Request_for_Proposal_for_Hosting_Services_(Addendum_#3_Revision).pdf

2023-RFP-058

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR HOSTING SERVICES

City of Cleveland

Department of Public Utilities

601 Lakeside Ave

Cleveland, OH 44114

RELEASE DATE: February 5, 2024

DEADLINE FOR QUESTIONS: February 21, 2024

RESPONSE DEADLINE: February 29, 2024, 12:00 pm

RESPONSES MUST BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY TO:

https://secure.procurenow.com/portal/clevelandoh

City of Cleveland

Request for Proposal for Hosting Services

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

II. SCOPE OF SERVICES, PROJECT SCHEDULE AND

DELIVERABLES

III. GENERAL INFORMATION

IV. PROPOSAL SUBMITTALS

V. PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS

VI. THE CITY’S RIGHTS AND REQUIREMENTS

VII. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY REQUIREMENTS

VIII. OFFICE OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY (OEO) FORMS

IX. QUALIFICATION OF PROPOSAL

Attachments:

A - Hosting Services Cover Letter (1)

B - 534-2022 Billing Systems Ordinance

C - Appendix A Current Environment

D - Appendix B - Proposer Questions

E - Appendix C - Fee Proposal

F - Appendix E _Professional Services Agreement- template (single spaced)

#2023-RFP-058

Title: Request for Proposal for Hosting Services

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

I. Introduction

The City of Cleveland (City), Department of Public Utilities (DPU), through its Director of Public

Utilities (Director), is soliciting proposals from qualified Information Technology (IT) firms (Consultant) for Hosting of DPU’s Oracle Customer Care & Billing (CC&B) system and other potential, future applications.

The result of this procurement process will be one or more contracts with one or more Consultants for the services described herein. This is pursuant to Ordinance No. 534-2022. The contract term is for a period of one year, with four options to renew for additional one-year periods.

The selected Consultant will provide Hosting Services, for the Oracle CC&B system and other potential, future applications. This Consultant will work in conjunction with DPU and with DPU’s Managed

Services staff. The current CC&B hosting agreement is for fully managed hosting services.

Background

Overview

The City of Cleveland Department of Public Utilities (DPU) is comprised of the Divisions of Cleveland

Water (CWD), Cleveland Water Pollution Control (WPC), Cleveland Public Power (CPP), Utilities Fiscal

Control, and Radio Communication. CC&B is primarily used to manage billing and related activities for the Division of Water (CWD) and Cleveland Public Power (CPP).

CWD is a self-sustaining business enterprise of the City, with approximately 430,000 customer accounts.

CWD maintains a 640-square mile service area, including 6,000 miles of distribution mains located in the

City. CWD serves 72 communities. DPU staff is located at process, support and administrative facilities throughout the Greater Cleveland area.

In addition to CWD accounts, DPU also serves as the billing agent for several municipalities and for the

Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD).

CPP is responsible for the electric generation, transmission and distribution facilities owned by the City of Cleveland. The division provides electricity to about 73,000 residential, commercial, industrial, and governmental customers. In addition, the division provides service to over 67,000 streetlights in the City of Cleveland.

DPU is soliciting proposals from qualified Consultants interested in providing hosting services to DPU specifically to manage our Oracle Customer Care & Billing (CC&B) system and other potential, future applications.

2. SCOPE OF SERVICES, PROJECT SCHEDULE AND

DELIVERABLES

2.1. II. Scope of Services

1. General Objectives

DPU wishes to obtain hosting services that meet the following objectives:

• Provide the infrastructure, OS & Oracle database patching, database installation and monitoring of all production, non-production and Disaster Recovery environments

• Provide stable, redundant, highly available computing configurations for both batch and online processing

• Provide scalable server performance and storage to accommodate DPU’s changing needs and growth

• Provide disaster recovery solution and support to ensure that a failure does not impact

DPU’s ability to produce bills, process payments, and post financial results

• Provide 24x7x365 support of infrastructure and applications

• Minimize downtime and the impact of downtime from infrastructure and application upgrades and patches.

• Provide infrastructure and services to manage multiple software environments to support development, testing and production

• Provide services to maintain the system software, RDBMS software, application software and manage releases to ensure an up to date, consistent and reliable software environment.

Updates should include patches and fixes

• Provide DPU with a cost effective approach

• Provide similar or better high availability solution for hosting environment

• Make all possible efforts for immediate continuation (Fail Over) of services in the event of a disaster including using another hosting facility. Once a disaster is declared, the recovery team must contact the Department of Public Utilities Chief Information Officer and/or their designee(s) with routing information and make sure services are restored and the new production environment is accessible according to the agreed upon SLA

• Hosting team will be working with the DPU team on periodic audits of the environments.

An agreed format and tracker needs to be discussed and prepared so that can be shared with the auditors as requested.

