Competition and Market Authority
Cloud Assesment and readiness copy
5 Incomplete applications
3 SME, 2 large
11 Completed applications
10 SME, 1 large
Important dates
- Published
- Thursday 9 November 2017
- Deadline for asking questions
- Thursday 16 November 2017 at 11:59pm GMT
- Closing date for applications
- Thursday 23 November 2017 at 11:59pm GMT
Overview
- Summary of the work
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CMA is in Discovery for phase 2 of its Cloud programme (phase 1 being EUC/0365) to further increase mobility and move IT services from on-premise to the Cloud before moving offices.
It requires a readiness assessment of its IT services, applications and databases given the Cloud architecture now being developed. - Latest start date
- Friday 1 December 2017
- Expected contract length
- 3 months
- Location
- London
- Organisation the work is for
- Competition and Market Authority
- Budget range
- £40- £50k
About the work
- Why the work is being done
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The CMA started Cloud transformation by introducing O365 and new end devices enabling increased mobility. It now plans further Cloud migration before moving to a government Hub building in 2019.
Further increasing staff mobility through access to applications, this will facilitate CMA expansion and reduce IT, including DR, operating costs.
Given its transitional and future Cloud architecture, CMA requires a readiness assessment of its applications and IT services for Cloud migration and management, including:
LoB applications for forensic and statistical analysis (eg Stata, Nuix).
Corporate applications - AWB and SharePoint
supporting SQL cluster
Service Management tools currently MSCM 2012 toolset - Problem to be solved
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Assessment to consider
Forensic, investigatory and statistical analysis applications (eg Stata, Nuix) which acquire and hold large amounts of (unstructured) sensitive data, require lots of processing and segregated/conditional access including with trusted third parties.
Corporate applications (Sharepoint and AWB) are uptodate but have 2018 development plans.
migration path for Service Management tools inc SCCM+SCEP
SQL cluster pre-migration rationalisation
Optimised licensing and support including role of AppsServices
Storage and backup for service and data continuity whilst retaining VfM
Separately resourced work re:
- secure mail based on EOL
- telephony (Skype/Cloud PBX )
- remote access
- web filtering
-threat analytics - Who the users are and what they need to do
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Users use their applications to gather, categorise and analyse structured and unstructured data to gain market intelligence, statistical analysis of market trends and events and undertake investigations.
Sometimes the resulting information is shared with and transferred amongst trusted parties and published according to regulatory guidelines
Corporate users use IT services to plan and manage resources and to communicate - Early market engagement
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This exercise is part of CMA's broader Cloud 2 based programme and associated procurement alongside separate exercises to define high level architecture, network topology and in house exercises related to next steps in Exchange on line
A review of G Cloud identified many suppliers who offer this type of Cloud Assessment and who have experience in the CMA's platform and have an applications focus and a similar process to undertaking this type of work
Informal discussions have taken place at conferences and exhibitions with several suppliers which lead us to believe with our work to date and As is analysis that this work should be delivered within three months.
Bidders should note that implementation work will be a separate exercise - Any work that’s already been done
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CMA has already undertaken a Cloud 1 project including 0365 and limited pilot of SOL. It has recently reviewed the current SharePoint on-premise content and AWB platform which would inform this assessment.
AIP, RMS and OEM are currently subject of a discovery exercise.
A parallel exercise has started (through G-Cloud) to evolve the transitional Cloud architecture and define the Cloud operating service vision. This will be informed by this cloud assessment and vice versa
Work is underway to conclude secure email and to separate out the currently hybrid SCCM and Intune .
Cloud connectivity is currently being procured through RM1045 - Existing team
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The current in house team is a mixture of contractors (some have been brought in because they already have Cloud experience) and permanent staff.
The assessment provider will need to be able to work with Risual who are undertaking the architecture design work and would be expected to liaise with Microsoft (direct and through channel), application vendors for LoB applications and potentially network providers and Cloud vendors - Current phase
- Discovery
Work setup
- Address where the work will take place
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Southampton Row, London WC2
Potentially site visit to other suppliers to be confirmed - Working arrangements
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Much of the assessment work of specialist applications will need to take place on site at Southampton Row, London WC2 as will review meetings.
Document sharing through O365 groups will be encouraged as will use of Egress for transfer of secure documents - Security clearance
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Successful bidders must either validate they hold or be willing to go through the BPSS check before work can start.
