Academy School District Twenty - Local …legacy.rockymountainbidsystem.com/xfer/PublicSolicitation... · Web view65 Host Operating System Support Must support VMware vSphere 5.0

Academy District TwentyDr. Mark Hatchell, Superintendent of Schools

Education and Administration Center1110 Chapel Hills Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80920-3923 Phone: 719-234-1200Website: www.asd20.org Fax: 719-234-1299

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL 15-JY-0504

DATE DUE: May 14, 2015, 2:00 p.m. (MST)

Hyper Converged Hosting EnvironmentFor

Academy District Twenty

Issued by:Jill Yellico

Purchasing Supervisor1110 Chapel Hills Drive

Colorado Springs, CO 80920719.234.1272 (office)

[email protected]

RFP 15-JY-0504 Hyper Converged Hosting EnvironmentPage 1 of 25

PROFILE OF ACADEMY DISTRICT TWENTYAcademy District Twenty prides itself in offering an unsurpassed education to over 24,000 preschool through 12th grade students in the northern area of El Paso County. The district is geographically and socioeconomically diverse. From the rural community of Black Forest to the growing Briargate area, the District encompasses 130 square miles and has 19 elementary schools, 6 middle schools, 6 high schools and 1 charter school.

1. PURPOSE OF REQUESTThe District is seeking bids from qualified vendors who have experience serving State and Local Government markets, preferably K-12 Public Entities, and who are located within or have a presence in the Southern Colorado region and who are experienced in installing and configuring enterprise level Hyper Convergence solutions. The District’s objective in acquiring a Hyper Converged Hosting Environment is to provide the District with a centralized storage and a virtual hosting environment that lowers the total cost of ownership of both physical and virtual server Data Storage in a high-speed, shared storage environment that offers flexible storage capacity and performance, robust fault tolerance, is compatible with virtualization technologies from VMware and Microsoft, and offers intuitive administration. The Hyper Convergence solution must minimize disruptions during implementation and be flexible enough to adapt to our current infrastructure.

It should also be noted, that the District is also considering maintaining its existing SAN infrastructure, but refreshing the hardware and software. If it a SAN environment is determined to be in the best interest of the District, it would abolish this RFP in lieu of a SAN solution. The District has not yet determined which direction to proceed and is highly interested in evaluating both proposals prior to making a determination. If your firm is interested in completing both RFPs, please consult the District’s RFP website for the other RFP.

2. ESTIMATED TIME SCHEDULEMay 4, 2015 Distribute Request for Proposal

May 8, 2015 2:00 P.M. Deadline for Emailed Questions to [email protected]

May 11, 2015 Responses to Questions

May 14, 2015 2:00 P.M. Proposal Due Date

May 15-June 1, 2015 Vendor Evaluation, Demos and Negotiations

June 1, 2015 Approximate Vendor Selection

August 1, 2015 Project Completion

3. INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS

To be considered, an electronic copy (email or other method) of your Proposal and your Proposed Price must be received by Jill Yellico at the Academy District Twenty, Contracting and Purchasing Department, 1110 Chapel Hills Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, [email protected]. ALL PROPOSALS MUST INCLUDE THE FORMS PROVIDED IN THIS PACKAGE. Failure to do so may be cause for rejection of your proposal. Proposals may be submitted in electronic format.

A. Proposals must be marked plainly and prominently as follows:

RFP 15-JY-0504 iSCSI Hyper Converged Hosting Environment


mailto:[email protected]

It is the responsibility of the vendor to ensure that the proposal is at the Contracting and Purchasing Department before the deadline. Unsolicited proposal and proposals from unapproved or non-qualified vendors may not to be considered.

B. All offers meeting the intent of this request for proposal will be considered for award. Vendors taking

exception to the specifications, or offering substitutions, shall state these exceptions in the section provided or by attachment as part of the proposal. The absence of such a list shall indicate that the vendor has not taken exceptions and shall hold the vendor responsible to perform in strict accordance with the specifications of the invitation. District reserves the right to accept any and all or none of the exception(s)/substitution(s) deemed to be in the best interest of the District.

C. In the event of any claim by any unsuccessful vendor concerning or relating to the issue of “equal or better” or “or equal” the unsuccessful vendor agrees, at his own cost and expense, to defend such claim or claims and agrees to hold the District free and harmless from any loss or damage arising out of this transaction.

D. Academy District Twenty reserves the right to negotiate with the submitter of each and every proposal; in order to best meet its needs as defined in the proposal as well as to reject any and all proposals and to waive any “informalities” in the proposal received whenever such action, rejection, or waiver is in its best interests.In all instances where, price, service, and quality are determined equal, preference in the award of contract will be given to Colorado-based companies.

E. Cooperative Purchasing Efforts: The District is a member of the Cooperative Educational Purchasing Council (CEPC). The geography of the CEPC lies along the front range of the Rocky Mountains from the Fort Collins/Greeley area in the north to Colorado Springs in the south. This membership of public purchasing departments represents approximately seventy percent (70%) of the K-12 public school enrollment in the State of Colorado. We hereby request that any member of the CEPC be permitted to avail itself of this contract and purchase any and all items specified herein from the successful Vendor(s) at the contract price(s) established herein. Each CEPC member which uses a contract(s) resulting here from would establish its own contract, issue its own orders, be invoiced there from, make its own payments, and issue its own exemption certificates as required by the Vendor. It is understood and agreed that the District is not a legally binding party to any contractual agreement made between a CEPC member and the Vendor as a result of this Solicitation.