2. Hosting Services

HOSTING SERVICES TABLE

Service Description Current New Hosting Management • Capacity planning and management

• Performance management

• Servicers and storage (installation, management, monitoring, patch installation and management, service pack installation, configuration management, redundancy through multiple carriers), UPS

• Physical security (facility, DPU servers, storage)

• Conditioned space

• Disaster recovery

• Technical consulting services

X X

Database Management and Maintenance

• Standard maintenance and troubleshooting

• Maintain and administer database security components

• Redundant connectivity using VPN from client side to the hosting side

• Must be able to provide fast refreshes for database and application

• Solution for offsite DB local to DPU (Please consider network bandwidth and other factors)

• Consultant should upgrade the databases with the latest version available

• Consultant should be able to provide and work on the latest features of the databases i.e. 19C RAC, Multitenant and any other features available at that time.

X X

Operating System

Management and

Maintenance

OEL 7.9 64 bit is the current OS Hosting team will take care of the following, also note that we are currently hosted on OCI :

• Quarterly Patching

• Any OS performance issue

• Any request that will require facilitation of the application and client needs

• Perform backup and recovery for any file system on the OS

X X

Infrastructure

Management

• LAN (with CONSULTANT’s datacenter)

• Bandwidth management

• Server solutions

• Load balancing of servers

• Storage solutions

• WINDOWS

• Linux

• Intrusion detection and prevention

• OCI cloud services support

• Oracle RAC and Datagaurd Support for databases

• Redundancy and failover (servers, storage, carriers)

• Consultant must follow an agree change management process or audit compliance change management process.

X X

High Availability Proposer must provide a detailed implementation roadmap and cost plan for high availability options X

Security Management Proposer must provide a detailed security plan that should include, but not be limited to, the following components:

• Security strategy and planning

• Security monitoring

• Must keep the client notified at all the times regarding any changes and outages.

• Authentication, authorization and access control

• Network and systems platform infrastructure

• Internal controls audits

• Threat and vulnerability detection, implementation, and testing

(facility, servers, network, storage)

• Technical consulting services

• Firewall, load balancer and intrusion prevention services

X X

Disaster Recovery and

Business Continuity Proposer must provide a detailed DR and business continuity plan that will include utilizing a virtual copy of the production environment for DPU’s reporting solution (TBD)

X X

Server Hardware

Management and

Maintenance

• Hosting team will be responsible for providing recommendations and best practices as it relates to hardware maintenance and ensure preparedness in case of hardware failures.

• Hosting team will also perform required maintenance to the hardware used by DPU and ensure optimal performance and availability as outlined in the SLA. Maintenance schedule must be approved prior to performing with no less than 72 hour notice

X

Network Connectivity, Site connectivity between DPU and datacenters, Firewall, Load Balancer and

Intrusion Prevention

Services

• Proposer will work with DPU to ensure configuration changes to network equipment meet Consultant requirements regarding firewall, load balancing and intrusion prevention service

• Proposer will work on efficient connectivity between DPU and the hosted datacenters. Vendors co-ordination for the connectivity and planning needs to be owned by the proposer

• Proposer must include in their proposal a WAN connectivity design and parameters to access the cloud environment

X

Cyber Security • Hosting team to plan and implement cybersecurity solutions for DPU

• Periodic review and updates in the Cybersecurity solutions if needed

• Complete documentation needs to be prepared and updated as needed

Monitoring • Hosting team needs to provide an efficient monitoring tool that can be used by the DPU team to check the status of the following:

o Databases hosting across environments, Production, Non-Production and Disaster Recovery o Weblogic servers across environmnents Production, Non-Production and Disaster Recovery o Storage Ulitization threshold reports needs to be sent ahead of time with an proper followup for action and notification o Monthly and quarterly report with all incidents that were reported and managed by Hosting team should be presented

Auditing • Hosting team will maintain and record all events in the required format for Audit compliance.

• DPU will need monthly and quarterly reports of this data which will be discussed and formatted as needed by DPU team.

• Periodic and Ad-Hoc requests will be made to the Hosting team requesting all incidents, planned and unplanned outages details with an action plan executed. Must have an process in place to document this information.

X

Vendor Connectivity

Management

• Hosting Team will manage vendor connectivity, IP address whitelisting, password less connectivity, SSH Key management.

X

Application Security • Provide application security for DPU with SSL and required protocols required.

A. Architecture

Consultant will provide and maintain over the term of the contract, a “current state” and “future state” diagram that represents the actual architecture used by DPU.

Consultant will update a visio diagram document to reflect ongoing changes in the architecture. Architecture will include the production environment, all non-production environments and a backup and recovery site.

The Consultant will also provide:

1) A replicated production CC&B database (logical or physical) environment that will be used for any reporting.

2) Quarterly diagrams documents to be updated with all the infrastructure details.

