The file's text, extracted by GovTribe without its formatting.
Instructions For Respondents Instructions for Respondents
Respondents are reminded this is a request for information about your services. Proposals should not be included in responses.
| Structure of This Answer Template |
| This RFI answer file is structured in nine sections, each in a separate worksheet (tab) as follows: |
| Section 1: Provider Background Information |
| Section 2: Professional Services |
| Section 3: Ongoing Managed Services |
| Section 5: Cloud Management Platform/Tools |
| Section 6: Service Delivery |
| Section 7: Pricing and Contracting |
| Section 8: Compliance Requirements |
| Section 9: Partner Ecosystem |
| Guidance for Completion |
| Respond to numbered points in each area. If you do not offer a capability, mark as "Not Offered." |
| At the top of each sheet, pay attention to the section labeled "Section Overview and Guidance" where specific instructions are provided. Some cells have been highlighted yellow where additional instructions must be followed within the sheet. |
| Please adhere to the subpoint structure where used. Do not place all information into a single section. |
| Submit responses in Blue cells only. |
| Some cells next to section headers are marked in Gray as no response is strictly required because responses are expected to be answered in subpoints. However, if required, this space can be used. |
| Level of Detail Required |
| Please avoid lengthy narrative when responding. |
| Where service offerings extend beyond the capabilities listed and where appropriate to do so, further information may be supplied using supporting appendixes. |
| Address each point as directly and factually as possible. |
| Indicate where vertical/industry capabilities offer differentiation. |
| State clearly wherever partners deliver a capability listed either in part, or in whole. |
| Case studies are welcomed as a separate appendix. Do not insert full case studies into responses. |
| Supporting Detail Required |
| You are asked to provide indicative fee structures in section 7.0. Therefore, if the service you are describing is not a standard service, please ensure you clearly call out the name of the additional service you are referring to, and highlight that in the fee structure so that the reader understands what charges are associated with the responses. |
| Clearly identify standard client deliverables for each numbered element in the section provided. |
| SECTION END |
1. Provider Information Section 1. Provider Information
| Section Overview and Guidance: |
| This section is designed to solicit understanding of your company overall, as well as details about your public cloud management business. |
| Ref # | Question | Response |
| 1.1 | Provide company name and contact details | |
| 1.1.1 | Company Name | |
| 1.1.2 | Company Address | |
| Location of Company HQ (if different to 1.1.2) | |
| 1.1.3 | Respondent Name & Role | |
| 1.1.4 | Respondent Contact Details | |
| 1.1.5 | Confirm that the respondent is authorized to make representations on behalf of the company. | |
| 1.2 | Public cloud providers supported | Amazon Web Services |
| 1.2.1 | Do you support this public cloud provider? | Yes/No |
| 1.2.2 | How long have you been delivering services using this cloud provider? | |
| 1.2.3 | Current Partnership Level for this provider | |
| 1.2.4 | Other Relevant Provider Accreditations/Certifications (related to providers named in 1.2.1 only, include both technology and industry accreditations). Do not expand to ecosystem partners (covered in tab 8). | e.g., AWS validated competency in Financial Services |
| 1.2.5 | How many certified engineers do you have for this cloud provider (distinguish between certifications)? | |
| 1.2.6 | If you have deployed distributed cloud capabilities for customers, list the variants here: | e.g., AWS Outposts |
| 1.2.7 | Are you a validated managed services provider? | Yes — we are an AWS validated managed services provider program partner / No |
| 1.2.8 | If you answered Yes to 1.2.7, when did you achieve this status? | |
| 1.3 | Public cloud managed services business information |
| 1.3.1 | Do you have sales teams for public cloud services in the following regions: AWS-West (if these are channel partners and not your staff, please highlight) |
| 1.3.2 | In which countries are public cloud professional services practices based? |
| 1.4 | Company history |
| 1.4.1 | The total number of years the provider has been in business and, if applicable, the number of years under the present business name. |
| 1.4.2 | The number of years the provider has been providing the services offered as part of this RFI. |
| 1.4.3 | Provide high-level milestones that demonstrate how the public cloud managed services practice has evolved over time (for example, 2015 launch, 2018 AWS partnership status X reached, 2020 acquired xyz). |