4. AWARD

A. Academy District Twenty reserves the right to:

1. Accept or reject any or all proposals received as a result of this RFP.

2. Waive or modify informalities and any irregularities in the responses received.

3. Select the vendor it deems to be most qualified to fulfill the needs of the District.

Proposals submitted will be evaluated by an Evaluation Committee selected by the District Contract Officer. During the evaluation process, the Evaluation Committee and the District reserve the right, where it may serve the District's best interest, to request additional information or clarifications from proposers, or to allow corrections of errors or omissions. At the discretion of the District or the Evaluation Committee, firms submitting proposals may be requested to make oral presentations as part of the evaluation process. The District is seeking “Best Value” in the evaluation process. In all instances, the decision rendered by the Board of Education (if necessary) shall be final and not subject to contest by others.

The District reserves the right to retain all proposals submitted and to use any ideas in a proposal regardless of whether that proposal is selected. Submission of a proposal indicates acceptance by


the firm of the conditions contained in this request for proposals, unless clearly and specifically noted in the proposal submitted and confirmed in the contract between the District and the firm selected.

B. Proposals shall remain open and valid and subject to acceptance for ninety (90) days after opening date unless otherwise stipulated.

C. The successful vendor(s) shall be furnished a Purchase Order with the District’s billing instructions. If multiple purchase orders are requested, the total of all purchase orders shall equal the proposal total.

D. The vendor shall not assign or transfer any or all of its rights, burdens, duties or obligations without the prior written consent of the District.

5. TERMINATION OF CONTRACT

A. The District may, by written notice to the successful Vendor, terminate the contract if the Vendor has been found to have failed to perform its service in a manner satisfactory to the District as per specifications, including delivery as specified. The date of termination shall be stated in the notice. The District shall be the sole judge of non-performance.

B. The District may cancel the contract upon thirty days written notice for reason other than cause. This may include the District's inability to continue with the contract due to the elimination or reduction of funding.

6. EVALUATION CRITERIA

In order to facilitate the evaluation and selection process, vendors are requested to submit responses that included the following information.

A. Management SummaryA management summary must be included which provides an overview of the Vendor’s information and highlights the benefits. Vendors should emphasize why their solution is best suited to meet the needs of the District. This summary must be signed by an authorized official who can represent the information provided. The Vendor’s response to each of the requirements and other requests for information is contractually binding.

B. Vendor ProfileProvide a brief description and history of your company including current size, organization and support staff and a general overall profile. Vendor must supply three current references to include: name of company, contact, phone number and address. The references must be multi-site customers similar in size to Academy District Twenty. Include specifics of the last project similar to this one and completion dates.

C. Proposed PriceTotal Itemized All-Inclusive Maximum PriceThe proposed price should contain all pricing information related to performing the services as described in this request for proposal. The total all-inclusive maximum cost is to contain all direct and indirect costs including all out-of-pocket expenses.

The District will not be responsible for expenses incurred in preparing and submitting the proposal. Such costs should not be included in the proposal.

The first page of the proposed cost should include the following information:


1. Name of Firm

2. Certification that the person signing the proposal is entitled to represent the firm, empowered to submit the bid, and authorized to sign a contract with the District.

7. INTERPRETATIONS OR CHANGES

A. Changes in the specifications for quality level purposes and or specifications presented in the proposal package shall be made by written notice of change and will be mailed to Vendors holding Proposal Documents. All changes will become part of the Proposal Document by this reference, and all vendors shall be bound by such changes, whether or not the vendor received it.

B. Should a vendor find discrepancies, or errors in the Documents, the vendor shall notify the District Contracting & Purchasing Department no later than ten (10) days prior to the date of the Proposal Opening.

8. TAXES

Vendor shall not include federal, state or applicable local excise or sales taxes in proposal prices, as the District is exempt from payment of such taxes. For state sales and use taxes, it shall be the responsibility of the vender to complete and file an “Application for Exemption Certificate” with the Colorado Department of Revenue.

9. CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE

Vendor shall provide Academy District Twenty with certificates of insurance evidencing the policies listed below prior to the commencement of services. Academy District Twenty shall be named as additional named insured as its interests may appear for all Commercial General Liability insurance and on all Comprehensive Automobile Liability insurance if the vehicles are to be used on Academy District Twenty property.

10. INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS

At all times during the term of this contract, vendor shall carry and maintain in full force at vendor’s expense the following insurance policies with insurance companies requiring minimum of thirty (30) days’ notice to Academy District Twenty of change or cancellation (including cancellation for nonpayment of premium).A. Commercial general liability must include premises and operations, products and completed operations,

contractual liability, personal and advertising injury liability and broad form property damage).Each Occurrence Limit $1,000,000General Aggregate Limit $2,000,000Products/Completed Operations Aggregate $1,000,000Personal and Advertising Injury Limit $1,000,000Fire Damage Limit $ 50,000Medical Expense Limit $ 5,000

B. Automobile Liability (Must Include Owned, Non-Owned and Hired Autos)Combined Single Limit $1,000,000

C. Excess LiabilityEach Occurrence $1,000,000

D. Workers Compensation/Employers LiabilityPer Occurrence Limit $ 100,000Disease Policy Limit $ 500,000


Disease Each Employee $ 100,000

NOTE: A certificate of insurance verifying coverage must be submitted with the proposal. The initial certificate can be a copy and does not have to show Academy District Twenty as a certificate holder or additional insured. Upon award of the contract, an original certificate must be provided naming Academy District Twenty as an additional insured as well as a copy of the endorsement to the policy with respect to that particular project.

11. WARRANTY AND GUARANTEE

Successful vendor shall warrant that all items/services shall conform to the proposed specifications and be free from all defects in material, workmanship and title. The Contractor shall, during the one year warranty period ensure that work which proves defective or deficient during such time is corrected either by the Contractor subcontractors or such other means as shall be required.

12. NON-COLLUSION

The vendor certifies that this proposal is made without any previous understanding, agreement or connection with any person, firm, or corporation making a proposal for the same project, and is in all respects fair, without outside control, collusion, fraud, or otherwise illegal action.