3) Management of applications online that are implemented using distributed clustered design

4) Management of batch application that are implemented in clustered mode using multi nodes

5) Server infrastructure tracker document to be created and maintained with all the details. The format of this document can be reviewed and agreed with DPU team

6) Compliance and Security – Hosting team must comply with industry standards required by DPU

7) Highly efficient plan to prevent any kind of data or system breach needs to be designed and implemented

8) In the event of any any data or system breach, there needs to be contingent plan in place that needs to be discussed and approved by both parties.

B. Reporting/Meeting

Consultant will provide weekly and monthly status reports for project and operational activities including but not limited to: key accomplishments, problems/issues, performance metrics, and recommendations. Consultant will meet with DPU in person or remotely as required to review the monthly status reports.

Hosting team will provide a detailed root cause analysis of any unplanned outages within

72 hours.

C. Service Levels & Penalties

The expected service levels are listed below. Proposers should quote their fee based on these service levels. If the proposer is unable to meet these service levels or is proposing alternative service levels, that should be clearly indicated in the response and identified as an assumption in the fee proposal.

Consultant will be the single point of contact with DPU and other vendor(s) that have components in the hosted network. This includes, but not limited to, being the single point of contact for network issues and/or outages for the hosting environment

Availability Definition: Application and databases should be up and running properly so that users can login and perform their business as usual. Network should be fully working with agreed bandwidth without any lagging, fluctuations, or disconnections. Application and database must be performing 100% on a normal day, in the event of an outage and fix, the system will not be accepted below 80% of its performance and 100% of its functionality available.

Service level Agreements and Priority

Severity 1 - Critical

Service outage or a major application problem impacting a large number of users.

Service cannot be utilized and/or no work around exists.

• Example: Service is not available; application does not save critical data correctly

• Example: Slow application response time, session timeouts, some application functionality is broken.

Severity 2 - Medium

Impact on a small or large number of users, but a workaround exists.

• Example: Some minor application functionality is broken, but the service is still usable.

Severity 3 - Low

No impact on users

• Example: A request for a new feature

Availability Requirement and Penalties

Description Requirement

Production Application Availability 99.99 %

Non-Production Application Availability 99.9%

Type Measurement Penalty

Production Application Availability

Availability exceeds 99.99% every day in a 1 month period.

NA

Availability falls below 99.99% for more than 2 days of the month during regular business hours.

10% of monthly fees

Non-Production Application

Availability

Availability exceeds 99.9% every day in a 1 month period.

NA

Availability falls below 99.9% for more than 2 days of the month during regular business hours.

10% of monthly fees

Response and Resolution/Repair Requirement and Penalties

Description Requirement

Response Time to Severity 1 100% within 15 min

Response Time to Severity 2 90% within 15 min

Response Time to Severity 3 80% within 1 business day

Resolution/Repair Time to Severity 1 4 hours or less

Resolution/Repair Time to Severity 2 24 hours or less

Resolution/Repair Time to Severity 3 48 hours or less

Severity 1 Critical All problems are resolved in less than 4 hours. NA

One or more Critical problems are resolved in over 4 hours. 10% of monthly fees

Severity 2 Medium One or more Medium problems are resolved in over 24 hours 5% of monthly fees

Severity 3 Low One of more Low problems are resolved in over 48 hours 5% of monthly fees

End User

Satisfaction

Less than 80% of completed scores on problem resolution satisfaction survey have a rating of satisfied or very satisfied.

10% of monthly fees

Status Update Requirement and Penalties

Priority Target Customer Status Update Time

Severity 1 Critical Every 30 minutes or as agreed upon with the Customer(s)

Severity 2 Medium Every 60 minutes or as agreed upon with the Customer(s)

Severity 3 Low As agreed upon with the Customer(s)

Severity 1 Critical All status updates provided in less than 30 minutes NA

One or more updates are provided in over 30 minutes. 10% of monthly fees

Severity 2 Medium One or more Medium updates are provided in over 60 minutes

5% of monthly fees

Severity 3 Low To be determined on case by case basis 5% of monthly fees

End User Satisfaction Less than 80% of completed scores on problem resolution satisfaction survey have a rating of satisfied or very satisfied.

10% of monthly fees

Reporting Requirements and Penalties

Type Requirement

Daily Status Reports As agreed upon by customer and consultant

Weekly Status Reports As agreed upon by customer and consultant

Monthly Status Reports As agreed upon by customer and consultant

Quarterly Status Reports As agreed upon by customer and consultant

Daily Status Report Delivered at not less than one calendar day intervals 5% of monthly invoice

Weekly Status Report Delivered at not less than seven calendar day intervals 5% of monthly invoice

Monthly Status

Report

Delivered at monthly intervals and not less than two business days before scheduled review meeting

5% of monthly invoice

Quarterly Status

Report

Delivered at quarterly intervals and not less than five business days before scheduled review meeting

5% of monthly invoice

2.2. III. GENERAL GUIDELINES

Compensation and Invoicing

A. Hosting Services

Compensation for hosting services shall be based on fixed tiered amounts stipulated in the contract.

The Consultant shall be paid for services based on fixed amounts as stipulated in the contract.