| 1.4.4 | A description of the provider's overall business and objectives, total number of employees, as well as number of employees aligned to each practice. Where headcount covers more than one practice, please indicate. |
| 1.5 | Use of Subcontractors |
| 1.5.1 | Describe where subcontractors are typically used to provide professional services for public cloud infrastructure |
| 1.5.2 | Describe where subcontractors are typically used to provide managed services for public cloud infrastructure, including their involvement in cloud management tools/CMP |
| 1.5.3 | Estimate the percentage of work that would be conducted by subcontractors. |
| 1.6 | Appendix items requested | |
| 1.6.1 | A high-level service portfolio summary | Provide as separate attachment in Word format |
| 1.6.2 | A description of your track record in using public cloud to support our requirements | Provide as separate attachment in Word format |
| 1.6.3 | A short summary of vertical industry specific experience relevant to our organization. | Provide as separate attachment in Word format |
| 1.6.4 | Company financial highlights, breaking out to public cloud services practice(s) where possible. | Provide as separate attachment in Word format |
| 1.6.5 | A list of reference customers that align to our industry and requirements. Please provide URLs to public case studies where available | Provide as separate attachment in Word format |
2. Professional Services Section 2. Professional Services
| Respondent Guidance |
| This section is designed to solicit understanding of core professional services offerings for public cloud. |
| If your offerings differ between the public cloud providers requested by ORGANIZATION in the cover letter, please call out differences. |
| Ref # | Question | |
| 2.1 | Cloud Readiness Assessments | Response |
| 2.1.1 | Do you offer this service? | Yes / No |
| 2.1.2 | Which frameworks/methodologies are used to support assessments? | |
| 2.1.3 | What areas do your assessments cover (for example, skills, IT processes, application landscape and security services)? | |
| 2.1.4 | With respect to discovery activities for each of the areas you highlighted in 2.1.3, explain which tools are used for which purpose, and what level of interaction is needed with ORGANIZATION. | |
| 2.1.5 | Describe the extent to which you are able to assess the customer's network connectivity for cloud readiness. | |
| 2.1.5 | What are the typical deliverables associated with cloud readiness assessments? | |
| 2.1.6 | Beyond a readiness assessment, do you assist clients in redesigning their IT operating model to optimize for public cloud? If so, explain the scope of this service. | |
| 2.2 | Public Cloud (IaaS & PaaS ) Environment Design | Response | | |
| 2.2.1 | Do you offer this service? | Yes / No | | |
| 2.2.2 | Provide a high-level overview of your environment design services | | | |
| 2.2.3 | To what extent are design services dependent on assessment activities covered in 2.1? | | | |
| 2.2.4 | How do you reflect the strategy and principles of the customer? | | | |
| Indicate which of the following are standard elements of this service: | | Included? | Additional Detail | Typical Deliverables |
| 2.2.5 | Landing zones | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.6 | Resilience (both for cloud-native and lift and shift migrations), including multicloud | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.7 | Cloud network design and integration to customer WAN | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.8 | Build and deploy pipelines (CI/CD) | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.9 | Security infrastructure | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.10 | Tagging structure | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.11 | Identity and access management (including integration to customer) | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.12 | Provisioning capabilities | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.13 | Configuration management | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.14 | Hybrid infrastructure | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.15 | Compliance requirements | Y / N | | |
| 2.2.16 | Governance (establishing policies and designing for compliance to these policies) | Y / N | | |
| 2.3 | Workload Migration Planning | Response |
| 2.3.1 | Do you offer this service? | Yes / No |
| 2.3.2 | Which migration options do you typically deliver (such as rehost, refactor, rewrite)? Please clearly explain which migration options are delivered by your staff, and which migration options are delivered by partners | |
| 2.3.3 | Describe migration planning, highlighting typical milestones. | |
| 2.3.4 | Describe the toolset typically used to analyze and plan migrations, including application discovery and dependency mapping. | |
| 2.3.5 | Explain how migrations are planned in conjunction with customer constraints. | |
