Commonwealth of Massachusetts Information Technology Division
Commonwealth of Massachusetts – Information Technology Division Request for Responses ITD RFR 14-06 Managed Network Services Posted December 24, 2013
THIS RFR AND ALL RESPONSES HERETO INCLUDING THE WINNING BID SHALL BECOME PUBLIC RECORD AND CAN BE OBTAINED FROM THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIVISION’S LEGAL UNIT BY SENDING AN EMAIL TO
[email protected]. ANY PORTIONS OF A RESPONSE THAT ARE LABELED AS CONFIDENTIAL WILL STILL BE CONSIDERED PUBLIC RECORD. PORTIONS OF THE CONTRACT REFERENCED HEREIN AND MATERIALS RELATED THERETO MAY BE EXEMPT FROM PUBLIC RECORD REQUESTS PURSUANT TO EXEMPTION G. L. c. 4, § 7(26)(n) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS LAW.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.
GENERAL PROCUREMENT INFORMATION ......................................................... 1
2.
AGENCY ........................................................................................................................... 6
3.
OVERVIEW ...................................................................................................................... 6 3.1 PURPOSE OF RFR...................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 OBJECTIVE ................................................................................................................................ 7 3.3 NUMBER OF AWARDS ....................................................................................................... 11 3.4 ACQUISITION METHOD(S)............................................................................................... 11 3.5 PERFORMANCE AND PAYMENT TIME FRAMES WHICH CONTINUE BEYOND DURATION OF THE CONTRACT. .............................................................................................................. 11
4.
NETWORK ENVIRONMENT ..................................................................................... 12 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.5.1 4.5.2 4.5.3
5.
THE INITIAL SITES ..................................................................................................... 12 NETWORK DETAILS FOR THE VERIZON SITES ................................................ 14 NETWORK DETAILS FOR WINDSTREAM SITES................................................ 15 NETWORK DETAILS FOR MBI SITES (INCLUDING THE ITD MBI SITES AND THE NON-ITD MBI SITES) ............................................................................... 15 NETWORK DETAILS FOR FUTURE SITES............................................................ 16 NETWORK DETAILS FOR THE IOS RING............................................................. 16 NETWORK DETAILS FOR LOOP A ......................................................................... 17 NETWORK DETAILS FOR OPENCAPE .................................................................. 18 REQUESTED SERVICES ............................................................................................. 19
Background/CORI check requirements ........................................................................................................... 25
25. 26. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. A. B. C. D. 34. 5.1 5.2 5.3
DEMARCATION POINT AND SERVICE BOUNDARIES ..................................................... 26 IMPROVEMENTS AND NEW TECHNOLOGY. .................................................................... 26 AUDITS.............................................................................................................................. 28 INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS........................................................................................... 28 SERVICES OBLIGATIONS ................................................................................................. 29 SECURITY ......................................................................................................................... 31 BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY SERVICES..................................... 33 SECURITY AND OTHER UPDATES. .................................................................................. 33 ADDRESSES. .................................................................................................................. 33 PROXIES......................................................................................................................... 34 PEER TO PEER FILE SHARING. .............................................................................. 34 GENERAL. ...................................................................................................................... 34 TERMINATION AND TRANSITION ................................................................................... 34 WHOLESALE CONNECTIONS AND RELATED SERVICES ............................... 35 MANAGEMENT OF PROVIDERS OF WHOLESALE CONNECTIONS ............. 36 MANAGED MPLS NETWORK SERVICES .............................................................. 42
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5.4
PROVIDING FIELD SERVICES ................................................................................. 42
6
EXCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 43
7
CONTRACT DURATION ............................................................................................. 43
8
ORDER OF PRECEDENCE ......................................................................................... 43
9
EVENT CALENDAR ..................................................................................................... 44
10
WRITTEN QUESTIONS ............................................................................................... 44
11
ORAL PRESENTATIONS ............................................................................................ 45
12
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS................................................................................ 45
HOW TO SUBMIT A BID RESPONSE..................................................................................... 46 BID RESPONSE METHOD ............................................................................................................................. 46 SMARTBID SUPPORT ................................................................................................................................... 46 BID RESPONSE DEADLINE ........................................................................................................................... 46 BID PACKAGE .............................................................................................................................................. 47 BID RESPONSE CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................... 47 13
BIDDER RESPONSES................................................................................................... 47
STANDARD COMMONWEALTH FORMS ........................................................................................ 51 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
COMMONWEALTH STANDARD CONTRACT FORM......................................................... 51 COMMONWEALTH TERMS AND CONDITIONS ................................................................ 52 REQUEST FOR TAXPAYER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER AND CERTIFICATION (MASS. SUBSTITUTE W9 FORM). ................................................................................................. 52 CONTRACTOR AUTHORIZED SIGNATORY LISTING. ...................................................... 53 SUPPLIER DIVERSITY PROGRAM PLAN FORM 1. ........................................................... 53 ADDITIONAL ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE PRODUCTS / PRACTICES................. 53 PROMPT PAYMENT DISCOUNT FORM ............................................................................ 53 CONSULTANT CONTRACTOR MANDATORY SUBMISSION FORM. ................................. 54 BUSINESS REFERENCE FORM. ........................................................................................ 54 ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER (EFT). ......................................................................... 54
14
EVALUATION CRITERIA AND ALTERNATIVES ................................................ 54
15
MISCELLANEOUS ....................................................................................................... 56 B. C.