13. INDEMNIFICATION

The vendor shall save, indemnify and hold harmless the District against or from all costs, expenses, damages, injury or loss to which said District may be subjected by reason of any wrongdoing, misconduct, want of care, skill, negligence, or default in the execution or performance of contract and shall save and keep harmless the District against and from all claims and losses to it from any causes whatsoever, including actual or alleged patent infringements in the matter of making, furnishing and delivering materials/services as called for in proposal document.

14. FEDERAL FUNDING

The undersigned certifies, to the best of his or her knowledge and belief, that:

(1) No Federal appropriated funds have been paid or will be paid, by or on behalf of the undersigned, to any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of an agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with the awarding of any Federal contract, the making of any Federal grant, the making of any Federal loan, the entering into of any cooperative agreement, and the extension, continuation, renewal, amendment, or modification of any Federal contract, grant, loan, or cooperative agreement.

(2) If any funds other than Federal appropriated funds have been paid or will be paid to any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with this Federal contract, grant, loan, or cooperative agreement, the undersigned shall complete and submit Standard Form–LLL, “Disclosure Form to Report Lobbying,” in accordance with its instructions.

(3) The undersigned shall require that the language of this certification be included in the award documents for all subawards at all tiers (including subcontracts, subgrants, and contracts under grants, loans, and cooperative agreements) and that all subrecipients shall certify and disclose accordingly.

This certification is a material representation of fact upon which reliance was placed when this transaction was made or entered into. Submission of this certification is a prerequisite for making or entering into this


transaction imposed by section 1352, title 31, U.S. Code. Any person who fails to file the required certification shall be subject to a civil penalty of not less than $10,000 and not more than simplified acquisition threshold for each such failure.

(b) Debarment and Suspension. Subpart C of the OMB guidance in 2 CFR Part 180, as implemented by the Department of Defense in 2 CFR Part 1125.

The Recipient also agrees to communicate the requirement to comply with Subpart C to persons at the next lower tier with whom the Recipient enters into transactions that are “covered transactions” under Subpart B of 2 CFR Part 180 and the DoD implementation in 2 CFR Part 1125.

When a Recipient enters into a contract that utilizes federal awards of $25,000 or more, that Recipient must verify that the vendor is not suspended or debarred or otherwise excluded. This verification may be accomplished by checking the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) which can be accessed via System for Award Management (SAM) https://www.sam.gov, collecting a certification from the vendor, or adding a clause or condition to the contract with that vendor. In addition, Recipient personnel responsible for federal grant administration should receive ongoing training to understand the laws and regulations that apply to its federal grant awards. A print-out of this research, as proof, must be placed in the file for audit purposes.

(c) Nondiscrimination. Provisions of the following national policy requirements (as applicable) with respect to the prohibition of discrimination:

(1) On the basis of race, color, or national origin, in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d, et seq.), as implemented by DoD regulations at 32 CFR Part 195.

(2) On the basis of sex or blindness, in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. 1681, et. seq), as implemented by DoD regulations at 32 CFR Part 196.

(3) On the basis of age, in the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 (42 U.S.C. § 6101, et seq.), as implemented by Department of Health and Human Services regulations at 45 CFR Part 90.

(4) On the basis of handicap, in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794), implemented by Department of Justice regulations at 28 CFR Part 41 and DoD regulations at 32 CFR Part 56.

(d) Hatch Act. 5 U.S.C. 1501-1508 and 7324-7328, as implemented by the Office of Personnel Management at 5 CFR Part 151, which limits political activity of employees or officers of State or Local governments whose employment is connected to an activity financed in whole or in part with Federal funds.

(e) Drug-Free Workplace. Requirements regarding drug-free workplace requirements in Subpart B (or Subpart C, if the recipient is an individual) of 32 CFR part 26, which implements sec. 5151-5160 of the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 (Pub. L. 100-690, Title V, Subtitle D; 41 U.S.C. 701, et seq.).

15. SUBGRANTSState grantees shall follow state law and procedures when awarding and administering subgrants (whether on a cost reimbursement or fixed amount basis) of financial assistance to local and Indian tribe governments. States shall:(1) Ensure that every subgrant includes any clauses required by Federal statute and executive orders and their implementing regulations;(2) Ensure that subgrantees are aware of requirements imposed upon them by Federal statute and regulation;(3) Ensure that a provision for compliance with §33.42 is placed in every cost reimbursement subgrant; and(4) Conform any advances of grant funds to subgrantees substantially to the same standards of timing and amount that apply to cash advances by Federal agencies.


(b) All other grantees shall:(1) Ensure that every subgrant includes a provision for compliance with this part;(2) Ensure that every subgrant includes any clauses required by Federal statute and executive orders and their implementing regulations; and(3) Ensure that subgrantees are aware of requirements imposed upon them by Federal statutes and regulations.(c) Exceptions. By their own terms, certain provisions of this part do not apply to the award and administration of subgrants:(1) Section 33.10;(2) Section 33.11;(3) The letter-of-credit procedures specified in Treasury Regulations at 31 CFR Part 205, cited in §33.21; and(4) Section 33.50.

16. ANNUAL APPROPRIATION

This Contract is not intended to create a multiple fiscal year debt or other obligation and the District’s obligations hereunder shall be interpreted and limited in such a manner as to avoid creation of a multiple fiscal year debt or other obligation under the terms of Article X, Section 20, Paragraph 4(b) or the Colorado Constitution.