| 2.3.6 | Clarify how migration testing is included. | |
| 2.3.7 | Clarify how risks are identified and managed in migration planning. | |
| 2.3.8 | Provide RACI matrix to demonstrate the split in migration planning responsibilities between Provider and Customer. | Do not insert here. Include as an appendix to submission, referencing this question number. |
| 2.4 | Environment Delivery and Migration Execution | Response |
| 2.4.1 | Do you offer this service? | Yes / No |
| For the following questions please ensure you describe the typical tools, important roles and responsibilities, and deliverables produced per approach (such as documentation and code artifacts). | | |
| 2.4.2 | Do you offer a highly automated 'migration factory' approach? | |
| 2.4.3 | Do you offer customized migration using professional services teams and most appropriate tooling for the job? | |
| 2.4.4 | Describe the toolset used to govern and manage migration project delivery | |
| 2.4.5 | Other approaches | |
| 2.5 | Further Professional Services | | |
| Describe your professional services to support activity related to the following: | | Standard Offering? | Additional Detail including Typical Deliverables |
| 2.5.1 | Cloud strategy | Y / N | |
| 2.5.2 | Public cloud provider selection | Y / N | |
| 2.5.3 | On-premises/hybrid infrastructure strategy (both data center and network) | Y / N | |
| 2.5.4 | Cloud-native application design and development | Y / N | |
| 2.5.5 | Solution architecture | Y / N | |
| 2.5.6 | Serverless computing | Y / N | |
| 2.5.7 | Containers and container management | Y / N | |
| 2.5.8 | DevOps transformation | Y / N | |
| 2.5.9 | Site Reliability Engineering | Y / N | (only list professional services here, information about SRE managed services is requested in 3.18) |
| 2.5.10 | Workload Optimization (highlight optimization areas e.g. cost, security, reliability) | Y / N | |
| 2.6 | Solution Accelerators | | |
| Outline any solution accelerators you offer to address customer requirements. Add rows as reqd. | | Accelerator name | Accelerator description |
| 2.6.1 | Solution accelerator 1: | | |
| 2.6.2 | Solution accelerator 2: | | |
| 2.7 | Industry Specific Solutions | | |
| Outline any Industry Specific Cloud Solutions you offer for government solutions. | | | |
| Add rows as reqd. | | Industry Solution name | Description | |
| 2.7.1 | Industry solution 1: | | |
| 2.7.2 | Industry solution 2: | | |
3. Ongoing Managed Services Section 3. Ongoing Managed Services Capabilities
| Respondent Guidance |
| This section is designed to solicit understanding of core managed services offerings for public cloud. |
| Most questions request high level information about tools and technologies involved in delivering these services. Further questions about tooling and your Cloud Management Platform (CMP) are made in sheet 5, you may want to review this sheet first to avoid duplication |
| Base your responses on the standard services used to deliver the requirements supplied in the cover sheet. If what you are describing is a nonstandard service, please clearly indicate via column E. |
| 3.1 | Provisioning, Orchestration and Automation | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.1.1 | Provide an overview of managed services for creation, deletion, modification and orchestration of cloud assets | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.1.2 | Describe any common variations for these services (e.g.,if you offer a service variant optimized for DevOps teams, highlight the differences) | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.2 | Monitoring and Analytics | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.2.1 | Describe services to track and report on the availability, health and performance of deployed infrastructure. Highlight any predictive capabilities. If capabilities extend beyond infrastructure (e.g.,in depth application performance, network performance monitoring, user experience monitoring), indicate the extensiveness of monitoring capabilities. Note: Cost monitoring is covered separately. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.2.2 | How do you leverage monitoring and analytic capabilities to initiate self-healing & automation for your customers today? | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.2.3 | If you significantly reduced the effort involved in delivering your managed services by using analytics to power self-healing and automation, describe recent successes within the last 18m. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.3 | Inventory and Classification | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.3.1 | Describe services to discover and maintain an inventory of resources that exist in supported cloud platforms. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.4 | Capacity Optimization | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.4.1 | Describe services to optimize the use of cloud capacity to support reliable and cost-efficient operations. Include aspects of capacity planning and demand management, not just the optimization of existing capacity. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.5 | Cost Monitoring | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.5.1 | Describe what capabilities exist to monitor cloud costs, including whether metering functionality is available. Indicate whether the customer has live access to current and historical information, and what alerting functionality exists. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.6 | Backup and Recovery | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.6.1 | Describe services related to protecting the data in the customer's environment, including the granularity of backup and recovery options available. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.7 | Disaster Recovery | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.7.1 | Describe services related to disaster recovery, including whether these elements have self-service capability, and the RPO and RTO service levels associated with them. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.8 | Configuration Management | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.8.1 | Describe services to ensure a configuration standards are maintained. Include services to prevent, detect and remediate changes to the configuration of the cloud environment, including policy-based controls, actionable events, automated workflows and associated reporting available. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.9 | Securing the Cloud Environment | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.9.1 | Describe services to protect cloud environments from security threats (for example, antivirus and managed security services). | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.10 | Change and Release Management (Mode 1/Traditional Systems) | Offering Description | Included in standard managed service? | Which tools and technologies are used? | Part of CMP and available via both API and Portal? |
| 3.10.1 | Describe your services to manage changes and releases where infrastructure affected supports traditional/Mode 1 systems. | | Y / N | | Y / N |
| 3.11 | Change and Release Management (Mode 2/Agile/DevOps) | Offering Description |
| 3.11.1 | Describe your services to manage changes and releases in the customer’s environment when the approach requires an agile/DevOps/Mode 2 style. | |
| 3.11.2 | Describe the typical split in responsibilities between the customer and the MSP when delivering this style of managed service. | |
| 3.11.3 | What options are there for providing engineering support (such as DevOps engineers) for this style of managed service? | |
| 3.11.4 | What tools are typically deployed in such a scenario? | |
| 3.12 | Support for Cloud Resource Types | Response |
| 3.12.1 | Do you limit the scope of managed services support to specific IaaS and PaaS services? | |
| 3.12.2 | Do you offer immediate support for all IaaS and PaaS services as they are launched, or are there restrictions on what services are supported? | |
| 3.12.3 | To what extent do you support serverless code (e.g.,AWS Lambda, Azure Functions etc.)? | |
| 3.12.4 | Describe the support provided for containerized workloads, including the tools and technologies involved | |
| 3.14 | Further Service Differentiations Between Mode 1 and Mode 2 | Response |
| 3.14.1 | If required, use this area to provide any further clarifications on how your service delivery differs between agile/DevOps/Mode 2 requirements, and traditional/non-DevOps/Mode 1 requirements. | (Optional) |
| 3.15 | Cloud Provider Technical support | Response |
| 3.15.1 | Describe any implications that using your managed services has on the customer's ability to directly engage with the cloud provider (e.g.,MSP becomes primary support route; customer is no longer able to go directly to Cloud provider) | |
| 3.15.2 | Describe the support agreements you have in place with the cloud providers to ensure 2nd and 3rd tier incident and support resolution | |
| 3.15.3 | Describe any other agreements you have in place with the cloud providers e.g.,to facilitate technical architecture guidance and best practices | |
| 3.16 | Site Reliability Engineering | Response |
| 3.16.1 | If you offer Site Reliability Engineering services to customers, use this space to describe the offering | |
| 3.16.2 | What customer requirements does this service have? (e.g.,customers must be willing to incorporate Error budgets in the way their teams operate). | |
5. Cloud Management Platform Section 5. Cloud Management Platform / Tools (CMP)
| Respondent Guidance: |
| This section is designed to clarify the tooling used to support cloud management services. Where the abbreviation CMP is used, it is intended to mean your Cloud Management Platform and/or integrated tooling |