BID/RESPONSE REJECTION ............................................................................................. 56 CONTRACT AMENDMENTS .............................................................................................. 56
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D. LIMITATIONS. .................................................................................................................. 56 E. REVIEW RIGHTS .............................................................................................................. 57 F. NONRESPONSIVE BIDS ..................................................................................................... 57 G. PROPRIETARY NOTICES. ................................................................................................. 57 H. ENVIRONMENTAL SPECIFICATIONS ............................................................................... 57 I. ESTIMATED VALUE OF THE CONTRACT. ................................................................................. 57 K. REGULATORY/TARIFF FILINGS ...................................................................................... 58 L. CONTRACT MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................. 58 MEETINGS ................................................................................................................................................... 59 WEB SITE ..................................................................................................................................................... 59 CHANGE NOTIFICATION............................................................................................................................... 59 CONTRACTOR ACCOUNT TEAM .................................................................................................................. 60 SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT (CONTRACTOR CONTRACT MANAGER) ......................................................... 60 REPLACEMENT OF CONTRACTOR STAFF ..................................................................................................... 60 Adding commodities and/or services to the Contract (Market Basket) ........................................................... 60 Report requirements & due dates..................................................................................................................... 61 Late/Inaccurate Report Assessment ............................................................................................................. 61 Advertising pre-approval ................................................................................................................................. 62 Invoice and payment specifications ................................................................................................................. 62 Prohibited charges and actions ........................................................................................................................ 63 Invoices and Payments .................................................................................................................................... 63 Incorrect Invoices ........................................................................................................................................ 63 Disputed Charges ......................................................................................................................................... 63 Inappropriate Information in Bills ............................................................................................................... 64 Changes in Monthly Costs ........................................................................................................................... 64 Required Billing Format .............................................................................................................................. 64 Additional Monthly Invoices ....................................................................................................................... 64 Optional Billing Format ............................................................................................................................... 65 Individual Agency Billing ........................................................................................................................... 65 Single Agency/Multiple Location Billing .................................................................................................... 65 Single Agency/Multiple Location Optional Billing ..................................................................................... 65 Payments to Contractors .............................................................................................................................. 65 Penalty for Non-Compliance ....................................................................................................................... 66
ALTERNATIVES ........................................................................................................................................... 66 BIDDER QUALIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS ..................................................................... 66 UNIQUE ACCOUNT IDENTIFIER ................................................................................................................... 67 COMPANY PROFILE ..................................................................................................................................... 67 Years in business in the industry ..................................................................................................................... 67 Annual revenue ................................................................................................................................................ 67 Company registration and certifications .......................................................................................................... 67
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16
DEFINITIONS ................................................................................................................ 68
APPENDIX I ............................................................................................................................................. 78 RFR - REQUIRED SPECIFICATIONS .............................................................................................................. 78 APPENDIX II ............................................................................................................................................ 85 APPENDIX III ............................................................................................................................. 87 RFR - OTHER SPECIFICATIONS ................................................................................................................... 87
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1. GENERAL PROCUREMENT INFORMATION Purchasing Department:
Information Technology Division
Address:
One Ashburton Place, Room 811 Boston, Massachusetts 02108
Procurement Contact:
Louis Kaczmarek
Telephone:
617-626-4512
E-Mail Address:
[email protected]
RFR File Number and Title:
ITD RFR 14-06 Managed Network Services
This Request for Responses (“RFR”) RFR does not commit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (“Commonwealth”) or the Information Technology Division (“ITD”) to approve a Statement of Work, pay any costs incurred in the preparation of a Bidder’s response to this RFR or to procure or contract for products or services. ITD reserves the right to accept or reject any and all proposals received as a result of this RFR and to contract for some, all or none of the products and services as a result of this RFR. ITD further reserves the right to negotiate with any or all qualified Bidders and to cancel in part or in its entirety this RFR if it is in the best interest of ITD or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to do so. ITD reserves the right to amend this RFR at any time prior to the date the responses are due. Any such amendment will be posted to the Commonwealth’s procurement website, CommPASS. Bidders are advised to check this site regularly, as this will be the sole method used for notification of changes. ITD may procure additional services from the Bidder to provide additional and related consulting and or related services under this RFR. If additional funds become available, ITD reserves the right to increase the maximum obligation under this RFR subject to available funding, satisfactory contract performance, and service needs. ITD may also determine that previously approved work products are no longer required, or that work products or deliverables must be modified and the scope of the Agreements entered into hereunder will change.
Other Commonwealth Agencies may, in the future, procure and use the services bid under this contract directly, but only under terms and conditions to be specified by ITD at a later date. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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This RFR is open to all vendors whether or not they are currently on a statewide contract. However, if the successful bidder is on statewide contract ITS43 or ITT46, the terms of those contracts will apply to the agreement entered under this RFR, except that no legal terms introduced by the statewide contract vendor in its response to ITS46 shall apply thereto. ITD seeks services and a proposed solution for the technical challenge posed by the managed network services described in this RFR, which may involve integration, design, installation and other services as well as provision of software, hardware, and appliances. With regard to ITT46, Bidder must be on Category 1 for Voice Services, Category 2 for the connectivity/bandwidth services in the Wholesale Connections and Related Services and Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) and Category 4 1 for the other Managed Network Services requested herein. ITD seeks responses wherein a single vendor provides the Managed Network Services (either themselves or through subcontractors). Any response may include, but must expressly identify, subcontractors. At a high-level ITD seeks four (4) different managed services under this RFR (collectively, the “Managed Network Services”): (1) (2) (3) (4)
providing Wholesale Connections and Related Services including Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) and Broadband, managing providers of Wholesale Connections and Related Services; providing and managing Managed MPLS Network Services and providing field services (e.g., Tier 2 Services and Tier 3 Services)
– as follows
Site Name
General Location
Verizon Sites (as defined below)
On ITD’s Campus Facilities
Wholesale Connections and Related Services
Managed MPLS Network Services
(1) Providing Wholesale Connections and Related Services (including Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) , where requested) and Broadband X
(3) Providing Managed MPLS Network Services
(2) Managing Providers of Wholesale Connections and Related Services
X
(4) Field Services (e.g., Tier 2 Services and Tier 3 Services)
(3) Managing MPLS Network Services
X
1
Bidders who are currently on ITT46 Categories 2 and 4 but not on Category 1 should contact the ITT46 Contract Manager for information about how to become a Category 1 vendor.
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Windstream Sites (as defined below)
ITD MBI Sites (as defined below)
On Remote Site
X
On ITD’s Campus Facilities
X
On Remote Site
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
On ITD’s Campus Facilities
X
X
X
On Remote Site
X
X
X
X
X
X
Table 1: Service Matrix
Network Layer Model The Network Layer Model in Figure 1 outlines a model of the internal networks within the Commonwealth. All Bidders responding to this RFR must utilize this model and terminology in their responses. In general terms, the services ITD seeks for all Commonwealth locations are identified in the Network Layer Model for MassNet (Figure 1). VPN services are provided outside of this RFR, and the Bidder will need to provide physical connectivity for certain routes and site connectivity.
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Figure 1: Network Layer Model for MassNet (Note: MMNSP=Bidder)
ITD will, in scoring vendors, award additional points for (a) vendors that can demonstrate, based on past experience and strong references, that they have been successful in providing network services for third party VoIP implementations (such as Verizon, Mitel and Avaya implementations) and (b) Verizon, the current vendor of EOHHS’ combined MPLS and VoIP solution under the Verizon Agreement. Seamless operation is the goal. VoIP will be acquired via a separate procurement. A vendor that neither has a successful track record of providing MPLS services to support third party VoIP implementation, nor is Verizon, EOHHS’ current VoIP services provider, will be graded lower than the vendor described in (a) and (b) in the previous paragraph.
This RFR refers to the following Exhibits, which have been uploaded separately to CommPASS as part of this RFR: A. List of Initial Sites (the “List of Initial Sites”) B. List of Future Sites (the “List of Future Sites”) C. Template Statement of Work D. Service Levels from the Paetec/Windstream Agreement E. Service Levels from the Verizon Agreement F. Service Levels from the MBI Agreement RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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G. H. I. J.