17. ILLEGAL ALIENS

If Provider has any employees or subcontractors, Provider shall comply with § 8-17.5, C.R.S. regarding Illegal Aliens – Public Contracts for Services, and this section of this Agreement. 8-17.5-102 includes, in part, that:a) Provider shall not:(i) Knowingly employ or contract with an illegal alien to perform work under this Agreement; or(ii) Enter into a contract with a subcontractor that fails to certify to Provider that the subcontractor shall not knowingly employ or contract with an illegal alien to perform work under this Agreement.b) Provider has verified or attempted to verify that Provider does not employ any illegal aliens and, will participate in the E-Verify Program or State Department program in order to confirm eligibility of all employees who are newly hired to perform work under public contract for services.c) Provider will not use E-Verify Program or State Department program procedures to undertake pre-employment screening of job applicants while the public contract for services is being performed.d) If Provider obtains actual knowledge that a subcontractor performing work under this Agreement knowingly employs or contracts with an illegal alien, Provider shall:(i) Notify the subcontractor and the District within three days that Provider has actual knowledge that the subcontractor is employing or contracting with an illegal alien; and(ii) Terminate the subcontract with the subcontractor if within three days of receiving the notice under d(i), the subcontractor does not stop employing or contracting with the illegal alien. However, the Provider shall not terminate the contract with the subcontractor if during this three day period the subcontractor provides information which establishes that the subcontractor has not knowingly employed or contracted with an illegal alien.e) Provider shall comply with any reasonable request by the Department of Labor and Employment made in the course of an investigation that the Department is undertaking pursuant to the authority established in §8-17.5-102(5), C.R.S.f) If Provider violates this provision, the District may terminate the Agreement for a breach of contract. If the Agreement is terminated, the Provider shall be liable for actual and consequential damages.

18. CONFIDENTIALITY / PROPRIETARY AGREEMENT


If your proposal contains confidential or proprietary information be sure to include this in the body of your response and that without the express, written permission of your organization it is prohibited to disclose, duplicate or reproduce.

19. METHODS OF PAYMENT

Academy District 20 uses the following methods for payment. They are listed below in their order of preference.

1. Single Use Account: In an effort to eliminate paper and improve our payment efficiencies with our strategic partners, Academy District 20 is enrolled in a virtual credit card payment system. With this payment method, ASD20 provides a “virtual” credit card account number to pay for goods or services. This card number will only be valid for one payment and expires after each use. This will be ASD20’s preferred method of payment, and you will be asked to accept payment in this manner. Under this method, payments are made after verification of receipt of the goods or services by the receiver and within 5 days after receipt of a proper invoice.

2. Credit Card Payment after issuance of Purchase Order: In an effort to eliminate paper and improve our payment efficiencies with our strategic partners, Academy District 20 uses credit cards to make payments. Under this method, payments are made after verification of receipt of the goods or services by the receiver and within 15 days after receipt of a proper invoice.

3. District Check after issuance of Purchase Order: Academy District 20 makes payments via district check. Under this method, payments are made after verification of receipt of the goods or services by the receiver and within 30 days after receipt of a proper invoice.

20. LABOR, WORKMANSHIP, AND SCHOOL SECURITY All Work under this Contract shall be performed in a skillful and workmanlike manner and in accordance with the Contract Documents. The Vendor shall be and remain liable to the District in accordance with Applicable Law for all damages to the District caused by the Vendor’s failure to perform the Work under this Contract in a skillful and workmanlike manner and in accordance with the Contract Documents.

The Contracting Officer may require that the Vendor immediately remove from the Job Site any employee whom the Contracting Officer or on-site school personnel deem to be objectionable. The Vendor shall not utilize, in the performance of this Contract, any laborer or employee who has been convicted of a violent crime or a crime of such nature (such as child related offenses) as to categorize the person as being unsuitable for working around school children, or has engaged in such conduct, in the last five years, as to be similarly categorized, or who, in the opinion of the Vendor or the District, is otherwise unsuitable for working on the Project. Suitability shall be determined by performance of security/background checks (as are necessary in light of the potential of contact with the District's students, staff, property, or sensitive records maintained at District sites) by the Vendor on all laborers and employees utilized in the performance of the Work. When there is reasonable doubt regarding a particular person's suitability, the Contractor may make a request through the District's Contracting Officer for an approval/opinion prior to the individual beginning work. The Vendor shall submit to the District copies of all security/background checks performed within twenty-four (24) hours of a request by the District for such information. The District may request copies of these security/background checks up to one (1) year after Turnover of the Project. Failure to complete or submit any required constitute an Event of Default, and may result in termination of the Contract, removal from the active vendor and Offeror list for up to one (1) year, or any other available legal or contractual rights or remedies.

The Vendor, including without limitation its laborers and employees, shall not fraternize or otherwise communicate with students except in cases of safety and like necessities.


The Vendor shall not allow any laborer or employee to wear objectionable clothing or caps with other than company logo, (objectionable clothing will be determined by the District's on-site personnel), or use profanity in any manner while on District property.

The Vendor shall ensure that its laborers and employees fully comply with all District policies/regulations pertaining to restrictions that may affect anyone on District owned property. Examples of these current policies/regulations include: (a) Each person or each foreman representing a group of laborers must sign in at the school's main office upon arrival at the Job Site. (b) Each person shall maintain professional workmanlike attire. (c) No person shall use tobacco, or possess alcohol or any controlled, illegal or dangerous substance on District property. (d) No person shall possess any "weapon" of any kind as defined in District policy, including without limitation a pocketknife that is not directly used as a tool for Work in progress.

Removal of a specific person from the Project as a result of any condition mentioned above shall not relieve the Vendor from timely performance of the Work and shall not be considered grounds for a request for additional funds to complete the Project.

Having read carefully the proposal conditions and the specifications, the undersigned submits the following proposal. Any special conditions the District needs to know with regard to your proposal must be listed here: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I acknowledge receipt of addenda, if any as follows:

The undersigned acknowledges that the governing board of the Academy District Twenty reserves the right to reject any and all proposals and/or waive any irregularities or information in the proposal process.

