SOLICITATION AMENDMENT

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1 North Dakota University System Core Technology Services 4349 James Ray Dr. Grand Forks, ND September 29, 2014 Solicitation Number and Title: CTS Datacenter Operations, Monitoring and Maintenance Amendment Number: #1 The above referenced solicitation is hereby amended as follows: 1. Section 3.2.A under the Value-Add Optional Package is hereby amended as follows: Add the following to the opening paragraph after the first sentence: The intent of this request is the option that the datacenter facility manager that offeror is to provide as part of its service takes on these additional responsibilities. Replace the last sentence of the opening paragraph with: If offeror proposes this position, please enter the total cost for the position in the Value-Add section of the cost proposal worksheet and on an additional line in that section, include the reduction in cost for the monthly service fee. Please be sure to include your normal management costs (without the optional extra duties) in the Ongoing Costs section of the cost proposal. So the paragraph should now read: NDUS would like to consider, as an optional package, having offerors provide an onsite datacenter manager as described below. The intent of this request is the option that the datacenter facility manager that offeror is to provide as part of its service takes on these additional responsibilities. Please identify your ability to offer this service. Note that if selected, this service would be a separate statement of work under the contract with an annual term. Since this is an optional service, this will not be included in the cost evaluation. If offeror proposes this position, please enter the total cost for the position in the Value-Add section of the cost proposal worksheet and on an additional line in that section, include the reduction in cost for the monthly service fee. Please be sure to include your normal management costs (without the optional extra duties) in the Ongoing Costs section of the cost proposal. Delete the table in that Subsection in its entirety and replace with the following table: Staffing 1 Provide staff to fulfill datacenter manager role. Minimum qualifications are a Bachelor s degree in a related field or an equivalent level of experience in the field and at least 2 years experience performing similar duties for a tier III or higher datacenter. This person would have the following responsibilities: Directs the tactical and operational activities of the production control department in support of the missions of NDUS and CTS Responsible for developing and managing departmental budget Oversee the development of datacenter standards, processes and procedures Manages customer relationships to ensure that service level objectives are developed and managed in production control areas Manages the administration of hardware inventory, asset management and assist with IT maintenance and service contracts Desired Page 1 of 7

2 Work with other units within CTS Infrastructure & Operations to stay abreast of new developments in network hardware and software as they pertain to the datacenter Assist with preparation of purchase requisitions as they pertain to the datacenter Participate, as requested/assigned, on UND/NDUS committees, task forces and/or working groups Develop disaster recovery policies and practices Schedule adequate staff and resources to provide high quality services Guide priority setting of staff. Assist with the recruitment and hiring of employees Develop competencies and job requirements for data center staff positions Develop technical operations and production support personnel Coordinate activities overlapping the responsibilities between data center staff and other Infrastructure & Operations staff Follow safety rules Help identify unsafe working conditions Stop co-workers who are working in an unsafe manner Response: Section 1.5 of the solicitation established a deadline for receipt of questions. The responses to these questions are provided as addenda to the solicitation. When necessary, the solicitation has been amended. 1. Question: Is the equipment on the north side of the supply room part of the datacenter? Response: No 2. Question: Is the fire hydrant on the north side supplied with water? Response: Yes 3. Question: Is it planned to fence in the generator area? Response: No. The generator access doors and gas caps are locked. 4. Question: What is the underground fuel capacity? Response: It is just a belly tank and is supposed to be enough to run them 72 hours. As noted in Section 2.3 of the RFP the tanks hold 800 gallons. 5. Question: Whose responsibility is it to keep the roof drains clear? Response: That is the responsibility of UND Facilities. 6. Question: Are the housekeeping pads (in the UPS room) built out for expansion back in the data center? Response: Yes, space for additional UPS equipment is installed at this time. Page 2 of 7

3 7. Question: 7. Are the pumps (located in the mechanical room) for cooled water? Response: Yes, they are all for cooled water 8. Question: How does the cost evaluation process work? Response: The cost evaluation process is in Section 5.3 of the RFP. 9. Question: What is the fire suppression method in the electrical and mechanical areas? Response: It is a water suppression system with dry pipe throughout the facility. 10. Question: Is the orange hose part of the fire suppression system? Response: The orange hose is part of the VESDA system. 11. Question: What is the penetration in the upper NW corner of the room? Response: That is a roof drain. There is as second one in the SW corner as well. Follow-up: Is there a leakage monitor around it. Response: No. 12. Question: Is this a Compellent storage Array? Response: Yes, there is also an IBM V7000 array. 13. Question: All of these are 1u & 2u rack servers? No blades? Response: NDUS does not currently use blade servers in this datacenter. However, there are some 4-5U servers. 14. Question: Are those the EPOs for the whole system (in Alternate Pop)? Response: There are three locations for EPOs but yes, any of those will kill the system. 15. Question: Is there waterless fire suppression? Response: No, water is the only fire suppression system. It is a dry line system. There are smoke detectors as well. If the smoke detectors go off, then the pipes will fill. Then it requires heat to activate the individual sprinkler heads. If the pipes fill, it will require maintenance to drain them. The VESDA will only trigger an alarm, not activate the suppression system. 16. Question: Do you have expansion capabilities for the camera system? Response: Yes Page 3 of 7