Privacy Laws Security Laws ITD’s agreements regarding data access with the Social Security Administration ITD’s agreements regarding data access with the Executive Office of Health and Human Services K. ITD’s agreements regarding data access with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue The following is a list of other documents that are available on Comm-PASS and provide prospective bidders with more information about the cost, location and functionality of a set of networks relevant to this RFR. Each network is comprised of a set of sites; a subset of those sites is the subject of this RFR. Only a subset of the sites identified in the contracts referenced below are the subject of this RFR. Thus in Exhibit 1, “Initial Sites”, the sites identified as “ITD MBI Sites” are only a subset of the sites identified in the MBI Master Services Agreement referenced below. 1. The Master Services Agreement for wholesale network broadband services, including an indefeasible right to use (IRU), covering the ITD MBI Sites i. Go to www.comm-pass.com ii. Select: Search for a contract – bottom of the page iii. Enter document number: “ITP ITD 11-44” (without quotation marks) iv. Click search v. Results on top of page- click the link indicating the number of results vi. Click on eye glasses vii. Click on term pages 2. The Master Services Agreement for VOIP and MPLS managed network services covering the Verizon Sites i. Go to www.comm-pass.com ii. Select: Search for a contract – bottom of the page iii. Enter document number: “RFR 5-15” (without quotation marks) iv. Click search v. Results on top of page- click the link indicating the number of results vi. Click on eye glasses vii. Click on term pages 3. The Service Agreement for MPLS managed network services covering the Windstream Sites i. Go to www.comm-pass.com ii. Select: Search for a Solitication – bottom of the page iii. Enter document number: “RFQ 7-06” (without quotation marks) iv. Click search v. Results on top of page- click the link indicating the number of results vi. Click on eye glasses vii. Click on term pages 4. The Request for Quotes for Network Services Data and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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i. Go to www.comm-pass.com ii. Select: Search for a Contract – bottom of the page iii. Enter document number: “13MEEHSNETWORKSERVICESRFQ” (without quotation marks) iv. Click search v. Results on top of page- click the link indicating the number of results vi. Click on eye glasses vii. Click on term pages
2. AGENCY ITD is responsible for overseeing all information technology investments for the Commonwealth. ITD also provides the infrastructure engineering, infrastructure architecture, application hosting deployment and software programming services for many Commonwealth entities using some of the most advanced hardware and software available today. ITD is responsible for both network services and network security services for the Commonwealth agency customers. Network and Network Security services include design, implementation, installation, proactive monitoring, intrusion prevention/detection, firewall support, and network management. The network and network security services team provides WAN, campus, and data center services to internal Commonwealth Secretariats and Agencies. The ITD Technology Office, acting on behalf of the Office of the Commonwealth Chief Information Officer, seeks responses from vendors who can offer comprehensive Managed Network Services which meet the criteria and objectives detailed in this RFR. The Winning Bidder’s network management products and/or services will enable the Commonwealth to deploy Managed Network Services for a future network called MassNet. Bidders should note that EOHHS is in transition toward a cloud-based Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (“HCS Solution”) at the time this RFR is being made public. 3. OVERVIEW 3.1 Purpose of RFR
The purpose of the Managed Network Services project is to provide comprehensive, common management for WAN network service delivery across the Commonwealth, which may include government agency use at the state, county and local level. Sections of the underlying network are currently owned or leased by the Commonwealth, and active management of this physical layer will continue to be provided by separate companies. Other sections of the network may require the vendor to provide the underlying infrastructure. It is the expectation of the Commonwealth that the Bidder will provide managed services regardless of the ownership of the underlying infrastructure and that the services provided by the vendor will create synergies which will ultimately reduce costs for network management. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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At a high-level, and as set forth with more specificity in this RFR, there are 4 Managed Network Services that ITD is seeking under this RFR: (1) Providing Wholesale Connections and Related Services (including Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) to certain ITD Campus Facilities) (2) Managing providers of Wholesale Connections and Related Services (3) Providing Managed MPLS Network Services (4) Providing field services to remote locations (e.g., Tier 2 Services and Tier 3 Services). 3.2 Objective
The objective of the MassNet managed services project is to create a shared, multi-use network that will connect Commonwealth government agencies at lower cost than current network connections today, and provide improved services. MassNet represents the creation of a new program that focuses on Commonwealth-wide network architecture as an entity and eliminates existing silo-based purchases. MassNet is envisioned to use, and maximally leverage, where possible, Commonwealth “owned” infrastructure such as optical fiber that is outright owned by the Commonwealth or available for use by the Commonwealth under a license or IRU. In geographical areas where there is no access to such Commonwealthowned infrastructure it is anticipated that circuits will be supplied from the Bidder’s own network or the Bidder’s own relationships with 3rd party wholesale service providers. It is anticipated that this future network will be the successor to current networks in use by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The RFR envisions initial managed services related to the Initial Sites and possible future managed services related to the Future Sites. The scope of the initial Managed Network Services related to the Initial Sites includes: 1. Managing all Managed Network Services in the Initial Sites, with a service start date commencing shortly after contract execution for all of the Initial Sites (except for the Verizon Sites, for which the service start dates will commence in June 2014 at which point MPLS network services to the Verizon Sites will begin to be terminated under the Verizon contract)). a. For all Initial Sites, Managed Network Services must include the Bidder providing and managing the physical edge devices deployed at Commonwealth facilities that may interconnect with each other or data center facilities. b. For all Initial Sites except the ITD MBI Sites, Bidder must provide Wholesale Connections and Related Services including, where needed, Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) and Broadband. c. At the Remote Sites, Bidder must (i) provide Tier 2 Service and Tier 3 Service for all Commonwealth-side edge devices and (ii) manage Wholesale Connections and Related Services.
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ITD, rather than the Winning Bidder, will provide the Tier 1 Service to all edge devices at the Remote Sites, and at ITD’s Campus Facilities. For the Verizon Sites among the Initial Sites, the Services will include Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38); in the future other Sites may require this service as well.
Figure 2: Grouping of Sites
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Figure 3: High Level View of MassNet Network Elements
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Figure 4: Site Configuration Scenarios
2. Subject to paragraph 1 above, the Bidder will provide Managed Network Services for the Initial Sites. The “Initial Sites”, listed in Exhibit A, posted on Comm-PASSs, include: 1. ITD MBI Sites (as defined in Section 4.1 below); 2. Windstream Sites (as defined in section 4.1 below); and 3. Verizon Sites (as defined in Section 4.1 below). The Future Sites, which may be, at ITD’s option, provided services under a future task order or statement of work pursuant to the agreement entered under this RFR (the “Agreement”), may include some or all of the following. If Sites are outside the Executive Department, agreement by the non-Executive-Department-government entity to join MassNet is needed. The Future Sites listed below are (except for item 10 described in further detail in Exhibit B, List of Future Sites, posted separately on Comm-PASS: 1. 2. 3. 4.
OpenCape sites. The non-ITD MBI Sites that fall under the MBI contract. Non-Executive Department Windstream sites. Loop A sites, including sites located on spurs off Loop A.
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5. Municipal sites and other local government sites. 6. Sites for agencies that manage their own networks including (without limitation): a. Detma.org / LWD—the Labor and Workforce Development network. b. DOR network: the Department of Revenue State network, comprised of 30+ WAN sites c. DOT/RMV network –the Department of Transportation/Registry of Motor Vehicles network. d. CJIS network: the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Information System network. This network is operated by the Executive Office of Public Safety. 7. UMass sites -- the University of Massachusetts wide area network 8. Sites on the IOS Ring 9. Sites related to the fiber network IRU granted to the Executive Department by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) 10. Additional Commonwealth sites not otherwise included in the above.
ITD reserves the right to request and negotiate services for other state, county or local Commonwealth governmental sites at the rates set forth in the Winning Bidder’s response to this RFR. 3.3 NUMBER OF AWARDS
ITD will award this RFR to a single vendor who may provide services through one or more subcontractors. 3.4 ACQUISITION METHOD(S)
The acquisition method(s) to acquire goods and/or services from this Solicitation are outright purchase, Tax Exempt Lease Purchase (TELP), Term Lease, Fee for Service, Rental (Not to exceed 6 months), and license. 3.5 Performance and Payment Time Frames Which Continue Beyond Duration of the Contract.