The undersigned hereby affirms that (1) he/she is a duly authorized agent of the vendor, (2) he/she has read all terms and conditions and technical specifications which were made available in conjunction with this solicitation and fully understands and accepts them unless specific variations have been expressly listed in his/her offer, (3) that the proposal is being submitted on behalf of the vendor in accordance with any terms and conditions set forth in this document, and (4) that the vendor will accept any awards made to it as a result of the proposal submitted herein for a minimum of ninety calendar days following the date of submission.

PRINT OR TYPE YOUR INFORMATION

Name of Company: ____________________________________________ Fax: _____________

Address: ________________________ City/State: ________________ Zip: ______________

Contact Person: ___________________ Title: _____________________ Phone: ___________

Authorized Representative’s Signature: ____________________________ Phone: ___________

Printed Name: ____________________ Title: _____________________ Date: ____________


Email Address: ___________________ Approved by: ______________ Date: ____________

Reviewed by: ______________ Date: ____________

SCOPE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALRFP 15-JY-0504 Hyper Converged Hosting Environment

1. Current SAN Environment

Current SAN Overview

At a high level, the main objective behind the current storage area network is to provide The District with a centralized storage environment that lowers the total cost of ownership by providing a high speed shared storage environment that offers increased storage capacity and performance, robust fault tolerance, and flexible storage administration. The SAN and attached servers are located in the District’s Data Center(s); temperature controlled facilities with 110V/220V AC UPS backed power. Rack space is available in existing standard 19in 42U four-post racks.

The District currently operates a single EqualLogic SAN consisting of 5 shelf members. The SAN and its five members are interconnected by way of two HP 2900 series 10Gbe stacked switches. Three storage pools have been created from the disks available totaling 39TBs of usable space.

two PS5000E in RAID 5 for a total of 18TBs one PS5000E in RAID 50 for a total of 10TBs two PS66100xv in RAID 10 for a total of 11TBs

Of the total 39TB of usable SAN space, 10.6TBs is in use as Oracle/Linux attached iSCSI, 8.4 is in use as Windows Server Raw Device Mappings, and 19TBs is provisioned as VMWare ESXi VMFS data storage. The District’s current data center infrastructure is temperature controlled withUPS and backup generator power protection and is composed of the following major components:

Shared storage - three PS5000e and two PS6100xv Storage and Virtual host networking - Two HP5406zl and four HP2900 with multiple 10G fiber back

bone connections Virtual Host - nine VMWare EXSi 5.0 hosts and three Microsoft2012-HyperV hosts hosting roughly

150 VM guests Physical servers - there are five servers running Oracle and other misc. applications

The following is the functionality available in the current SAN infrastructure. Ability to create data replication groups Ability to present LUNs to individual or multiple hosts including VM hosts, their guests and

traditional fiber connected hosts Alarm notification thresholds Web-based and CLI-based administration interface Ability to expand capacity on demand without downtime Ability to replace failed hardware such as controllers, cache batteries, hard disks and power

supplies without downtime Ability to create different RAID level LUNs such as 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 ... Write Cache Policy to “Write Back” and “Write through” Multipath Presentation Method High block level I/O performance


2. Project Description

2.1. Project Objectives The District is soliciting responses to this RFP to replace our existing Dell EqualLogic SAN and associated software. An award from this RFP is expected to result in a firm, fixed price contract for the purchase, installation and configuration of solutions. The solutions should include product support and maintenance for three and if possible, five years. The Vendor shall warrant and guarantee support for at least 3 years or migrate the District to a supported platform at vendor cost. The District’s objective is to begin work to replace our legacy SAN in June 2015, upon Board of Education approval and contract execution in the 4th quarter of Fiscal Year 2015. There is no obligation expressed or implied on the part of the District to reimburse firms for any expenses incurred in preparing responses for this request.

2.2. Project Scope Overview The following is a brief summary of the project:

Acquire, install and configure the proposed Hyper Converged solution (which should include data switches or upgrading the existing switches if needed) and necessary training of District staff so that they District staff can perform routine administration and migration of data from the existing SAN to the new Hyper Converged environment.

Acquire, install and configure any additional devices and or software required to manage the new Hyper Converged Hosts.

Acquire, install and configure any additional devices and or software required to support backing up data on the new Hyper Converged Hosts using the District’s enterprise backup system for the purpose of disaster recovery.

Assist District staff with migration of data from current SAN to proposed solution.

2.3. Product and Services Specifications In an effort to evaluate all available solutions, the District has established an independent set of minimum specifications. Each bid must meet or exceed the specifications listed in this document in order to be considered.

2.4. Primary Locations (Data Center) 7408 Duryea Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80920 (Primary Data Center)1110 Chapel Hills Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80920 (Backup Data Center)

2.5. Capacity and Disk For the purpose of this RFP, the term “usable capacity” implies the amount of effective space available to the District’s servers through the use of deduplication, compression and thin provisioning technologies. The District requires a minimum of 80 TB of effective capacity. This does not factor in capacity used for snapshots/clones/replication of datasets. The proposed solution should be flexible enough to double capacity in a scalable fashion without the need to replace the proposed equipment.

2.6. Technology Platform / Architecture The Hyper Converged Hosts must support data volumes larger than two Terabyte (2TB). The

Hyper Converged Hosts must be VMware and Hyper-V certified.


The Hyper Converged Hosts must be able to provide multi-path capability to the storage array, and individual hardware components must be fully redundant and hot-swappable to ensure maximum data availability.

The Hyper Converged Hosts must provide appropriate cache memory to facilitate optimal system performance.

The Hyper Converged Hosts utilization of deduplication technologies and or the ability to remove allocated but unused space to achieve the required 80 TB of effective storage without impacting performance is highly desired.

2.7. Management The Hyper Converged Hosts must be manageable from a secure web-based interface and if it is recommended a separate management device or server be used to manage the Hyper Converged Hosts then this device or server must be included in the bid. The ability to control the Hyper Converged Hosts via a command-line interface and automate control of the hosts is highly desired.