4 17. Question: Is the storage array a NAS or is it a Fiber Channel? Response: Please see RFP Section 2.3 Storage Services or the same section in the detailed technical overview document. 18. Question: Is the large ventilation duct a hot air return? Response: No, that is a primary delivery trunk with VAV control. 19. Question: How does the handicap button work with the door access? Response: You would badge first, then push the button. 20. Question: Is the fire suppression system zoned differently in the burn-in room? Response: See question Question: What kind of change management tool does CTS use? Response: CTS uses the following tools: Networking Documentation on shared drives Brady NetDoc (physical) SolarWinds CatTools (configuration) SolarWinds ORION (device removed or added) Server Administration System Center Configuration Manager PRTG monitoring system has ticketing system (infrequently used) and logging capabilities (allows comments etc) Teams maintain a patching schedule for their systems Puppet is in use for part of our Unix infrastructure Red Hat RHN Satellite server is in the process of being built it has provisioning and change control components that will be implemented 22. Question: If we were to install more rows with perforated tiles, who would be responsible for acquiring them? Response: CTS believes that we have a number of perforated tiles in stock to handle any expansion in the near future. 23. Question: What mechanisms does CTS use for trouble tickets? Response: CTS utilizes ServiceNOW. Ellucian provides first tier support. UND also uses the same instance of ServiceNOW but provides their own help desk. CTS has an RFP on the street for a work management system to help manage other types of service requests. Page 4 of 7

5 24. Question: Does Ellucian provide Blackboard or other managed services? Response: No, they only provide tier 1 help desk. 25. Question: Are the customers of the datacenter all NDUS or are there other private industry customers? Response: Currently all systems are NDUS or ND State government (ITD). There is an initiative to develop a high-speed computing center being discussed. This datacenter is a possible location, but there is nothing definite at this time. 26. Question: If another university wanted to put their equipment in the datacenter, would they come in and install it themselves or would we do that? Response: That role would be between NDUS-CTS staff and the Offeror. The RFP has left it open to what role the Offeror plays in this process. Please describe your expectations in Section 4.2.A in the Operations section of the table. 27. Question: Would CTS have office locations for any personnel proposed? Response: The Datacenter Manager would have the office at the site. Others would depend upon the number. Some could be based in the datacenter or the primary CTS offices that are only a short distance away. 28. Question: Please clarify the responsibilities for managing the data center. The information provided describes many IT systems along with the data center infrastructure. Is it your intention that data center operations include the management of the IT systems as well, e.g. migrations, patch management of the servers, SANs, switches, etc.? Response: No, NDUS does not expect the offeror to perform IT system management such as patch management and migrations. Please see the RFP Amendment above for clarification on the Optional Value Add role NDUS is seeking related to some of these duties. Amended 3.2.A as noted above to clarify. 29. Question: Please clarify the requirements for monitoring. The information provided identifies many IT systems along with data center infrastructure. Is it your intention to have a 3rd party monitor your IT assets along with the data center infrastructure? Response: Yes. NDUS is looking for both physical plant management and IT infrastructure monitoring. NDUS did not prescribe any specific requirement for monitoring to give offerors as much flexibility to define what items they monitor within the service offered and what they did not. Please use the table in Section 4.2.A. under Environment #2 to clearly describe your offering in this area. 30. Question: Please define infrastructure used in section 3.2. Is the reference to data center infrastructure or IT infrastructure or both? Response: The intent of the word is referring to both physical plant and IT infrastructure. Page 5 of 7

6 31. Question: Do you wish the offeror to provide Microsoft Licensing for Server OS and Applications? Response: No. NDUS receives educational discounting on Microsoft products through their current channel. 32. Question: We understand that Chapter provides that a contract under section may not limit any direct loss to the state or loss resulting from property damage or personal injury. Section says notwithstanding any provision in this chapter to the contrary, an agency may agree to limit the liability of a contractor in certain circumstances. Since the statement on limiting direct loss is a provision in chapter , it seems very clear that the exceptions allowable by an agency could agree to limit direct damages because that ability is exists notwithstanding the provision in the last sentence of We would like to confirm this clear interpretation. Response: This interpretation is incorrect. NDUS is not allowed to limit direct damages. 33. Question: Section of the RFP says the offeror must obtain the required insurance acceptable to NDUS. Please confirm that coverage which meets the parameters stated in Section 18 of the draft Technology Contract included in the materials will meet the requirements of the RFP and will be acceptable to NDUS. Response: The insurance requirements stated in Section 18 of Attachment 3 Contract are the NDUS requirements. No other insurance is required. 34. Question: What are the methods of fire suppression in the electrical and mechanical rooms? Response: See Question Question: Please provide IT device types and counts that NDUS expects the DC operator to monitor i.e. 100 physical servers, 410 virtual servers, 50 switches, etc. Response: There are approximately 150 physical servers, 550 virtual servers, 12 Fiber Channel switches, 36 switches with 800 of 1,400 ports in use, 2 SANs, and one tape library. Vendors are instructed to acknowledge receipt of and compliance with this amendment by signing below and returning this acknowledgement with your bid or proposal. Any questions regarding this amendment must be submitted in writing to the Procurement Officer noted below. Dirk Huggett Procurement Officer P: dirk.huggett@ndus.edu Page 6 of 7

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Solicitation Number and Title: CTS Datacenter Operations, Monitoring and Maintenance Amendment Number: #1 By my signature below, I hereby acknowledge receipt of and compliance with this amendment to the above referenced solicitation. NAME OF BIDDER OR OFFEROR MAILING ADDRESS PRINTED NAME SIGNATURE TITLE DATE

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