FROM: James D. Herberg, General Manager
Originator: Lorenzo Tyner, Assistant General Manager
SUBJECT:
title
HYPER CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE IMPLEMENTATION - PHASE 1
end
GENERAL MANAGER'S RECOMMENDATION
recommendation
RECOMMENDATION:
A. Award a Professional Services Agreement to ePlus Technology inc. for the procurement of software, hardware, and services to implement and configure the Hyper Converged Infrastructure, Specification No. CS-2020-1141BD, for a total amount not to exceed $177,950; and
B. Approve a contingency in the amount of $17,795 (10%).
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BACKGROUND
The Orange County Sanitation District’s (Sanitation District) current server and storage for the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) network has reached its end of life. Staff is recommending modernizing the server infrastructure with a Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) solution to replace the server and storage systems in ICS network. The software, hardware, and professional services contract was competitively bid and received five responsive bidders.
RELEVANT STANDARDS
• 24/7/365 treatment plant reliability
• Ensure that investment proposals and decisions are based on clearly defined standards
• Ensure the public’s money is well spent
• Maintain a culture of improving efficiency to reduce the cost to provide the current service level or standard
• Protect Orange County Sanitation District assets
PROBLEM
The current server and storage infrastructure of the ICS network is on an obsolete hardware. The current infrastructure is not reliable, scalable, and does not provide the redundancy and availability for the current server and storage needs. The obsolete hardware makes it difficult to procure replacement parts and services to support and manage the current infrastructure.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
To properly maintain the ICS network, the Information Technology division and Process Control Integration (PCI) request to purchase the HCI solution and related professional services to install and configure the system. The HCI solution is a merger of computing and storage systems. It provides a simple interface to run workloads, providing a single interface to manage and allocate computer resources.
Resources in HCI are software-defined. The storage and computer nodes act as one highly reliable and redundant pool of resource. Should one node go down, the rest will remain unaffected. This resilience is key to ensuring connectivity and uptime. HCI can also be scaled out by simply adding nodes to match resource demand.
As cybercriminal activity rises and our system becomes at risk of a cyber-attack, HCI embeds elements of disaster recovery and backups into infrastructure. This feature provides the ability to restore data effortlessly.
TIMING CONCERNS
Proper maintenance and performance of the ICS network is imperative for the continued support and safety of plant operations.
RAMIFICATIONS OF NOT TAKING ACTION
A decision not to purchase the HCI solution would result in continued inefficiencies, limitations in deploying new technologies, and the inability to provide high availability.
PRIOR COMMITTEE/BOARD ACTIONS
N/A
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
On March 2, 2020, the Sanitation District issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Hyper Converged Infrastructure. The following evaluation criterions were described in the RFP’s and used to determine the most qualified firm.
|
CRITERION |
WEIGHT |
|
1. Qualifications & Experience of Firm |
25% |
|
2. Proposed Staffing & Project Organization |
20% |
|
3. Work Plan |
25% |
|
4. Presentation/Interview |
10% |
|
5. Cost |
20% |
The RFP closed on May 5, 2020. The Sanitation District received responses from five companies: ePlus Technology inc., Entisys Solutions Inc., ConvergeOne, Nth Generation, and Over J Inc. The RFP evaluation team of three Sanitation District staff included an Information Technology Supervisor and two Principal Information Technology Analysts. Individual scoring was the chosen method of evaluation for this procurement. Members of the team performed an independent review of the proposals based on the first three criterion listed above and later met as a group with the Buyer to discuss their preliminary scores and discuss any questions/concerns.
|
Rank |
Proposer |
Criterion 1 (Max 25%) |
Criterion 2 (Max 20%) |
Criterion 3 (Max 25%) |
Subtotal Score (Max 70%) |
|
1 |
ePlus Technology Inc. |
16.7 |
10.0 |
16.6 |
43.3 |
|
2 |
Entisys Solutions, Inc. |
15.0 |
10.0 |
10.0 |
35.0 |
|
3 |
ConvergeOne |
15.0 |
8.0 |
10.0 |
33.0 |
|
4 |
Nth Generation |
11.7 |
10.0 |
9.1 |
30.8 |
|
5 |
Over J Inc. |
5.8 |
3.3 |
0.8 |
9.9 |
The highest-ranking firm, ePlus Technology inc. was selected for an interview. The interview was conducted on June 15, 2020. Following the interview, the evaluation team ranked the firms based on both the proposals and interviews using the evaluation criteria and weighting listed above. All proposals were accompanied by a sealed cost proposal. Only the cost proposal for the highest ranked firm was opened and negotiated.
|
Rank |
Proposer |
Subtotal Score (70%) |
Presentation (Max 10%) |
Cost (Max 20%) |
Total Weighted Score (Max 20%) |
|
1 |
ePlus Technology inc. |
16.6 |
6.5 |
20 |
69.8 |
Based on these results, staff recommends selection of ePlus Technology inc. to provide software, hardware, implementation, and configuration services of the HCI infrastructure for a not-to-exceed amount of $177,950. The term of this Agreement will begin upon the effective date of the Notice to Proceed.
FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS
This request complies with authority levels of the Sanitation District’s Purchasing Ordinance. This item has been budgeted. (FY2020-21 & 2021-22 Budget, Section 8, Page 49, Information Technology Capital Program (M-MC-IT)).
ATTACHMENT
The following attachment(s) may be viewed on-line at the OCSD website (www.ocsd.com) with the complete agenda package:
• Professional Services Agreement