We will provide further details on how the BPSS check will be undertaken once the successful bidder is selected.
Additional information
- Additional terms and conditions
Skills and experience
Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.
- Essential skills and experience
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- Experience of Cloud architecture and design from PAAS and SAAS perspective, particularly Azure
- Experience of assessing Cloud readiness of service operations/platform management tools, business applications and associated databases, particularly SQL
- Experience of implementation of Sharepoint in Cloud and Sharepoint on-line and best practice
- Experience of optimising Microsoft licensing, Azure tenancy arranagements and AppsService options
- Experience of optimising infrastructure and application management security controls in Cloud
- Experience of optimising service and operations management processes and tools in Cloud
- Epxerience of working with mixed in house and third party supplier teams
- Nice-to-have skills and experience
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- Experience of forensics and intelligence applications
- Experience of SCCM and Intune implementation
- Experience of Exchange on line implementation
- Experience of Agresso ABW
- Experience of Direct Access and Express Route
How suppliers will be evaluated
- How many suppliers to evaluate
- 6
- Proposal criteria
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- Approach: How quickly and effectively take on CMA context and As is hybrid architecture
- Approach : Integration/compatibility with current transitional architecture and roadmap being debeloped in parralel
- Approach: Repeatability, transferability and sustainability
- Approach: Consideration of the commercial and VFM implications of the recommendations
- Approach: Consideration of implementation risks and timescales
- Approach:Consideration of the downstream security and service operations management of the post migration Cloud environmenterred tools and applications
- Resourcing: How will work with third parties and in house team
- Cultural fit criteria
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- Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers
- Be able to deliver at pace
- Flexible in meeting sometimes changing demands
- Payment approach
- Capped time and materials
- Assessment methods
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- Written proposal
- Work history
- Reference
- Presentation
- Evaluation weighting
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Technical competence
50%Cultural fit
10%Price
40%
Questions asked by suppliers
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1. Forensic and Intelligence Applications -
Does the successful supplier need to have experience of forensics and intelligence data or does the supplier just need to have experience of forensics and intelligence applications and how they work and manipulate data ? - Suppliers need the latter - An understanding of what sort of environments and constraints such as toolkits and data handling is required rather than in depth knowledge of the tools themselves.
- 2. Can you please explain what Apps Service is?
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Azure App Service is a fully managed "Platform as a Service" (PaaS) that can integrate Microsoft Azure Websites, Mobile Services, and BizTalk Services into a single service, adding new capabilities that enable integration with on-premises or cloud systems. Azure App Service allows
• Provision and deploy Web and Mobile Apps
• Integrate with "Software as a Service". (Office 365, Dynamics, OneDrive,)
CMA uses intune/SCCM to deploy 0365 to Apple and Android devices but wishes to explore for other corporate apps. Potentially AppsServices may provide a platform to do this. However CMA is just the advisory and has no development team. - 3. How many applications or services will need to be assessed?
- An initial 30 - 40 should be used for initial estimating purposes reduced from a longer list that includes utilities and SAAS applications . Suppliers will be provided an applications catalogue of on-premise applications as part of start up process and their approach to undertaking the work should be repeatable and scaleable so as to enable an incremental approach
- 4. What sort of cloud architecture is being proposed? Is the intention to use public cloud services such as Azure or AWS, or is it intended to be on a private cloud?
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The current hybrid architecture includes on-premise and Azure (currently used for O365, in tune planned SoL and EoL and one segregated LoB application).
Our intention is to move as much as possible to Cloud and there are obvious advantages in extending/revising our current Azure architecture
Despite this some applications may optimally migrate to a traditional segregated but co-location model, others such as our governance application are available on a pure play SAAS basis. Similarly, there is likely to be some residual on premise/private cloud.
Our objectives include making operational management less complex and not increasing TCO through Cloud transformation - 5. What is the level of deliverable expected from this assessment? Is this a high-level recommendation which is then taken forward for further design work, or is it a fully-costed, detailed design solution to be taken forward to implementation?
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More the former than the latter. We expect a holistic set of recommendations that take account of the parallel service vision and high level architecture work that will enable us to set out the route map for implementation.
This exercise should include consideration of the optimum sequence and timescales based on application complexity and readiness when making those recommendations