All term leases, rentals, maintenance or other agreements for services entered into during the duration of this contract and whose performance and payment time frames extend beyond the duration of this contract shall remain in effect for performance and payment purposes (limited to the time frame and services established per each written agreement). No written agreement shall extend more than 1 year beyond the final termination date of this contract. No new leases, rentals, maintenance or other agreements for services may be executed after the contract has expired. Any contract termination or suspension pursuant to this section shall not automatically terminate any leases, rentals, maintenance or other agreements for services already in place unless the department also terminates said leases, rentals, maintenance or other agreements for service, which were executed pursuant to the main contract. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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4. NETWORK ENVIRONMENT The purpose of this RFR is to create a contract that will provide the same level of services for the Initial Sites, and possibly the Future Sites, as those currently available through these networks, and potentially more, with at least the same and potentially higher service levels. In addition to working with ITD, the Winning Bidder will be required to collaborate as needed with customer site managers (or their vendor representatives) during network events.
4.1 THE INITIAL SITES ITD operates multiple data centers and provides network connectivity for many Commonwealth Secretariats and Agencies. This wide area network is known as MAGNet. MAGNet services approximately 300 separate locations. In addition, there are other networks owned, managed, and operated by other Commonwealth entities. The Initial Sites, listed in Exhibit A, posted as a separate document on Comm-PASS, include a subset of the following sub networks of MAGNet: A. Windstream Sites: The Windstream Sites are 47 MPLS-connected WAN sites. Windstream provides layer 2 (Transport), connectivity and Layer 3 (Network) with the use of Border Gateway Protocol (“BGP”). At specific core locations Windstream provides Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) as a separate virtual circuit which routes to isolated VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) technology. In addition, Windstream provides separate billing to each agency for their distributed cost of the core Voice Trunking as determined by their Direct Inward Dial (DID) range. Windstream then bills utilization directly to each agency based on their range. Windstream locations have been established with QoS tagging for all circuits based on standards provided by ITD which align with those used within the corresponding Windstream Site LAN environments. This allows for the connectivity of a VoIP service equipped Remote Site directly into MAGNet without the necessity of additional Voice Trunking at each Remote Site. The Windstream Sites are specified on Exhibit A, List of Initial Sites, which is separately uploaded to Comm-PASS with this RFR. The contract documents for the Windstream Sites are also available on Comm-PASS using the search instructions set forth in Section 1 of this RFR. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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B. Verizon Sites: The Verizon Sites are +/- 200 WAN sites, managed by Verizon. ITD and EOHHS currently have a Verizon VoIP contract (which includes managed MPLS network services), for an on-premises voice solution, which is scheduled to end in June 2014 (sites currently served on this contract will roll off MPLS network services under this contract individually and in groups commencing on this date). Under the existing contract, Verizon provides connectivity, routing, and VoIP/QoS management of the Verizon Sites with EOHHS/ITD oversight. The VoIP and other VoIP application related components available under the Verizon contract that expires in June 2014 are being procured separately – this RFR is focused on replacing the Managed MPLS Network Services for the Verizon Sites, among other things. The requirements for this engagement are to provide underlying network services to meet the pass-through connection needs of a VoIP network, but not the actual VoIP technology. Bidders responding to this RFR should assume that the next generation of the EOHHS VoIP solution may be either an on-premises or a cloud-based solution. The Verizon Sites are specified on the List of Initial Sites, listed in Exhibit A, List of Initial Sites, posted as a separate document in Comm-PASS, which is separately uploaded to Comm-PASS with this RFR. The contract documents for the Verizon Sites are also available on Comm-PASS using the search instructions set forth in Section 1 of this RFR. The EOHHS VoIP Network is operated with MPLS circuits from Verizon. The EOHHS VoIP network termination equipment (i.e. routers) is owned by ITD, but managed and maintained by Verizon through June 2014. ITD provides data center services for all servers in the EOHHS VOIP network. Please reference Figure 6 for a network model layer outline. There are presently over 200 WAN circuits in the EOHHS VOIP network. Verizon Business Services presently manages the majority of the components of this network on behalf of the Commonwealth. C. ITD MBI Sites: The “ITD MBI Sites” (MBI—the Massachusetts Broadband Institute) are the MBI sites that are: (i) located in Executive Department or are currently managed by ITD, (ii) not called out separately in this RFR (e.g., Verizon Sites) and are not EOPPS sites and (iii) currently under construction and will be operated by MBI subcontractor, Axia Corporation. The Commonwealth will install edge devices (i.e., routers) to be managed by the Bidder under this RFR including over 400 CAIs (Community Anchor RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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Institutions). Some of these CAIs overlap with existing Commonwealth networks (EOHHS/VOIP, Windstream, CJIS, MassDOT, UMASS, and DETMA). A new Springfield Data Center (SDC), with multiple fiber-based 10Gbps, and redundant links to Chelsea, is included in this network. The ITD MBI Sites are specified on the List of Initial Sites, listed in Exhibit A, List of Initial Sites, posted as a separate document in CommPASS, which is separately uploaded to Comm-PASS with this RFR. The contract documents for the ITD MBI Sites are also available on CommPASS using the search instructions set forth in Section 1 of this RFR. 4.2 NETWORK DETAILS FOR THE VERIZON SITES EOHHS utilizes a Cisco based voice and data network across its enterprise supplying service to ~170 sites. Verizon currently provides managed services for the Cisco provided applications, equipment and components (all of which will remain managed by a third party and thus are not part of this RFR). Additionally, there are third party applications supporting voice features and management which were not provided by Cisco and are managed through third party support contracts. The network components include but are not limited to: 1. Cisco phones 2. Cisco Ethernet switches 3. Cisco WAN routers 4. Cisco Security Firewalls or Juniper Net-Screen Firewalls (likely moving to the cloud-based HCS Solution) 5. Cisco Security Intrusion Detection Systems (likely moving to the cloud-based HCS Solution) 6. Cisco Contact Manager (call center technology) 7. Cisco Unified Communications Manager Systems (Call Manager systems)(likely moving to the cloud-based HCS Solution) 8. Cisco Unified Communications Unity Connection (Voicemail systems)(likely moving to the cloud-based HCS Solution) The Managed MPLS Network Services must support the above-referenced application components. The scale of the EOHHS network includes: 1. Over 170 sites (most, but not all of which are VOIP-enabled ) 2. 22,000 phones 3. WAN network circuit transmission rates from T1 to 500MB Carrier Ethernet 4. Commonwealth-wide MPLS Core backbone with QoS for Voice, Video and Data
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In the EOHHS VOIP network, Verizon supplies an MPLS backbone with QoS as a component of the network. Alternate MPLS backbones may be proposed within Bidders’ responses to this RFR as desired. The Winning Bidder will be required to provide a solution with Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) to the emerging cloud-based HCS Solution EOHHS is currently implementing.