Any additional fees must be approved through the change control process.

The Consultant shall submit its invoice for progress payment to DPU no later than the close of business on the thirtieth (30th) calendar day of the month following the month for which payment is requested. If the 30th calendar day would fall on a Saturday, Sunday, or Holiday, then the submittal shall be on the previous working day. The Consultant shall not submit invoices more frequently than once per month.

The fees indicated on the invoice must map directly to what has been agreed in the contract or subsequent change orders. Invoices that do not provide an adequate description of the fees may be rejected and returned to the Consultant.

2.3. IV. PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS

A. Submission of Proposal

Each proposer shall submit its proposal(s) in the number, form, manner, and by the date and time and at the location required in the Section I above.

A. Each proposer shall provide all information requested in this RFP. The proposer must organize its proposal package to address each of the elements in this RFP in the order listed in

Section VI, Proposal Contents. The proposer should carefully read all instructions and requirements and furnish all information requested. If a proposal does not comply with all terms, conditions, and requirements for submittal, the City may consider it unacceptable and may reject it without further consideration.

B. The City wishes to promote the greatest feasible use of recycled and environmentally sustainable products and to minimize waste in its operations. To that end, all proposals should comply with the following guidelines: Unless absolutely necessary, copies should minimize or eliminate use of non-recyclable or non-reusable materials. Materials should be in a format permitting easy removal and recycling of paper. A proposer should, to the extent possible, use products consisting of or containing recycled content in its proposal including, but not limited to, folders, binders, paper clips, diskettes, envelopes, boxes, etc. Do not submit any or a greater number of samples, attachments or documents not specifically requested.

C. If you find discrepancies or omissions in this RFP or if the intended meaning of any part of this RFP is unclear or in doubt, send a written request for clarification or interpretation to Mr.

Simon Mastroianni, 1201 Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114 no later than the date listed in the cover letter. Requests for clarification or interpretation may be submitted via e-mail to simon_mastroianni@clevelandwater.com.

B. The City’s Rights and Requirements

A. The Director, at his/her sole discretion, may require any proposer to augment or supplement its proposal or to meet with the City’s designated representatives for interview or presentation to further describe the proposer’s qualifications and capabilities. The requested information, interview, meeting, or presentation shall be submitted or conducted, as appropriate, at a time and place the Director specifies.

B. The City reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to reject any proposal that is incomplete or unresponsive to the requests or requirements of this RFP. The City reserves the right to reject any or all proposals and to waive and accept any informality or discrepancy in the proposal or the process as may be in the City’s best interest.

C. Proposal as a Public Record

Under the laws of the State of Ohio, all parts of a proposal, other than trade secret or proprietary information and the fee proposal may be considered a public record which, if properly requested, the City must make available to the requester for inspection and copying. Therefore, to protect trade secret or proprietary information, the proposer should clearly mark each page - but only that page - of its proposal that contains that information. The City will notify the proposer if such information in its proposal is requested, but cannot, however, guarantee the confidentiality of any proprietary or otherwise sensitive information in or with the proposal. Blanket marking of the entire proposal as “proprietary” or “trade secret” will not protect an entire proposal and is not acceptable.

iv Cleveland Area Business Code mailto:simon_mastroianni@clevelandwater.com

Requirements. During performance of this Agreement, Contractor shall comply with all applicable requirements of the Cleveland Area Business Code, Chapter 187 of the

Codified Ordinances of Cleveland, Ohio, 1976 (“C.O.”), and any Regulations promulgated under the Code, which Code and Regulations are incorporated into and made part of this RFP by this reference as fully as if rewritten in it or attached.

Specifically, compliance under any resulting agreement shall include, but not be limited to, the Contractor’s:

• Compliance with its proposal representations regarding CSB, MBE, and/or FBE participation in performance of the Agreement;

• Compliance and cooperation with Project Monitors, whether from the Mayor’s

Office of Equal Opportunity (the “OEO”) or the contracting department;

• Accurate, complete, and on-time submission of all reports, forms, and documents including, but not limited to, employment reports, certified payrolls, monitoring forms, and other information the Director of the OEO may require, whether in printed or electronic form, to ascertain and verify Contractor’s compliance; and

• Attendance at and participation in all required project meetings, including OEO compliance meetings, and progress meetings called by the contracting department director(s) at key intervals during performance of the contract services.

Failure to Comply. When determining the contractor’s future eligibility for a City contract, the City shall consider a contractor’s failure to comply with the representations of its proposal and the requirements under the Code as a failure to faithfully perform a contract.

1. Under the Cleveland Area Business Code, the City of Cleveland is firmly committed to assisting Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs), Female Business Enterprises

(FBEs), and Cleveland Area Small Businesses (CSBs) by providing and enhancing economic opportunities to participate in City contracts. The successful proposer for a contract will be a firm that shares that commitment. Accordingly, a proposer is strongly encouraged to utilize the services of qualified MBE/FBE/CSB sub-consultants that are certified by the Mayor’s Office of Equal Opportunity (the “OEO”) in its proposal.