| Ref # | Information Sought | |
| 5.1 | CMP Overview | Offering Description |
| 5.1.1 | Provide a high-level overview description of the cloud management platform and/or integrated tooling used to deliver services. Include narrative that helps explain which CMP components are provided by third parties (e.g., cost management). | |
| 5.2 | CMP Capabilities | | | | |
| Please outline the core modules/capabilities/areas of functionality offered by your CMP. | | | | | |
| Guidance: Add Rows as required for each area of functionality you wish to describe. | | Capability Delivered | Offering Description | Tool Used | |
| (COTS/Custom) | Accessible to Customer via API or Portal? | | | | | |
| 5.2.1 | | | | | API/Portal/Neither |
| 5.2.2 | | | | | API/Portal/Neither |
| 5.2.3 | | | | | API/Portal/Neither |
| 5.3 | CMP Capability Differences Between Cloud Providers | Response | |
| 5.3.1 | Provide a short summary response that explains the relative levels of CMP capability for AWS. Characterize whether the relative CMP capability as 'none', 'basic', 'good', or 'comprehensive' | | |
| | Capability Delivered | Key CMP Differences Between Cloud Providers |
| 5.3.2 | | | |
| 5.4 | Cloud Management Platform Customization | Capability Area | Substitution Supported |
| 5.4.1 | Do you support customers wishing to substitute capabilities of your CMP described above for their own tools? If so, please describe common scenarios that are supported, and what level of managed service is then offered accordingly. | | |
| Guidance: Add Rows as required for each area of functionality you wish to describe. | | | |
| 5.5 | CMP Delivery | Response |
| 5.5.1 | Under what circumstances (or for which features) does the customer need a license or subscription for full CMP access? | |
| 5.6 | CMP API | Response |
| 5.6.1 | Which areas of CMP functionality can customers integrate with using API calls instead of GUI / Portals? | |
| 5.7 | Tools for cloud financial management | Response |
| 5.7.1 | Please provide additional detail on the tools used to address cloud expense management. Areas of interest include [amend as required] Cloud provider billing, cost showback, resource optimization, reserved instances, dashboards and reporting. | |
| 5.7.2 | For which customer role(s) or personas have you optimized the tools described above? | |
| 5.8 | Service Management System Integration | Response |
| 5.8.1 | Which service management system do you use to accept and process incidents and service requests? | |
| 5.8.2 | Describe the supported use cases and capabilities of integrations you provide between your services and common customer ITSM solutions (by name). | |
| 5.8.3 | What is your preferred approach to enabling a custom workflow for a customer (e.g.,an approval process)? | |
6. Service Delivery Section 6. Service Delivery
| Respondent Guidance: |
| This section is designed to clarify how service delivery complements the management of highly automated infrastructure managed services. |
Ref # Information Sought
| 6.2 | Service Level Agreements available | Service Area | Service Level Requirements |
| 6.2.1 | Describe any service level agreements you offer customers. | | |
| 6.2.2 | What are the contractual implications of service level failures? | | |
| 6.3 | Service Management Roles | Role | Description |
| 6.3.1 | Highlight the standard roles involved in supporting accounts and the value delivered by these roles. Add rows as required. | | |
| 6.4 | Service Management Process | Description |
| 6.4.1 | Describe the accompanying services used to support the account on an ongoing basis, both recurring (such as monthly account meetings) and adhoc (such as nominated technical account lead in support teams). | |
| 6.5 | Service Management Reporting | Description |
| 6.5.1 | Describe ongoing service reporting made available to the customer, and the delivery mechanism. | |
| 6.6 | Local language support | Description |
| 6.6.1 | Describe the languages that your services are available in (specifically, technical support, CMP and service-related documentation). | |
| 6.6.2 | Describe the tools used to support collaborative working. | |
| 6.7 | Customer Onboarding Process | Offering Description |
| 6.7.1 | Describe the approach taken to onboard a new client. Indicate where this onboarding process would be customized to address the customer context provided in this RFI. | |
7. Pricing & Contracting Section 7. Pricing and Contracting
| Respondent Guidance |
| This request is to clarify the policies associated with the way you price services, so that the basis of charges can be understood. It is not intended as a way for you to propose an accurate quotation for our requirements. |
For each service described in this response file, explain fee structures and associated policies. Provide indicative rates where feasible.