The Hyper Converged Hosts must include the capability to report the overall and detailed views of current and historical utilization.

The Hyper Converged Hosts must include the capabilities to report storage resource objects and generate a data usage report that can lead to a charge-back report.

The management system must include comprehensive online and remote monitoring abilities without third-party hardware or software. The solution must be capable of generating email alerts for any critical hardware or software events that may occur.

2.8. Hyper Converged Switches It is desired that the current HP 2900 Series switches be replaced with HP Top-of-Rack (TOR) switches that support 10 Gbps Ethernet interfaces in sufficient numbers to support the solution recommended. The cost of these switches should be included in the proposal.

2.9. Hyper Converged Hosts Backup Compatibility with our existing Veeam Enterprise backup system is required.

2.10. Implementation Working in tandem with the District’s IT department, the vendor must install the new Hyper

Converged Hosts as the primary production virtual host and storage unit. During installation, configuration, and setup, it is the District’s desire to be on hand to receive real time training and consult with the vendor on best practices and management concepts.

The vendor must implement the Hyper Converged Hosts management software to allow system configuration, performance monitoring and capacity reporting. Initial cost for all management software and licenses, as well as for any ongoing maintenance for a three (3) year period (preferably 5) must be included in the proposal.

The vendor must configure the new system to support the District’s existing server infrastructure environment.


The vendor must design and implement required configuration to the proposed switches. If new switches are not required then the vendor will be required to assist the District’s IT staff in connecting the new Hyper Converged Hosts to the existing HP fiber switches and servers.

The vendor must provide enough training to the District’s IT staff to prepare them for successful migration of data from the existing Dell EqualLogic to the new Hyper Converged Hosts which should include all applicable data.

All onsite consultants must have access to engineering-level support of the equipment manufacturer.

The vendor must provide product training to District IT staff on best practices and daily management of the Hyper Converged Hosts.

Night and weekend hours are available for prolonged project activities to minimize disruption of service. Requests for night and weekend work must be coordinated with the District’s IT department prior to the work being performed. It should not be expected that the District’s IT staff can or will be available for any work outside the district’s normal operating hours. The District’s normal business operating hours are 7 AM to 5:30 PM Monday through Friday.

3. Instructions for Response This RFP serves a number of functions. It provides Company background, response instructions, SAN requirements, and includes forms to be completed by the vendor.

3.1 For this RFP, Bidders should submit a proposal that provides the following information to the District: Description of solution including parts list, licensing, Hyper Converged Hosts management

tools, features and capabilities.

Experience implementing the proposed solution.

Document experience and recommendations for migration and conversion from the District’s legacy SAN to the proposed solution.

Project Management including a proposed Project timeline and work plan with a description of the bidder’s approach to successfully completing the Scope of Work.

Describe the tools and methods that will be used to review and validate converted systems and data for accuracy and completeness.

Description of experience migrating organizations similar in size to the District onto the proposed platform.

Proposed timeline to complete the Statement of Work.

Cost to complete the Statement of Work including 3 year and 5 year post implementation support warranties.

Criterion Weight Criterion Description


Ability to Meet Requirements 30%

Quality of technical solution and consulting services. Quality of proposed project team. Ability to meet milestones and deadlines.

References and Experience 20%

Quality of work and pertinent experience, past performance and firm’s qualifications. Proven success implementing proposed solution at similar sized organizations.

Company Position in Industry 20%

Position in marketplace, innovation and expertise, company stability and likelihood of company survival.

Cost 30%

Product value, ongoing costs for maintenance and support, consulting & conversion costs, perceived degree of accuracy in pricing for overall project.

3.2 Bidder Submission Requirements

The Bidder must demonstrate a core competence performing Hyper Converged Hosts installations for entities similar in scope to the District.

The Bidder must have been in existence as a business entity performing such services for a minimum of three (3) years.

The principal technical consultant performing the work must have a minimum of three (3) years’ experience implementing the solution proposed to the District at organizations similarly sized or larger than the District and provide any certifications held relating to the solution provided.

4 Statement of Work The bidder will be expected to complete their response to each item in the Statement of Work (SoW) with their approach to satisfying the requirement including proposed milestones and deliverable accordance with the terms and conditions set forth herein. Please review each requirement and provide a response to each requirement.

Project RequirementsPlease provide a written statement describing your approach and ability to meet the following Project Requirements:


4.1 Initiation Phase a. Project Staffing Planb. Work plan to include detailed tasks and time estimates for deliverables described in the

SoW.c. Quality Assurance Plan

4.2 Requirements Phasea. Validate Requirementsb. Validate technical infrastructurec. Provide the District with a detailed installation plan

4.3 Installation and Traininga. The components will be installed and tested in a professional manner by trained and

qualified personnel. b. Equipment will be delivered to the District prior or on the due date specified in work plan. c. Provide all required installation material. d. Ensure proper power, connectivity, configuration and access. e. Test and validate that the new Hyper Converged Hosts is accessible from the District’s

existing Servers. The vendor shall install and test all components in accordance with the manufacturer’s written policy and guidelines. The vendor shall certify in writing that installed equipment has satisfied all testing requirements.

f. All system hardware and software features and configuration shall be tested and certified in working order by the vendor.

g. Provide "as built" documentation, within three weeks from the project completion date. h. Provided the District with 60 day warranty period to correct any aspect of the vendor’s

solution that is not functioning properly and according to manufacturer specification and RFP requirements.

i. Provide training to the District’s IT staff on the “as built” equipment and configuration.


5. ReferencesPlease list references for similar, preferably in the Public School K-12 market, projects over the last three years in reverse chronological order (most recent first). Please list a maximum of THREE.