2. The standard subcontracting goal for professional services contracts is 10% Cleveland

Area Small Business (“CSB”) subcontractor participation. Please review the attached

Office of Equal Opportunity documents to ascertain the goal for the proposed contract.

Proposers are required to make a good-faith effort to subcontract portions of the work to certified Minority Business Enterprise (“MBE”), Female Business Enterprise

(“FBE”), and CSB firms, consistent with the subcontracting goal(s) applicable to this

RFP.

3. To document its good-faith effort to utilize certified MBE, FBE and CSB sub-consultants, each proposer must complete Schedules 1 through 4 found in the Cleveland

Area Business Code - Notice to Bidders and Schedules. These schedules identify the proposer’s proposed use of MBE, FBE and CSB sub-consultants on the project, which evidences the proposer’s good-faith effort to obtain the participation of certified sub-consultants. The proposer shall submit the completed forms with its proposal and they will be forwarded to the City’s Office of Equal Opportunity for evaluation. Failure to submit complete schedules may result in the rejection of a proposal.

Proposers may obtain a listing of firms certified by the OEO as CSBs, MBEs and

FBEs by checking the City’s website at http://www.city.clevelandohio.gov/. Under the City Services header, click on "Office of Equal Opportunity." On the Office of

Equal Opportunity page, scroll down to the Resource Links and click on the

"Certified Vendor Directory" link.

Proposers are responsible for obtaining the most current list and for contacting potential CSB/MBE/FBE sub-consultants. The City assumes no responsibility for matching prime consultants with qualified, certified MBE, FBE, and/or CSB sub-consultants.

The City Office of Equal Opportunity will monitor participation of MBE, FBE, and/or CSB sub-consultants throughout the duration of the engagement or project.

The successful proposer, as contractor, will be responsible for providing the OEO with all information necessary to facilitate this monitoring.

The Cleveland Area Business Code, any Regulations promulgated under the Code, and the OEO Notice to Bidders & Schedules are, by this reference, incorporated in and made part of this solicitation and any resulting contract as fully as if written in it or attached.

4. The successful proposer, as contractor, will be required to comply with all terms, conditions, and requirements imposed on a “contractor” in the following Equal Opportunity

Clause, Section 187.22(b) of the Cleveland Codified Ordinances, and shall make the Clause part of every subcontract or agreement entered into for services or goods and binding on all persons and firms with which the proposer may deal, as follows: No Contractor shall discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, ethnic group or Vietnam-era or disabled veteran status. Contractors shall take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, ethnic group or Vietnam-era or disabled veteran status. As used in this chapter, “treated” means and includes without limitation to the following: recruited whether by advertising http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/ or other means; compensated, whether in the form of rates of pay or other forms of compensation;

selected for training, including apprenticeship, promoted, upgraded, demoted, transferred, laid off and terminated. Contractors shall post in conspicuous places available to employees and applicants for employment, notices to be provided by the hiring representative of contractors setting forth the provisions of this nondiscrimination clause.

v Term of Proposal’s Effectiveness

By submission of a proposal, the proposer agrees that its proposal will remain effective and eligible for acceptance by the City until the earlier of the execution of a final contract or 180 calendar days after the proposal submission deadline (the “Proposal

Expiration Date”).

vi Execution of a Contract

The Successful Proposer shall, within ten (10) business days after receipt of a contract prepared by the City Director of Law, exclusive of Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, execute and return the contract to the City together with evidence of proper insurance and intent to conform to all requirements of the contract. Attached hereto or which are a part hereof and all applicable federal, state and local laws and ordinances prior to or at the time of execution of the contract.

vii. Short-listing

The City reserves the right to select a limited number (a “short list”) of Proposer’s to make an oral presentation of their qualifications, proposed services, and capabilities.

The City will notify the proposers selected for oral presentations in writing.

viii. Proposer’s Familiarity with RFP; Responsibility for Proposal

By submission of a proposal, the proposer acknowledges that it is aware of and understands all requirements, provisions, and conditions in and of this RFP and that its failure to become familiar with all the requirements, provisions, conditions, and information either in this RFP or disseminated either at a pre-proposal conference or by addendum issued prior to the proposal submission deadline, and all circumstances and conditions affecting performance of the services to be rendered by the successful proposer will not relieve it from responsibility for all parts of its Proposal and, if selected for contract, its complete performance of the contract in compliance with its terms. Proposer acknowledges that the City has no responsibility for any conclusions or interpretations made by proposer on the basis of information made available by the

City. The City does not guarantee the accuracy of any information provided and proposer expressly waives any right to a claim against the City arising from or based upon any incorrect, inaccurate, or incomplete information or information not otherwise conforming to represented or actual conditions.

ix. Interpretation

The City is not responsible for any explanation, clarification, interpretation, representation or approval made concerning this RFP or a proposal or given in any manner, except by written addendum. The City will mail, e-mail, or otherwise deliver one copy of each addendum issued, if any, to each individual or firm that requested and received an RFP. Any addendum is a part of and incorporated in this RFP as fully as if originally written herein.