4.3 NETWORK DETAILS FOR WINDSTREAM SITES ITD manages all of the Cisco routers on the MAGNet MPLS Network including the monitoring of the hardware and circuits while providing break/fix management of this hardware. The Network components are the following: 1. Cisco WAN router 2. Cisco WIC card built into the router Please see Exhibit A, “List of Initial Sites” – under “Windstream Sites” for additional location/network detail. 4.4 NETWORK DETAILS FOR MBI SITES (INCLUDING THE ITD MBI SITES AND THE NON-ITD MBI SITES) MBI is delivering fiber services to municipalities, state and private sites within the geographic bounds of the Commonwealth shown on Figure 3. The following is a description of the network being built by MBI. The fiber ownership and services described below relate to the concept of MassNet as a network of networks. A. MassBroadband 123 network (see Figure 3) (MBI) MBI provides a series of rings in Western MA that deliver fiber services to over 1,200 sites, including the ITD MBI Sites. There are at least 105 connected ITD MBI Sites (no last mile is needed) government locations in the area that would require management services as a result of this RFR. The fiber will be lit and managed by MBI’s sub-contractor, Axia. This network is currently under construction and will eventually include over 400 CAIs (Community Anchor Institutions), including (without limitation) the ITD MBI Sites.
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Figure 6: MassBroadband Network Overview 4.5 NETWORK DETAILS FOR FUTURE SITES 4.5.1
NETWORK DETAILS FOR THE IOS RING
All Initial Sites and Future Sites use, or may use, the IOS Ring. This network was recently upgraded to an Integrated Optical Service (IOS) integrating Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM), riding over a pair of optical fibers. The IOS Ring links locations that host storage; it provides networking for VoIP, application and video services via “IOS or similar interfaces” or IP network routers between locations.
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Figure 7: IOS Ring 4.5.2
NETWORK DETAILS FOR LOOP A
The sites comprising Loop A are potential Future Sites. Loop A represents a loop within Boston and Cambridge. There are approximately 100 government offices within last mile distances for Loop A. Loop A is currently in limited use by the Executive Office of Public Safety.
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Figure 8: Boston Metro "Loop A" Overview 4.5.3
NETWORK DETAILS FOR OPENCAPE
Sites comprising OpenCape are potential Future Sites. OpenCape provides a series of fiber rings within Southeastern MA and the Cape and Islands. The Commonwealth has an extensible IRU on strands of fiber within this network. Last mile connections to state locations would need to be created, and the strands of fiber lit to take advantage of this project. There are approximately 387 state locations within a suitable last mile connection distance from the OpenCape network.
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Figure 9: OpenCape Overview 5. REQUESTED SERVICES The Managed Network Services that the Bidder provides under its comprehensive program must include: A. A coordinated integration of multiple networks B. A cost effective solution through efficiencies and consolidated management C. High customer satisfaction through timely maintenance, enhancements, and overall network performance D. Industry leading information security E. A platform that supports expanded data, voice, and video conference functionality across the Commonwealth F. Effective communications regarding network service and utilization G. A platform that allows the Commonwealth to leverage innovation as technology evolves (e.g. Cloud Services, Fiber Optic multiplexing, VoIP and any other services) H. A central billing system functionality through which the Winning Bidder will generate per site bills detailing usage and charges for each tenant at each site, and billing detail for each service or good received. Managed WAN connections will provide connectivity to shared and distributed enterprise applications along with Internet access. Ultimately, and transparent to the Bidder, there will be two types of end user sites as part of this RFR: those which have VoIP and those which do not. Managed WAN services will be delivered to both types of sites. From ITD’s perspective, VoIP (not including supporting technologies like SIP Trunking) is considered an “Application” managed by Secretariats, Agencies and other entities (but still based on a shared set of requirements), and will not be managed by ITD or the Winning Bidder. Moreover, the underlying managed WAN connections must have QoS enabled, and be RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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capable of supporting the needs of such VoIP Applications, specifically Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) and related services. The following is a list of General Requirements for Managed Network Services.
1. The Managed Network Services Winning Bidder must comply with all ITD’s IT Enterprise Policies, available at http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-andtech/policies-legal-and-technical-guidance/it-policies-standards-andprocedures/ent-pols-and-stnds/. 2. The Managed Network Services Winning Bidder must provide network monitoring with the potential for integration with ITD’s Tivoli monitoring solution (Tivoli Enterprise Portal v 6.2.2) . 3. The Managed Network Services Winning Bidder must provide the Commonwealth, upon request, detailed auditing, monitoring, and logging, notification of key events, including but not limited to: operational warnings and errors. In addition, Bidder must provide ITD with access (from a minimum of 6 Commonwealth locations, addresses to be specified) to a MassNet real-time Network Status View (“NSV”), so that ITD can be aware of and advise ITD’s customers on network status and performance at the node and connection (link) level, and perform Tier 1 support which includes opening tickets, tracking and reporting to ITD’s customers regarding issue progress and resolution (Layer 2 and Layer 3 events). The NSV must: a. consist of a graphical user interface which monitors and displays network status (at a glance) but upon further user action will also provide detailed information for specific nodes or connections (e.g., nodes and connections in green are operating normally; nodes and connections in red are down; link or CPU utilization, errors, etc.); b. include but is not limited to data from all edge devices in scope in this RFR situated at Initial Sites or Future Sites; c. be configured so as to notify ITD of specified configurations and events as part of policy enforcement efforts at site demarcation points (see Figure 4); d. leverage Simple Network Management Protocol (version 2 or 3) or a protocol that is equivalent or more capable that does not introduce security risks; e. support automatic discovery of devices and be capable of listing basic device details without an agent installed but must also support significantly more network detail when an edge device is equipped with an agent; f. must display trend information (hourly, daily, weekly and monthly views); g. have an uptime of 99%, 24x7x365 or better; h. be protected in a secure environment as per ITD policy as it will contain data classified at High Sensitivity under the ITD data classification policy;
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i. alert ITD of major alarms (indicating a service outage or service degradation) via email notification, accompanied by a Bidder ticket number when a relevant ticket is opened and when it is closed; and j. use encrypted tunnels (e.g. TLS 1.0 or newer) and follow ITD’s Access Control Policy and Standards access to the NSV from ITD locations. 4. The Winning Bidder shall use the NSV to produce a MassNet Network Health Report (“Health Report”), to be supplied to ITD (specifically to the MassNet Chief Network Architect) on a monthly basis. The Health Report must: a. consist of a summary of network node counts, summaries by connection type, average traffic volumes, traffic and protocol types, as well as all major network events, how they were resolved and the recommended steps to avoid future recurrences. b. be organized so that nodes or connections must be grouped (e.g. by Secretariat and/or by geographic region). c. be supplied in Word format with supporting data supplied separately in Excel format (for further analysis and archiving by ITD) in an agreed to list of fields and field formats. The NSV and/or the Winning Bidder must keep supporting data summarized in the report for at least one week after the report has been supplied to ITD. The existence of NSV (and the fact that ITD has access to it) does not relieve the Winning Bidder from performing any managed network services duties specified in this RFR, but is intended to equip ITD with a means to inform ITD’s customer base of network status and performance and for general network planning purposes. 5. Accessibility All end user interfaces to be accessed by Commonwealth state, county or local personnel (e.g., by ITD help desk personnel, ITD finance personnel, customers accessing audit reports or , monitoring dashboards, etc.), all training and training material and all documentation must comply with ITD’s Enterprise IT Accessibility Standards and Web accessibility standards, available at http://mass.gov/accessibility/ . With respect to such end user interfaces: a. The Bidder shall ensure that all services and deliverables delivered under the Agreement that will be used by the end users (e.g., help desk, trouble ticketing systems, online training, network management and billing tools, etc.) of MassNet adhere to the ITD Enterprise Information Technology Accessibility, and the ITD Web Accessibility Standard Version 2 (the “ITD Standards”) issued by ITD. For purposes of the Agreement, the Bidder must test against the ITD Standards and the Commonwealth’s AT/IT Environment List, available at www.mass.gov/accessibility. The ITD Standards may be modified from time to time, and the Bidder is responsible for compliance with the most current version in effect on the date that the Bidder executes the Agreement. b. Training i. The Winning Bidder shall coordinate with ITD in the identification of all prospective attendees at the Bidder training who require
