Appendix D:

Qualifications and Experience Questionnaire for Data Center Vendors

All respondents must include a completed copy of this appendix (Appendix D: Qualifications and Experience Questionnaire for Data Center Vendors) with their proposal to be considered for the awarded contract. While respondents are encouraged to provide supplemental documentation, it will not be considered as a replacement for this questionnaire.

To complete this section for submission, please refer to APPENDIX C: Requirements at‑a‑Glance to clarify State expectations. Respondents must explicitly identify any requirements their facility does not fully meet and describe how they will achieve equivalent compliance.

1. Corporate Qualifications This section helps the State evaluate the vendor’s organizational maturity, financial stability, operational capacity, and alignment with industry standards.

1.1 Vendor Company Information

Year company was established

Corporate headquarters location

Company website

Number of total employees

Number of employees dedicated to data center operations

Number of employees dedicated to security, compliance, and audit support

Number of employees available for this project (including migration, onboarding, support)

Are on-site staff required to have background checks?

How do you ensure that your employees meet all customers' security qualifications?

Description of core business areas (e.g., data center hosting, cloud services, managed services)

Description of geographic footprint (data center locations, zones, regions)

Has the company operated under any previous names? If yes, provide details.

Does the company subcontract any hosting, data center, environmental, maintenance, cleaning, or other services? If yes, provide subcontractor details.

2. Data Center Infrastructure & Operational Capabilities This section assesses the vendor’s physical, technical, and operational readiness to support State workloads.

2.1 Physical Data Center Capabilities

List all data center locations available for hosting State systems

Describe data center tier certification (Tier II, III, IV) or equivalent standards followed

Definitions:

Tier II: provides redundant critical components (such as backup power and cooling) but still relies on a single distribution path, resulting in improved reliability over Tier I but with some maintenance‑related downtime.

Tier III: offers concurrent maintainability with multiple independent power and cooling paths and N+1 redundancy, allowing maintenance without disrupting operations and delivering significantly higher uptime.

Tier IV: fully fault‑tolerant with 2N or greater redundant systems and no single points of failure, supporting continuous operation even during unplanned events and delivering the highest availability.

Describe facility redundancy (power, cooling, connectivity)

Describe physical security measures (access control, surveillance, guards, etc.)

Describe fire suppression and environmental control systems

Provide uptime SLA guarantees for facility operations

Describe business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities

2.2 Technical Infrastructure Capabilities

Describe compute platform(s) used (VMware, Hyper-V, proprietary cloud, etc.)

Describe network backbone and carrier diversity

Describe bandwidth, peering, and transit options

Describe monitoring tools used (infrastructure, performance, security)

Describe backup and restoration capabilities

Describe disaster recovery service offerings (RTO/RPO, failover architecture)

Describe patch management approach for infrastructure

3. Security, Compliance, and Governance This section measures the vendor’s ability to meet State cybersecurity, compliance, and regulatory expectations.

3.1 Security Program & Certifications

Provide list of relevant certifications (SOC 1/2/3, ISO 27001, GovRamp, CJIS, HIPAA, etc.)

Describe cybersecurity framework used (NIST CSF, CIS, etc.)

Describe incident response procedures and escalation timelines

Describe logging, audit trails, and log retention practices

3.2 Compliance Support

Describe experience supporting compliance audits for government clients

Identify compliance reporting or documentation provided to customers

Describe data retention, chain-of-custody, and evidence-handling processes

4. Service Delivery, Support, and SLAs This section evaluates operational maturity and customer support processes.

4.1 Support Model

Describe support models (hours, tiers, escalation paths)

Describe onboarding transition process for new customers

Describe monitoring and alerting processes (including response SLAs)

Describe customer communication procedures (scheduled maintenance, outages, cadenced check-ins, etc.) How adaptive are your communication procedures?

Describe training and/or documentation provided to customers

4.2 Service Level Agreements

Provide uptime guarantees for facility monitoring, environmental, power, cooling, and access systems

Provide response time SLAs for incidents and service requests

Describe performance monitoring and SLA reporting practices

5. Project Experience and References This section verifies the vendor’s experience delivering comparable services. Please provide three (3) customer references for projects similar in scope to those of the State of South Dakota. When possible, include at least one reference from a government entity (federal, state, or municipal).

5.1 Relevant Project Experience

Client name

Client type (public sector / private sector)

Client location

Project description (scope, systems hosted, complexity)

Project goals and outcomes

Role of vendor in the project

Technical environment supported (compute, storage, network, security)

Migration services provided, if applicable

Project start/completion dates

Estimated vs. actual timelines (with explanation for variance)

Estimated vs. actual costs (with explanation for variance)

Special project constraints and how they were handled

Change orders or scope adjustments and how they were managed

Any litigation or adverse actions relating to performance

Client feedback summary (if available)

Permission for the State to contact the client

5.2 Relevant Project Experience

Client name

Client type (public sector / private sector)

Client location

Project description (scope, systems hosted, complexity)

Project goals and outcomes

Role of vendor in the project

Technical environment supported (compute, storage, network, security)

Migration services provided, if applicable

Project start/completion dates

Estimated vs. actual timelines (with explanation for variance)

Estimated vs. actual costs (with explanation for variance)

Special project constraints and how they were handled

Change orders or scope adjustments and how they were managed

Any litigation or adverse actions relating to performance

Client feedback summary (if available)

Permission for the State to contact the client

5.3 Relevant Project Experience

Client name

Client type (public sector / private sector)

Client location

Project description (scope, systems hosted, complexity)

Project goals and outcomes

Role of vendor in the project

Technical environment supported (compute, storage, network, security)

Migration services provided, if applicable

Project start/completion dates

Estimated vs. actual timelines (with explanation for variance)

Estimated vs. actual costs (with explanation for variance)

Special project constraints and how they were handled

Change orders or scope adjustments and how they were managed

Any litigation or adverse actions relating to performance

Client feedback summary (if available)

Permission for the State to contact the client

6. Additional Qualifications The vendor must respond to the following additional questions to help the State evaluate the vendor’s capabilities, service maturity, and long‑term alignment with State data center strategies.

Describe innovations or differentiators in your data center services

Describe value-added services (security, automation, analytics, etc.)

Describe long-term roadmap for your data center or cloud services

Describe any network path diversity enhancements