2.4. V. Qualification for Proposal

Each proposer, regardless of the form of its business entity, must meet the following requirements.

Failure to meet all requirements may be cause for rejection of a proposal. If proposer is a partnership or a joint venture, at least one general partner or constituent member must meet the requirements. Each proposer must:

• Provide evidence that it has a minimum of 5 continuous years of experience within the last

10 years of providing IT services described in this RFP.

• Be authorized to conduct business in the State of Ohio, County of Cuyahoga and the City of Cleveland.

• Possess or demonstrate it qualifies for all applicable licenses, certificates, permits, or other authorizations required by any governmental authority, including the City, having jurisdiction over the operations of the successful proposer and the proposed services.

• Submit with its proposal at least three (3) written, verifiable, references dated within the last two years from clients for which the proposer has rendered services substantially similar to those sought by this RFP, and recommending Proposer for selection for such services.

Insurance: The successful proposer, at its expense, shall at all times during the term of the contract resulting from this RFP, maintain the following insurance coverage. The insurance company(ies) providing the required insurance shall be authorized by the Ohio Department of Insurance to do business in Ohio and rated “A” or above by A. M. Best Company or equivalent. The successful proposer, as contractor, shall provide a copy of the policy or policies and any necessary endorsements, or a substitute for them satisfactory to and approved by the Director of Law, evidencing the required insurances upon execution of the contract.

A. Professional liability insurance with limits of not less than $2,000,000.00 for each occurrence and subject to a deductible for each occurrence of not more than $50,000.00 per occurrence and in the aggregate, and if not written on an occurrence basis, shall be maintained for not less than two (2) years after satisfactory completion and written acceptance of the services under the contract.

B. Workers’ compensation and employer’s liability insurance as provided under the laws of the State of Ohio.

C. Statutory unemployment insurance protection for all of its employees.

D. Such other insurance coverage(s) as the City may reasonably require.

E. The City will not negotiate with the “Limits of Liability”.

2.5. VI. Proposal Content

Each proposal shall include the following parts in the below order. Please separate and identify each part by tabs for quick reference. Each proposal should be organized so as to facilitate its evaluation. Emphasis should be concentrated on accuracy, completeness and clarity of content.

Page size shall be 8.5 x 11 inches (11x17 inch pages may be utilized for graphical representations but each will be counted as two pages). Font size shall be no less than 12 pt. Tabs, dividers, and appendices are excluded from the page count. All parts, pages, figures and tables should be numbered and labeled clearly.

It is requested that proposals be in flat bound form to facilitate filing. Please do not submit proposals in loose-leaf binders. Technical proposals should be no more than 50 single-sided printed pages, excluding appendices.

A. Technical Proposal Contents

The Technical Proposal should be organized as follows:

Section Title

1 Executive Summary

2 Company Background

3 Proposed Hosting Services Solution

4 Implementation Plan

5 Staffing Plan

6 Ongoing Support and Maintenance

7 Response to Proposer Questions

8 Client References

9 Documentation

10 Exceptions and Deviations

11 Environmental Sustainability

Section 1: Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide a complete and concise summary of proposer’s experience and ability to meet the requirements of this RFP for similar entities. It should briefly state experience and why proposer is the best candidate for the engagement. The summary should be organized so it can serve as a stand-alone summary apart from the remainder of the proposal.

Section 2: Company Background

Proposer should provide a detailed company overview for the prime and the sub-consultants.

This should include a description of the nature of the firm’s experience in providing Oracle

OCI CC&B hosting services and support for similar entities. Place specific emphasis on CC&B upgrade, migration and implementation projects for government and/or utilities. Indicate the role of the prime and the sub consultants for these services.

Section 3: Proposed Hosting Services Solution

Proposer is required to provide detailed description of its hosting services and how it will meet requirements of this RFP as outlined in the Scope of Services as well as in Appendix B. This detailed description should include:

A. Data Circuit from the hosting site to DPU being the responsibility of the Consultant. This should be included in the pricing proposal.

B. Outline of the process and operational impacts of scalable server performance and storage

C. WAN connectivity design and parameters to access the cloud environment

D. Implementation roadmap and cost plan for high availability options

Section 4: Implementation Plan

The Consultant is to provide an implementation plan in narrative format supported by an activity-level project plan that details how the Scope of Services will be implemented

This implementation plan should include the following elements:

A. General Support Approach

B. Project Management Approach

C. Business Process Analysis Approach

D. Hardware and Software Installation

E. Report Development

F. Testing

G. Operational Redesign Approach

H. System Documentation

I. Security Plan

J. Disaster Recovery

K. Plan Development

L. Knowledge Transfer

M. Cyber Security

N. Vendor connectivity management

The Consultant should not be constrained to only include the above items in the Consultant’s proposal response if the Consultant feels that they add value to the overall implementation.