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accommodation, and shall cooperate with ITD in its provision of such accommodation. c. Any documentation or training materials developed by Bidder must be in an agreed-upon, accessible and editable format. All documentation and training material (including without limitation technical and user documentation and any additional documentation or training material delivered by Bidder) must be accessible to users of assistive technology. Where such documentation or training materials specifies a mouse command, they must also include alternative keyboard commands.AT/IT Environment List i. A list of the specific Assistive Technology (AT) (including class, brand, and version) and specific desktop configuration against which the Bidder’s deliverables will be tested under the Agreement (the “AT/IT Environment List”) is available at http://www.mass.gov/Aitd/docs/accessibility/generic_atit_accessibility_list.doc. d. Software Development under the Agreement entered under this RFR i. Prior to commencing any design work under the Agreement entered under this RFR, the Winning Bidder’s Program Manager and design professionals shall meet with the ITD Program Manager to review the ITD Standards and the AT/IT Environment List, and to discuss their impact on the design process. ii. The Winning Bidder shall test every software deliverable under the Agreement entered under this RFR, including the custom code created to customize COTS (collectively, “Deliverables”), and any updates, new releases, versions, upgrades, improvements, bug fixes, patches, or other modifications to the software (“Enhancements”) developed under that Agreement, against the ITD Standards, and for interoperability with the AT and IT Environment listed in the AT/IT Environment list. At the time each such Deliverable or Enhancement is delivered to ITD, the Winning Bidder shall deliver to ITD the results of such testing. iii. In addition, the Winning Bidder shall cooperate with any Accessibility Testing Vendor engaged by ITD in the performance of testing. ITD and any Accessibility Testing Vendor engaged by ITD shall test each Deliverable or Enhancement against the ITD Standards, and for interoperability with the AT and the IT environment described in the AT/IT Environment List. iv. The Winning Bidder shall be responsible for curing each instance in which its Deliverables fail to comply with the ITD Standards. The Winning Bidder shall use best efforts to cooperate with ITD and any pertinent AT vendor to correct any problems identified during such testing with the interoperability of the Deliverables or Enhancements with the AT and the IT environment specified in the AT/IT Environment List.
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v. The Winning Bidder shall provide a credit against amounts due by ITD under the Agreement entered under this RFR for all testing, including repeat accessibility testing required with respect to Deliverables or Enhancements that fail initial testing with respect to the ITD Standards and are required by ITD to be retested in that regard. Such credits shall not exceed five (5) percent of the total fixed price due the Winning Bidder under such Agreement. e. COTS and SaaS Software i. The Winning Bidder shall conduct testing against the ITD Standards, and for interoperability with the AT and IT environment listed in the AT/IT Environment List, on all COTS and SaaS referenced in the Winning Bidder’s bid that must be acquired or used by ITD through another agreement (such as the Commonwealth’s statewide software reseller agreement) in order to implement the system to be delivered by the Winning Bidder under the Agreement entered under this RFR, and any Enhancements thereto or new versions thereof, prior to its delivery to ITD (collectively, COTS and SaaS). The Winning Bidder shall deliver to ITD the results of such testing with each delivery of COTS or SaaS Software. ii. The Accessibility Testing Vendor engaged by ITD shall test such software for accessibility against the ITD Standards, and for interoperability with the specific AT and the IT environment set forth in the AT/IT Environment List. iii. The Winning Bidder shall be responsible for curing each instance in which its Deliverables or Enhancements fail to comply with the ITD Standards. The Winning Bidder shall use best efforts to cooperate with ITD and any pertinent AT vendor to correct any problems identified during such testing with the interoperability of the Deliverables or Enhancements with the AT and the IT environment specified in the AT/IT Environment List. iv. The Winning Bidder shall provide a credit against amounts due by ITD under the Agreement entered under this RFR for all testing, including repeat accessibility testing required with respect to Deliverables or Enhancements that fail initial testing with respect to the ITD Standards and are required by ITD to be retested in that regard. Such credits shall not exceed five (5) percent of the total fixed price due the Winning Bidder under such Agreement, or the total not-to-exceed amount of the Agreement if entered under a time and materials basis. v. The Winning Bidder shall not deliver COTS or SaaS under the Agreement that fails to meet the ITD Standards unless it has documented i) that it has performed due diligence in seeking accessible alternative COTS or SaaS, offering equivalent features and functionality to the inaccessible COTS or SaaS, for which the Winning Bidder is or can readily become a licensed distributor; RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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and ii) the cost of developing substitute accessible software under the Agreement entered under this RFR. (Such documentation need not include reference to any specific competing COTS or SaaS and its level of accessibility.) COTS or SaaS delivered under the Agreement or under another contract with a state agency in connection with a system delivered under the Agreement that does not meet the ITD Standards shall be acceptable if the ITD Accessibility Director has issued a mitigation letter, to be included as a term of the Agreement, under which the Winning Bidder agrees to a roadmap for curing all known accessibility defects. f. Maintenance Agreements i. Any maintenance agreement entered into by the Winning Bidder and ITD in connection with the system delivered under the Agreement shall require the Winning Bidder to cooperate with ITD in its efforts to resolve interoperability problems that arise during the term of the maintenance agreement related to the use of such system with specific AT in a specific IT environment. g. VPATs i. Bidders shall submit with their Responses the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (“VPAT”) for each COTS or SaaS component that the Bidder proposes that will be used by end users to the extent that a VPAT is available to the Bidder. A sample VPAT is available, for the convenience of Bidders, at http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/2/3/c23bc250-5f804d0c-a29d-877355ff91e8/Office2000_VPAT.doc. 6. The Managed Network Services must meet the technical, administrative and physical security and privacy requirements that are imposed via contracts to which ITD is a party, including without limitation, (i) ITD’s agreements regarding data access with the Social Security Administration, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, all of which have been uploaded separately to Comm-PASS with this RFR, (ii) terms such as the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) PCI-DSS embedded in the Commonwealth’s credit card processing contract, and (iii) statutory and regulatory requirements such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), IRS Publication 1075, M.G.L. ch. 93H and 93I . The Services must also comply with the statutory and regulatory privacy and security framework to which ITD is subject, including MGL. ch. 93H and 93I, the Commonwealth’s Executive Order 504 and other applicable data privacy and security laws, including enabling agencies to comply with those set forth in Exhibits G (Privacy) and H (Security) which have been uploaded separately to Comm-PASS. 7. Bidder must require its personnel with administrative rights or who are physically on-site to execute any confidentiality and security agreements (or pledges) required by entities subject to statutory or contractual privacy or security requirements. The Commonwealth reserves the right to conduct a security RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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background check or otherwise approve any employee, Subcontractor or agent furnished by the Contractor and to refuse access to or require replacement of any personnel for cause based on, including but not limited to, professional, technical or training qualifications, quality of work or change in security status or noncompliance with the Eligible Entity’s security or other requirements. Such approval shall not relieve the Contractor of the obligation to perform all work in compliance with the Contract terms. Background/CORI check requirements The Commonwealth maintains strict building and property security requirements. This may require Contractors to obtain permission from the designated Eligible Entity representative prior to Contractor personnel attempting to access the site. The Bidder must provide personnel who will agree to all security requirements including, but not limited to, background checks and physical searches prior to entering or exiting Eligible Entity sites that require such. 8. Bidder will ensure that Commonwealth data or network traffic will not leave the continental United States. 