Please ensure "service name" aligns to the service names used elsewhere in this answer file. Add rows as required.
| Ref # | Information Sought | |
| 7.1 | Procurement and Contracting | Response |
| 7.1.1 | Describe the typical contracting approach used with your customers | e.g. Master Service Agreement supplemented by X,Y,Z |
| 7.1.2 | Describe whether you are able to supply using existing government contract vehicles and if so, identify each. | |
| 7.1.3 | What are typical payment terms? | |
| 7.2 | Financial Management | Response |
| 7.2.1 | Confirm the ability to invoice using government EFT. | |
| 7.3 | Professional Services Fee Structures | | | |
| Service Name/Description | Fee Structure | Indicative Rates | Associated Policies |
| 7.3.1 | | | | |
| 7.3.2 | | | | |
| 7.3.3 | | | | |
| 7.3.4 | | | | |
| 7.3.5 | | | | |
| 7.4 | Agile Project delivery | Use this section to describe fee structures and policies for agile delivery | | |
| Charging basis | Details | Indicative Rates | Associated Policies |
| 7.4.1 | | | | |
| 7.4.2 | | | | |
| 7.4.3 | | | | |
| 7.5 | Hourly Rates for resources | | | |
| Role (inc. seniority level) | Details | Indicative Rates | Associated Policies |
| 7.5.1 | | | | |
| 7.5.2 | | | | |
| 7.5.3 | | | | |
| 7.5.4 | | | | |
| 7.5.5 | | | | |
| 7.6 | Managed Services Fee Structures | | | |
| Service Name/Description | Fee Structure | Indicative Rates | Associated Policies |
| 7.6.1 | | | | |
| 7.6.2 | | | | |
| 7.6.3 | | | | |
| 7.6.4 | | | | |
| 7.6.5 | | | | |
| 7.7 | Costs associated with Cloud Management Platform & Tools | | | |
| Service Name/Description | Fee Structure | Indicative Rates | Associated Policies |
| 7.7.1 | | | | |
| 7.7.2 | | | | |
| 7.7.3 | | | | |
| 7.7.4 | | | | |
| 7.7.5 | | | | |
8. Compliance Requirements Section 8. Compliance Requirements
| Guidance: |
| This section is intended to identify how you typically address the compliance requirements outlined. Use separate columns to describe how you fulfill the requirement, vs how much experience you have in doing so. |
| Ref # | Information Sought | Response |
| 8.1 | Compliance Capabilities | |
| 8.1.1 | Highlight any compliance standards you frequently address for government customers in your managed and professional services, including any certifications you have related to those standards. | |
9. Partner Ecosystem Section 9. Partner Ecosystem
| Respondent Guidance: |
| This section is intended to clarify the partner ecosystem that the respondent leverages to deliver services. Please highlight the primary partners you would use to support the requirements described in the cover sheet, and in 9.2 highlight any other partners you see as relevant to this response. |
| Ref # | Information Sought | | | |
| 9.1 | Primary Partners | Partner name | Length of partnership | Partnership details (including partnership status) |
| 9.1.1 | | | | |
| 9.1.2 | | | | |
| 9.1.3 | | | | |
| 9.1.4 | | | | |
| 9.1.5 | | | | |
| 9.2 | Other Partners | Partner name | Length of partnership | Partnership details (including partnership status) |
| 9.2.1 | | | | |
| 9.2.2 | | | | |
| 9.2.3 | | | | |
| 9.2.4 | | | | |
| 9.2.5 | | | | |