DPU requests that the Consultant provide their work plan in a Microsoft Project format as part of the proposal response.

Under the direct oversight of the DPU IT Project Management Office, it is expected that the

Consultant will lead the efforts in each of the implementation areas described below unless stated otherwise. Further details on what is to be provided as part of the Consultants proposed implementation plan are included in the following subsections.

• General Support Approach

Provide a general overview of the implementation approach you plan to use for DPU that includes addressing the following items:

o Describe the key factors for success in this type of project.

o Describe key differentiators of the approach as it relates to implementing a solution on time, within budget and with the ability to meet the needs of a diverse client like DPU.

Any unique tools, techniques or methods that you use should be described in this section.

• Project Management Approach

As part of any significant engagement, DPU employs a project management approach that is based on the PMI methodology. DPU would expect responding Consultants to adhere to such standards as part of the project.

In addition, provide an overall description of the Consultant project management approach towards this type of engagement. This would also include a description of:

A. Project governance

B. Project plan creation and tracking

C. Risk Assessment and management

D. Communication management

E. Change management

DPU requests that the Consultants respond to each of the following items related to project management:

• Based on information provided in this RFP and experience in working with other large cities and public utilities organizations, what are the Consultant’s perspective on the most significant risks to this project and how do you plan to mitigate these risks?

• Describe the performance record of your firm with regard to delivering hosting services within scope, schedule, and budget.

• Describe project controls performance regarding cost monitoring and timely delivery of invoices and client-required reports.

• Describe internal quality management processes to ensure that work-products and project deliverables will meet the quality standards expected from the project.

• How does the Consultant plan to manage the vast amount of material that is produced during the project through potential solutions such as a collaboration environment?

• To what degree does DPU have access to Consultant’s work papers developed during the course of the project?

• Clear delineation of project management responsibilities between the DPU and the

Consultant.

• Specific information on project close-out activities to transition support to the DPU

• Business Process Analysis Approach

DPU utilizes a business analysis approach that is based on the PMI BABOK. DPU would expect responding Consultants to adhere to such standards as part of the project.

It is expected that the Consultant will perform detailed business process analysis for hosting service processes identified throughout this project. Provide an overall description of the

Consultant’s business analysis approach in this type of engagement. This would include a description of the Consultant methods for support of each of the five business analysis phases of this project (Planning, Elicitation, Analysis, Traceability/Monitoring, and

Evaluation). Indicate any tools, templates and methods that the Consultant plans to use to manage this project in the following areas:

A. Describe your approach to Requirements Management

B. Describe your approach and techniques for Elicitation

C. Describe your approach in process gap analysis and the models utilized

• Hardware and Software Installation

The Consultant may be expected to specify, supply, deliver, install and support all system software, hardware and communications equipment that may include pre-installing or equipment staging. It is expected that the Consultant will evaluate DPU’s readiness for hardware and software installation through its evaluation of the technical infrastructure. It is expected that the consultant will be working directly with Hosting Services Consultant(s) in preparation for the new hosted environment. Describe your process for acquiring hardware and software for installation.

• Report Development

For specific hosted environment reporting requirements, it is anticipated that the

Consultant will take the lead on developing and providing any reports required. The

Consultant is expected to provide knowledge transfer to the DPU staff during development of reports, via technical training on the tools used for report development.

• Testing

It is expected that the Consultant manage and participate in all project related testing. The

Consultant should describe their recommended approach and expected outcomes to the following types of testing that are anticipated to be performed on the project and the type of assistance they anticipate providing to DPU related to testing:

• System testing

• Unit testing

• Integration and migration testing

• Stress/Performance testing

• User acceptance testing

• Operational Redesign Approach

With the deployment of new hosted environment, DPU wishes to take advantage of capabilities within the software that provide support for operational improvements.

Consultants are requested to describe their approach towards operational redesign including discussion on the optimal time in which to conduct redesign as it relates to implementation of the new hosted environment.

• System Documentation

The Consultant is expected to provide or make available user manuals and online help for use by DPU as part of the initial training and on-going operational support. Additionally, the Consultant is expected to provide technical documentation. Describe what types of documentation you anticipate developing during the course of the project.

• Security Plan

Proposer must provide a detailed security plan that should include, but not be limited to, the following components:

• Security strategy and planning

• Security monitoring

• Notification of no less than 72 hours at all the times regarding any changes and outages

• Authentication, authorization and access control

• Network and systems platform infrastructure

• Internal controls audits

• Threat and vulnerability detection, implementation, and testing (facility, servers, network, storage)

• Technical consulting services

• Firewall, load balancer and intrusion prevention services

• Hosting team to prepare and implement Cybersecurity solutions.

• Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan

The Consultant should describe their experience and expertise in developing a Disaster

Recovery Plan that will be appropriate for the application being deployed. Consultant must provide a detailed DR and business continuity plan that will include utilizing a virtual copy of the production environment for DPU reporting solution. Any unique tools or methods that the Consultant uses should be described.

