategic direction is to be a cloud enabled, work from anywhere organisation. This work will help us achieve this objective by migrating from our existing co-location data centre into Microsoft Azure. We are looking to achieve this before October 2023. Problem to Be Solved Migrate physical data centre to Azure. To provide knowledge, guidance and best practice and resources to migrate to Azure. Who Are the Users As an ICT Infrastructure Manager I need to migrate our infrastructure into Microsoft Azure so that I meet my organisation directive to become cloud enabled. Work Already Done Feasibility study and assessment completed using the Azure migrate assessment tooling. Existing Team Internal ICT Infrastructure Team of up to 3 senior analysts and the Infrastructure Manager alongside members of the ICT Management Team. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Be a certified/accredited Tier 1 Microsoft Cloud Service Provider • Be a Microsoft Certified Azure Expert MSP, achieving the accreditation in the UK • FortiGate accredited partner • Certified/accredited with ISO 9001 • Certified/accredited with ISO 27017 • Certified/accredited with ISO 27018 • Certified/accredited with ISO 27001 • Certified/accredited with recognised project management (PRINCE 2, Agile) • Provide at least two Public Sector references for Azure Managed Cloud support Nice to Haves • Corporate social responsibility • Diversity and inclusion • Sustainability and environmental protection Work Location Appletree Court Beaulieu Road Lyndhurst Hampshire SO43 7PA Working Arrangments Remote working and onsite where necessary tasks require it alongside a minimum of fortnightly face to face team meetings. Expenses to be included in total cost of project. Security Clearance BPSS or SC No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Technical solution • Approach and methodology • How the approach or solution meets our needs • How the approach or solution meets our organisation policy and goal • Estimated time frame for the work • How risks and dependencies are identified and offered approaches to manage them • Team structure • Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes • Take responsibility for their work • Share knowledge and experience with other team members • Challenge the status quo • Be comfortable standing up for their discipline • Can work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 75% Cultural fit 5% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Are the ISO 27017 and ISO 27018 accreditations mandatory at this stage of the project? No its not a mandatory requirement but we would like to understand the rationale for not acquiring the accreditation or the timeline for you to acquire 2. Do you have an existing supplier that has worked with you on Azure projects? No 3. Is this ISO 27018 standard mandatory? No its not a mandatory requirement but we would like to understand the rationale for not acquiring the accreditation or the timeline for you to acquire 4. Please could the authority clarify the justification for the following essential requirements “Be a Microsoft Certified Azure Expert MSP, achieving the accreditation in the UK” and “FortiGate accredited partner” as they appear disproportional in relation to the scope and budget? The certifications provide us assurance that a selected partner will have the knowledge to deliver the objectives successfully 5. Has any external supplier been involved in the initial scoping work? If so, who? Yes, we will not disclose names for commercial sensitivity reasons 6. This is a very specific set of criteria which would likely point to only one or two organisations- is this your intention? No, we have detailed what we believe is the criteria that is required for us an organisation to achieve the desired outcome whilst making use of the investments made in existing infrastructure 7. Please can you share the Azure assessment that was recently completed? No, its commercially sensitive 8. Is ISO 27017 mandatory? No its not a mandatory requirement but we would like to understand the rationale for not acquiring the accreditation or the timeline for you to acquire 9. What is existing infrastructure in the DC, are these various virtual machines or physical servers hosting how mang applications/services? Do you have multiple environments in DC? Our environment is a single domain. It’s a Vmware environment with 5 hosts running circa 100 applications/services 10. That’s a small budget for a MS Gold Partner, would you accept applications from smaller freelance consultants whom are not a recognised MS partner, but technically capable. Not at this stage 11. Are you ok for the deadline to be expedited? The deadline is a hard deadline but can be completed before if we are ready before then 12. Are you looking to do a lift and shift of the the existing infrastructure or refactor and re phase? We are open to everything at this stage 13. How many VM's running the 100 or so applications? 120 -130 VM's 14. A simple way to move to Azure is to use a Vmware platform in the cloud are you open to this approach? Yes we are open to all approaches 15. Could you clarify if the project budget is just for consultancy services or for Azure resources as well? This is the project budget for consultancy services. The azure resources budget is commercially sensitive 16. Do you use existing Azure servers? We use ADFS and Office 365 17. Is there an express route in place for connectivity? Not at the moment just IPSEC tunnels 18. Are there any critical applications with specific RTO and RPOS? Are there some applications/services where disruption and downtime must be kept minimal? We do have critical applications and specified RTO's and RPO's which will be shared upon engagement. There are certain applications that disruption will have to be kept to minimum 19. Have you completed an application discovery? Yes, we have completed an application discovery and grouped into criticality 20. Can you share the application discovery output? The application discovery output will be shared upon engagement 21. What type of co-managed support is required - is it L1, 2 or 3 or as a managed service? Primarily L3 whilst we up skill the internal team 22. Will you expect knowledge transfer & training as part of this? Yes 23. Is this part of a wider digital transformation programme that this project feeds into? Yes it feeds into our IT strategy and wider digital transformation programme 24. Will this programme include data and AI projects further down the road? Potentially but not within the scope of this project 25. Is the landing zone to be in azure uk south/uk west? Yes, confirmed UK based 26. Are Fortigates part of your existing security products? Yes 27. Do you need to migrate the security policy across (Fortigates)? Yes so its as close as possible as what we have today 28. Are you looking at a second availability zone? Yes potentially, this will be a task to work through upon engagement 29. What is the existing license model for Azure? EA license agreement 30. How are you licensed are you E3 or E5 currently? E3 currently, moving to E5 at the end of year 31. What are your timelines - start date - delivery timescale? Does it have to take the full 12 months if you can be migrated before that point? Start date will be as soon as possible after the contract award. Delivery timescales can be before the 12 month expiry of the co-lo contract if we are ready in a shorter time frame 32. Is there a need for onsite working? Yes as per the requirements, there will be an onsite presence required for project meetings and as tasks might be required whilst onsite 33. Do you envisage number of consultants to work with? No fixed number in mind, how many consultants you feel are required is fine within the fixed price engagement 34. Are you getting funding for commercials? We will be working with Microsoft and the selected partner to see what funding we can be nominated for 35. Timescale for awarding contract? By end of October 2022 36. Are incumbent suppliers engaged in this bid? All suppliers on this framework are able to submit their bid 37. What level of security clearance? As per the requirements, SC or BPSS is fine 38. Essential skills, long list of certifications are they all mandatory? No its not a mandatory requirement but we would like to understand the rationale for not acquiring the accreditation or the timeline for you to acquire 39. Can you confirm the azure expert msp is a requirement to apply? Yes 40. Would you consider a partnership with another partner? Yes we are happy with suppliers to subcontract however we will need to see a full breakdown of the staff used to fulfil our project eg CV's outlining experience and qualifications plus referees for us to contact. Joint proposals are welcomed.