VMWARE Sphere and VCenter Renewal

The Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County, California is issuing a Request for Bid (RFB 3916) for the renewal of VMWARE Sphere and vCenter licensing and services. This procurement seeks authorized VMWARE partners to provide renewal licensing across the district's virtualization infrastructure, which includes four cluster environments: a Management Cluster (three ESXi hosts), a V7_PROD2 production cluster (eleven ESXi hosts), a VSEC1 cluster (seven ESXi hosts), and a Test/Development cluster (three ESXi hosts). The renewal requires Foundation License coverage totaling 948 cores across all environments—528 cores for the Management and Production clusters, 224 cores for VSEC1, and 96 cores for Test/Development—with all hosts configured with two CPU sockets. All proposed goods must be new materials with current manufacturer design and the most recent upgrades, and bid prices must include all miscellaneous fees and costs associated with the renewal. The contract renewal term runs from February 22, 2026, through February 21, 2027. Questions must be submitted by 2:00 PM on January 29, 2026, electronic bids are due by 4:00 PM on February 5, 2026, and the district will evaluate bids on February 9, 2026, with contract approval and service commencement targeted for February 22, 2026.

Only authorized VMWARE partners in good standing are eligible to submit bids on this renewal. All submissions must be made exclusively through the EMWD e-Procurement portal; bids submitted by hard copy, fax, or email will be disqualified. The district reserves the right to withhold award for up to 90 days following bid submittal, during which all bids remain valid. Payment will be processed by check from the district's Accounts Payable department following receipt and acceptance of invoices. The contract may be terminated with cause upon five days' written notice for breach or non-performance, or terminated without cause at any time with payment limited to goods received or services rendered through the termination date. All proposals are subject to the California Public Records Act, and information not clearly marked as trade secret, proprietary, or confidential may be released to the public. The specific contract value or budget range has not been disclosed in the available procurement documents.