• Knowledge Transfer

The Consultant should describe their process for ensuring that knowledge transfer occurs back to DPU staff and/or other vendors such that staff are capable of supporting and maintaining the application in the most proficient manner once the Consultant implementation engagement is complete.

Section 5: Staffing Plan

The Consultant must detail the type and amount of implementation support to be provided (i.e.

number of personnel, level of personnel, time commitment, etc). Include resumes for all personnel that will be assigned to the project to include the following information:

• Role on the project

• Educational background

• Number of years employed at your company

• Number of years conducting their proposed role on the project

• Certifications that are appropriate to the role they will be fulfilling on the program (i.e.

PMP, PMI-PBA)

• Expected amount of time (hours) that they will be committed to the project

• Relevant previous experiences

If the Consultant is using a subcontractor, please include information on subcontracting staff being used and their specific role on the project. Additionally, the Consultant should address the following items:

• Identify the degree to which Consultant staff will be onsite versus offsite during the project

• Demonstrate your ability to provide continuity of skilled consultant resources throughout the duration of the project

• Describe the degree in which activities will be performed during normal business hours versus off-hour

Section 6: Ongoing Support and Maintenance

The Consultant must specify the nature and conditions of any post-implementation support options including:

A. Onsite support

B. Telephone support – include the minimum response time provided as part of the basic support agreement and average response time for the past 12 months

C. Escalation options and procedures. These options and procedures will align with the service level agreements outlined under Scope of Services

D. Sample of maintenance schedule for hosted environment

Identify the party or business unit that is responsible for the support options provided above.

Likewise, the City requests that the Consultant provide the following with respect to expectations on DPU staff involvement to provide on-going support of the application including the following:

• Identification of an appropriate governance in which to manage the environment going forward understanding that any maintenance scheduled must be approved prior to being performed during non-production hours with no less than 72 hour notice

• Identification of the number of staff expected to be committed to providing on-going application support including the following:

o Role o Responsibility o Estimated time commitment in terms of FTE time including technical and operational staff within DPU

• For IT staff resources, provide the additional following information as well:

o Type of positions required (i.e. help desk, trainer, DBA, report developer, application support, system administrator, security administration, etc.)

o Number of FTEs within each position o Skill sets required for each position o Training required and whether the Consultant provides this training

Section 7: Response to Proposer Questions

Identified in Appendix B are a number of requirements that must be addressed by the

Consultant’s proposal for the core hosting services. These requirements are considered mandatory in implementing the complete solution as defined in Section 2, Scope of

Services.

Each Consultant should review the specifications and reports listed in each subsection and respond as to their availability within the hosting services.

Use the comment column to provide additional comments pertaining to your response for that item.

Section 8: Client References

Each proposer that is participating in the proposal should provide three (3) references, which may be contacted concerning the proposer’s performance on hosting services of different utility/government types. The references should be from the prime contractor and not from a subcontractor. Please provide hosting services references whenever possible, for large cities or utilities similar to Cleveland with a public utility population greater than

400,000 and a customer base of over 200,000 accounts of different utility types.

Please provide the following:

• Client name, city and state

• Type of utility

• Client contact (include phone and e-mail address)

• Active number of accounts

• Description of services provided

• Descriptions of the roles your company is providing

• Software environment supported

• Date services were first performed

• Current relationship status

• Role of proposer (prime or subcontractor)

• In addition to the 3 references, please provide a list of any additional related engagements that will help differentiate the proposer’s proposal

Section 9: Documentation

During the evaluation period, the Consultant shall provide one set of technical, sample training documentation and end-user documentation to DPU.

Section 10: Exceptions and Deviations

If the Consultant finds it impossible or impractical to adhere to any portion of these specifications and all attachments, it shall be so stated in its proposal, with all deviations grouped together in a separate section entitled, “Exceptions/Deviations from Proposal

Requirements.” This section will be all-inclusive and will contain a definition statement of each and every objection or deviation with adherence to specific RFP sections. Objections or deviations expressed only in other parts of the proposal, either directly or by implication, will not be accepted as deviations, and the Consultant in submitting a proposal, will accept this stipulation without recourse.

Section 11: Environmental Sustainability: Describe how the proposed services/project/solution incorporates environmental sustainability.

B. Fee Proposal

Proposer should submit its fee proposal for all its services in a separately sealed envelope clearly marked on the outside. Only one fee proposal is required. Fee proposal shall be submitted using the fee table in Appendix D. No qualification of the financial offer will be accepted. The fee proposal shall be a firm and final amount including the costs and expenses for all anticipated services.

There is no limit to the number of pages submitted as part of the fee submittal. The fee submittal shall include all additional required forms and fee/hours tables attached for the project.

A. Fee Proposal

Use the fee proposal template located in Appendix C to document proposer’s fees.

B. Additional Required Documents

Proposer shall…