9. The Winning Bidder must guarantee that all voice-related data and call tracking information, whether in transport or in storage, never leave the continental United States. Management of the VoIP Services is considered external to this RFR, except for QoS. 10. Diagnosis, mitigation and resolution of detected issues 11. Troubleshooting and maintenance of network systems 12. Network system support (install, test, maintain, monitor and tune) 13. Response to Tickets forwarded from ITD and/or from the Bidder’s own subcontractors and/or MBI and/or its representatives 14. Tracking “chronic” or recurring problems; implementing remediation; providing appropriate communications to ITD 15. Network Performance Monitoring 16. Network Performance Analysis (trend, analysis, performance monitoring and capacity planning) 17. Network Configuration Control and Management 18. Network Utilization Capacity Management 19. Network Utilization and Availability Report 20. Management and Administration of Network Monitoring Tools 21. Accurate documentation of equipment and configurations 22. Installation of network hardware and associated cabling 23. Provide quality assurance on all network installed equipment 24. Financial / Billing a) A consolidated billing process, including delivery of monthly invoices to the Commonwealth, inclusive of all monthly and ongoing charges, with appropriate supporting detail and documentation. b) In addition to detailed per-connection billing, the Bidder must summarize billing based on address, customer (tenant) at that address, geography, organization and service class. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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c) Where Voice Trunking is provisioned, separate billing for this service must be provided. 25. Demarcation Point and Service Boundaries Under any agreement entered under this RFR, Bidder will provide, manage and maintain the following Bidder or third party network services and equipment: a) point-of-interconnect (POI) b) Bidder or third party network facilities that enter ITD/EOHHS locations up to but not including ITD’s Campus Facilities c) Bidder and third party network telco room and demarc facilities. Under this RFR, Bidder will provide, manage and maintain the following CPE: d) MPLS routers and switches to be installed at Sites e) inside wire connecting MPLS routers and switches to patch panels f) all software, supporting the MPLS including that required to operate the servers, MPLS routers and switches, in accordance with the terms, conditions and specifications of any agreement entered under this RFR. All of the foregoing CPE components shall be provided, managed and maintained by Bidder as part of Bidder provided Managed Network Services under any agreement entered under this RFR. Bidder will also provide Tier 2 Services and Tier 3 Services to ITD edge devices, except in Campus Facilities. Bidder shall manage and maintain all Bidder provided services, equipment and facilities. 26. Improvements and New Technology. a. Continuous Improvement Obligations. Bidder will annually measure its service levels against industry standards, based on publicly available information readily available to Bidder in the ordinary course of its business, report the results of such measurement to ITD in writing on or about each anniversary date of the Execution Date, and, if applicable, enter negotiations with ITD in good faith to bring Bidder’s s service levels under any agreement entered under this RFR up to industry standards. In addition, Bidder will in good faith negotiate with ITD during the annual industry standards meeting any changes in services required by ITD as a result of its business needs. Any changes in Bidder’s services or service levels resulting from the activities described in this Section may be implemented as out of scope change orders at an additional cost to ITD. b. Refreshment; New Technology and Re-engineering; Goods or Services Expansion. All versions of hardware and software used by Bidder in connection with any agreement entered under this RFR shall be of sufficient currency to be eligible for
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maintenance and support by the Bidder that provides support for such hardware or software.
27. Payment And Invoicing a. Invoices: The Managed Network Services Fees will be paid on a rate basis. There will be no other charges to the Commonwealth for the infrastructure or the managed service. Notwithstanding the foregoing: 1. the Winning Bidder may charge fees for additional services other than those expressly referenced in this RFR, that are ordered by ITD or the Executive Branch Agencies and 2. Bidders must bid two different scenarios with respect to the discovery and initiation work to be completed under the statement of work: (a) folding the SOW costs into the Managed Network Services Fees Rate and (b) requiring ITD to pay the SOW costs separately at a fixed price.
Bidder will issue to ITD monthly per Site invoices for Managed Network Services provided by Bidder plus summary reports as requested by ITD. Bidder shall commence invoicing ITD for the Managed Network Services fee for each Site following the respective Go-Live Date. Bidder shall submit one invoice monthly to ITD for Managed Network Services broken down by Sites and summarized at the government entity-level, geographic-level and service-level. Bidder shall implement a mutually agreeable naming convention at the Site level that will enable Bidder to issue bills that will enable ITD to allocate portions thereof to different government entities. All Bidder invoices shall be provided in an agreed upon format, which shall include an electronic Excel breakdown, in electronic form and shall be delivered to ITD. For the duration of any agreement entered under this RFR, ITD shall have access to electronic copies of all invoices issued by Bidder hereunder.
b. Payment Once ITD accepts an invoice, payment will be made to Bidder within forty five (45) days from the receipt of a valid invoice or sooner if the bidder chooses a RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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prompt pay discount. ITD shall have the right to withhold payment on disputed portions of invoices until such disputes are resolved with Bidder. All invoices are subject to offset in the amount of any funds due from Bidder to ITD under any agreement entered under this RFR.
28. Audits a. Financial Audits Related to Billing. During the term of any agreement entered under this RFR, Bidder shall maintain complete and accurate books and records in support of all charges by Bidder to ITD in accordance with generally acceptable accounting practices and the requirements of section 7 of the Commonwealth’s Terms and Conditions. ITD shall have the right, subject to its obligation of confidentiality hereunder, to conduct a review of such records (“Audit”). The ITD and the Bidder shall schedule a mutually convenient time, during Bidder’s normal business hours, for such Audit which shall be conducted at the location of the records and shall not unreasonably interfere with the normal business operation of Bidder. Bidder shall provide reasonable cooperation to ITD in connection with any Audit and shall give ITD reasonable access to its premises for conducting such Audit. If any such Audit reveals an overcharge by Bidder greater than or equal to 5% of the applicable charges payable in connection with the Bidder services rendered to an individual agency during the relevant Audit period, Bidder will credit or pay ITD for the reasonable costs of such Audit such credit to be apportioned proportionately to the invoices otherwise due in connection with the group of agency sites who were over billed. b. Subcontractors. Bidder shall ensure that its written agreements with its subcontractors to provide services under any agreement entered under this RFR include the audit terms set forth in this section. c. FEE ADJUSTMENTS. To the extent that any audit of Bidder’s charges hereunder reveals any under billing or over billing, Bidder shall credit or pay ITD any overpayments, and ITD shall pay Bidder any underpayments, all such credits or payments to be made within sixty (60) days.