Reference #1: (CLIENT NAME)Project State Date:

Completion Date:

Name of Contact:

Telephone No:

Address:Email: Title:Total Vendor Cost:Was the Project completed on schedule and on budget?Please briefly describe the scope of the project:


Completion Date:

Name of Contact:

Telephone No:




Completion Date:

Name of Contact:

Telephone No:


6. Warranty Three year (or five year) warranty of the vendor’s entire SAN solution and management software.

7. Technical Requirements Please complete the requirement matrix by filling in the Vendor Response column to each requirement. The following are general characteristics of the desired storage environment.

Performance-Various requirements, please see below for specifics Availability – requirements to prevent loss of data content and loss of access to data required to achieve “4-9’s “(99.99%) availability. Capability to recover from catastrophic disasters via mirroring and backup techniques that protect the content through geographic diversity. Scalability – the data storage solution must be easy to grow to address the increased demand of future applications. Cost – the cost of ownership, including the cost of maintaining and managing the storage system, needs to be reduced in comparison to the existing solution.

ID Category Requirements Description Vendor Response

1 Overview Describe what the product generally does, the major components of the product and the major data flows.

2 Overview Discuss the operational scalability of your product. Provide scalability case studies with examples comparable to our size and global reach (regional instances, performance considerations, etc. Specifically, latency and performance considerations).

3 Overview What are the significant setup or installation options to consider?

4 Overview Are there any features or functions that must be


customized? What is the cost structure for customizations?

5 Overview What is your product release schedule? How many full and dot releases do you have in a year? Describe the typical patching lifecycle- average frequency and platform variances.

6 Overview Describe the functionality and technology roadmap (industry standards you are moving to, etc.).

7 Overview What support alternatives exist after a version is de-supported?

8 Overview What is the maturity of the technologies involved in the solution?

9 Overview Which open source technologies are involved in the solution, if any?

10 Overview Describe lead time and duration to complete a standard installation of your solution.

11 Overview Describe policy around customer or 3rd party personnel performing the installation of your solution.

12 Overview Describe your policy for dealing with DOA equipment in the context of the installation of your solution.

13 Overview Does your solution include any on-site spare parts for common failures?

14 Overview Describe your policy around firmware upgrades as they relate to both application (of firmware) and supportability.

15 Overview Describe your policy around driver (OS) updates as they relate to both application (of drivers) and supportability.

16 Overview Describe your policy for back-out or downgrading of firmware in the event of an issue.

17 Functional Describe the structure, composition and responsibilities of the account team which would support customer’s account.

18 Functional Are your support staff members who provide onsite warranty repair service direct employees, or subcontractors? Do warranty SLAs apply if contractors perform repairs?

19 Functional Describe the warranty implications (if any) of having customer personnel install approved upgrade components within your solution?

20 Functional Describe any policies that you have regarding machine replacement for repeated hardware failures (“lemon rule”).

21 Functional To ensure SLA compliance, describe the process for maintaining an onsite spare parts depot for installed equipment.

22 Functional Describe the escalation process within the account team as well as senior leadership for issues that require a heightened sense of


urgency.23 Functional Describe the implications around not meeting

agreed upon SLA requirements.24 Support Require 3 years of hardware software

maintenance and support, 5 years is preferred.25 Availability 99.99% availability is required26 Serviceability Single Point of contact for solution support27 Serviceability Support Solution is U.S. based28 Serviceability Support Solution is tiered support with District

access to higher level support Tiers without having to start with tier one before being escalated to higher tiers.

29 Repair Response Time

4 Hours parts and services availability

30 Repair Response Time

Next day parts and service availability

31 Online Support

24/7 Online Technical Support

32 Telephone Support

24/7 Telephone Support

33 Knowledge Transfer

At completion of project provide knowledge transfer, and Web based Knowledge Base

34 Training Training should be available to IT staff for managing, maintaining, monitoring, and troubleshooting issues.

35 Interoperability Allow addition or replacement of future components.Allow for maintenance with zero downtime.Allow Load Balancing of resources.

36 Support for physical hosts connected switches

The Performance must be able to support physical hosts utilizing, vSphere 5.0 and ESXi 5.0 through current and Microsoft Windows server 2008 through current. The District does have a few remaining 2003 servers, however those will be upgraded during the summer of 2015.

37 Throughput requirements

Must be capable of transferring data to 10GB fiber connected servers.

38 Capacity 40 TB of useable storage with ability to scale up to 72 TB in a modular fashion with minimum disruption

39 Performance VMware ESX environment and other physical servers require performance for SQL and Exchange databases suitable for a 5000 user environment.

40 Newer storage technologies

It is desired that the Hyper Convergence solution support the latest technologies.

41 HP 2900 Series switch compatibility

Is the proposed solution compatible with the District’s current switches?

42 Environmental Hyper Convergence solution must fit into a


requirements standard 19in 42U rack. The District’s Datacenters operate in a controlled temperature of 68-71°F with redundant AC unit, a certified Fire Suppression System and redundant UPS battery system.

43 Cooling Hyper Convergence solution should be able to operate in a controlled temperature of 68-71°F.

44 Electrical Able to utilize UPS backed AC 110/220V NEMA 5-15

45 Electrical Redundant power supplies and cooling per platform. 46 Fault

ToleranceThe Hyper Convergence solution must provide fault tolerance against power supply failure, disk failure, controller failure, and Data Path failures. Newer storage failure recovery technologies such as mesh active controllers that re-mirror the cache to other controllers in the event of a failure would be desired.

47 Storage Resource Management

The Hyper Convergence solution should be able to optimize the efficiency and speed with which available drive space is utilized such as performance analysis, storage virtualization, storage provisioning, forecasting of future needs, maintenance of activity logs, user authentication, protection and management of storage expansion.

48 Data Footprint Reduction Technologies

It is desired that the Hyper Convergence solution utilize technologies to reduce the footprint of the overall storage utilization such as Duplication, Compression, and Thin Provisioning.

49 Backup and Restore

The District utilizes Veeam as our Enterprise backup system. The Storage of choice should be compatible with the current Backup Solution.

50 Remote Data Replication

Hyper Convergence solution should be capable of cloning its data content to a remote location for business continuity purposes.

51 Monitoring The solution of choice must include automated email alerts.

52 Storage Management

Strong Storage Management capabilities are required to manage the overall Hyper Convergence solution device(s), Disks Management, Disk Array Management, Controllers and Cache, Fault troubleshooting

53 VMware Storage Certified

The Hyper Convergence solution of choice should provide storage management capabilities for VMware and should be a VMware certified Hyper Convergence solution.

54 Microsoft Storage Certified

The Hyper Convergence solution of choice should provide storage management capabilities for HyperV and should be a HyperV certified Solution.

55 Remote Management

Management of the Hyper Convergence solution should be done via a secure Web based interface


and accessible from the District’s IT staff computers.

56 Multi-User Admin Access

Management of the Hyper Convergence solution should be performed by individual administrative accounts managed and monitored using the District’s Active Directory structure.

57 Hyper Convergence Performance Monitoring

Monitoring tool should provide a comprehensive view into the health of the Hyper Convergence device(s) through a centralized management console. It should be able to monitor all logical connections and physical infrastructure.

58 Storage Capacity Monitoring

Provide an automated way to collect forecasting data to make it easy to view growth rates, project when capacity will be reached, and forecast costs and budgetary requirements.

59 Quality of Service

Hyper Convergence Solution should be able to support a dynamic caching algorithm to prioritize data access on the Hyper Convergence solution based on application performance requirements.

60 Event and Error Logs

Event tracking should Identify physical and logical failures as well as capacity and performance issues and other events including Zoning conflicts and storage thresholds.

61 Thresholds management and monitoring and notification

Storage thresholds should be monitored via SNMP traps, and notifications should automatically be sent to specific group(s) via e-mail.

62 Security Access management and monitoring

Must provide security access control, Individual Admin Account authentication, access.

63 Trending and reporting

Provide storage trending reports of various types, including utilization, & performance.

64 Scalability Scalable from 80TB to 120TB of effective capacity without having to migrate to a new storage system.

65 Host Operating System Support

Must support VMware vSphere 5.0 and ESXi 5.0 server and be certified to support current version of VMWare ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V.

66 Guest Operating System Support

Windows Server 2003 through 2012 R2, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Linux.

67 Hardware upgrade support

It is desired that Hardware upgrades be covered under hardware maintenance.

68 Software upgrade

It is desired that Software upgrades be covered under Software maintenance.


support69 Failover

SupportMust provide automatic failover for hardware failures.

70 Failover Support

Failover capabilities should be automated and minimize administrator interaction.

71 Performance Solution should be scalable as storage and compute needs grow without needing to make major compute/storage capital expenditures.

72 Performance Must provide a Heat-Optimized Tiering Cache (HOTcache).

73 Performance Must provide a Distributed Metadata Service.74 Performance Must provide a Distributed Data Maintenance Service

based on MapReduce.75 Performance Must provide high performance by exposing storage

resources (i.e., direct attached SSD and HDD) on the same host as the guest virtual machines making requests. Local Storage controllers should serve as backups to each other to ensure uptime and dataprotection.

76 Performance Local Storage controllers should serve as backups to each other to ensure uptime and data protection.

77 Performance Automated tiering (including RAM cache, flash read/write, HDD read/write).

78 Performance Tiering must occur in real-time and elevate data into the flash and RAM tier based on access patterns.

79 Performance A minimum of 4GB of RAM cache must be available on every storage node.

80 Performance Thin provisioning of both storage containers and virtual machine hard disks.

81 Performance Rapid virtual machine cloning.82 Performance Native storage level snapshots with no impact to

guest performance.83 Performance Compression (configurable as Inline or Post-Process).84 Performance Deduplication spanning all storage including RAM,

flash and HDD.85 Performance Data redundancy policies that provide options for

single host failure and simultaneous host failure with no impact to data availability.

86 Performance VM Level site-to-site replication.87 Performance Support for automated upgrades of storage

controllers through management GUI with no downtime to virtual machines.

88 Performance Shall support automated chassis redundancy and survive the failure of entire chassis containing multiple nodes. In a multi-chassis configuration the infrastructure must intelligently distribute data across chassis so no redundant copies of data exist on the same chassis or node.


89 Performance Shall support maximum host cluster sizes for VMWare vSphere.

90 Performance Shall distribute data intelligently across all nodes and disks so disks in each storage tier fill at approximately the same rate and handle equal amounts of I/O.

91 Performance Shall be capable of adding additional combined server and storage components with high performance GPU capabilities, seamlessly, with no downtime, to scale performance and capacity on demand.

92 Performance Shall be “out of the box” compatible with VMWare ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V.

93 Performance Shall run “active/active”, but be capable of operating out of a single datacenter without degradation of performance.

Proposed Price SheetRFP 15-JY-0504 Hyper Converged Hosting Environment


Please provide a pricing structure of the proposed solution and provide a bill of materials (BOM) that includes full and complete line item pricing. Responses should include the following:

Part description Part number List price Discount percentage Discount off of list price Net or bid unit price Quantity Extended list price Extended net price

The bidder provided BOM should include the following sections:

Hardware Software Licensing Maintenance Training Special one-time discounts, such as trade-in allowances, maintenance costs waivers, conference

tickets and others Professional services (includes design) Implementation services (includes data transfer) Project management costs Documentation Delivery/shipping costs Applicable taxes Optional capabilities

Name of Firm:_________________________________________________________________

Authorized Signature: ___________________________________________________________

Printed Name & Title:____________________________________________________________

Date:________________________________________________________________________