29. Insurance Requirements
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Bidder represents that it and all Bidder affiliates who will fulfill any of Bidder’s obligations under any agreement entered under this RFR will carry, and will continue to carry throughout the term of the Agreement and any extensions thereof, with commercially reasonable limits given the scope of the Agreement, commercial property, general liability, automobile, umbrella and workers’ compensation insurance, all of which name or otherwise clearly refer to the Commonwealth as payee and indemnitee. 30. Services Obligations a. Relationship Management. Bidder will provide ITD with complete configuration information for each managed device provided by the Bidder. b. Service Level Agreements. Bidder shall give ITD notice thirty (30) days prior to any amendment to the SLAs incorporated in this RFR or in the Agreement entered hereunder. Such notice shall be delivered according to the notice provisions of the Agreement. In the event of any amendment resulting in a material reduction of the SLA’s service levels or credits, ITD may terminate the Service without penalty by providing Bidder written notice of termination during the thirty (30) days following ITD’s notice of such amendment. If ITD chooses to so terminate the Service, Bidder will disconnect the Service within sixty (60) days of its receipt of ITD’s notice of termination. Should ITD choose not to terminate any agreement entered under this RFR, amendments to the Service Level Agreements resulting in material reductions in the service levels or credits referenced therein shall entitle ITD to a price reduction, the size of which shall be negotiated by the ITD and the Bidder. For purposes of this section a “material reduction of the SLA’s service levels or credits” shall be any substantive reduction to service levels or credits referenced in any agreement entered under this RFR. Bidder will support the edge devices existing on the Commonwealth’s premises between the circuit connection and any of the data applications as of the Execution Date, as well as new edge devices introduced by ITD during the term of any agreement entered under this RFR. Bidder will advise ITD of any required configuration changes or hardware upgrades necessary for it to meet its SLAs with a given configuration of the edge devices. Unless ITD makes such required configuration changes or hardware upgrades identified by Bidder, Bidder shall be excused from meeting the relevant SLAs. ITD will, prior to installing any new edge devices, provide Bidder with information about the new edge devices to be installed at least thirty (30) days prior to the installation.
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c. Equipment Bidder shall maintain a stock of equipment from which it can draw down on a timely basis to meet its service obligations under any agreement entered under this RFR. No Gray Market Equipment shall be provisioned by Bidder under any agreement entered under this RFR. ITD’s legacy WAN edge routers and switches are based on Cisco systems; Bidders are restricted to offering Cisco equipment on Sites. All CPE procured by Bidder for the purpose of supporting its obligations under any agreement entered under this RFR for MPLS Managed Services shall be OEM certified equipment. d. Maintenance, Management and Support. Bidder will provide intrusion detection on the Bidder’s network. ITD may disconnect Bidder’s services or permit others to disconnect them without the prior consent of Bidder upon notice to Bidder (except in emergency circumstances) whenever ITD deems necessary because of circumstances beyond ITD’s control, including Bidder’s release of viruses or other malicious code into ITD’s Wide Area Network, MAGNet, or other acts or omissions of Bidder that could result in MAGNet network blockages, or degradation of MAGNet service furnished by ITD to its customers. e. Reporting. Bidder will provide ITD at a minimum with (1) service order reports showing Bidder compliance with the service levels agreed to by Bidder under any agreement entered under this RFR, (the “SLAs”), and exceptions to such SLAs; (2) mapping of SLAs to updates in problem resolution, to support tracking SLAs; (3) trouble reporting for incidents that are Commonwealthinitiated such as cyber-attacks; (4) integrated reporting to enterprise class capability across Bidder; (5) monthly incident only views; (6) SLAs and reporting, including QoS statistics, must separate Voice, Video, Network and Internet services (7) integrated rollup to SLAs; (8) real time integration of monitoring tools; (9) root cause analysis for outages lasting more than five (5) minutes; (10) root cause analysis for problems with latency that exceed 3 hours in duration; and (11) a report listing QoS statistics Reports will in a format to be determined by the Bidder in conjunction with (and agreed to by) ITD.
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31. Security a. Managed Security Services Bidder shall provide managed security services for the Managed Network Services. b. HIPAA and other Data Privacy and Security Requirements. i. Individually Identifiable Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information. Bidder acknowledges that: (1) the certain entities in the Initial Sites have obligations to protect the confidentiality of individually identifiable health information of individuals and other highly sensitive information under applicable federal and state statutes and regulations (“Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information”) and contracts and (2) certain entities in the Initial Sites may transmit Health Information and other highly sensitive over facilities provided by Bidder pursuant to any agreement entered under this RFR . Without diminishing the force or effect of any of the foregoing acknowledgments, the ITD and the Bidder agree take the actions to protect the confidentiality of Health Information and other highly sensitive information set forth in this item 31(b). ii. Personnel Security Measures. Bidder agrees to instruct its personnel to take reasonable measures to avoid gaining access to or viewing Health Information and other highly sensitive information. Such measures may include, but not be limited to, explaining the definition and confidential nature of Health Information and other highly sensitive information to Bidder personnel using training materials supplied by ITD, instructing Bidder personnel not to enter any locations at the or the Sites except as directed by ITD personnel, and instructing Bidder personnel not to review or seek access to Health Information or other highly sensitive information at the Sites. If, despite these measures, Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information is inadvertently disclosed or revealed to Bidder personnel, Bidder agrees to take the following steps: Bidder shall instruct Bidder personnel who may be exposed to Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information that RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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they may not copy, use, sell, lease, assign or transfer such Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information in any manner, that they must immediately return such Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information to ITD personnel if the Bidder personnel discover their possession of Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information while they are located at an Site, and that they must immediately destroy any such Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information that they discover to be in their possession when not located at a Site.
c. Data Security Measures. In the ordinary course of its business, Bidder shall conduct network security monitoring and investigation activities to prevent, respond to, or otherwise address threats to Bidder’s network including without limitation unauthorized access to or use of Bidder’s network devices, and to protect the confidentiality and integrity of confidential information that resides on Bidder's internal business systems. If, during the course of these activities, Bidder learns of an incident that Bidder determines may have resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of ITD’s confidential information, including (without limitation) Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information, Bidder will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly notify ITD and assist ITD in investigating and assessing the extent and nature of the unauthorized disclosure. Bidder Access to and use of badges, IDs, access passes, passwords, SecureID tokens, soft tokens and the like (collectively “Security Access Devices”) which permit access to ITD’s facilities and systems will be provided only to authorized Bidder personnel needing such access for performance of Bidder’s obligations under any agreement entered under this RFR, and that Bidder shall comply with applicable ITD procedures regarding the use of such Security Access Devices. d. Security Surveys. ITD shall create a Security Survey for Bidder to fill out within thirty (30) days of entering an agreement under this RFR. Upon request Bidder will provide ITD with updated responses to these questions. Such information shall be redacted to exclude information specific to or identifying another customer, information relating to national security or law enforcement matters, and other sensitive information. e. Annual Review.
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Bidder shall participate with ITD in an annual review of security issues related to the provision of Managed Network Services and shall develop with ITD a project plan for remedying any substantive security problems identified during such review, subject to change control processes agreed to by Bidder and ITD. f. ITD Security Policies. Bidder’s shall comply with the Mandatory Provisions of the ITD security policies that had been issued as of the date that Bidder filed its Response to this RFR, and with security policies adopted by ITD thereafter up to and including the date on which any agreement entered under this RFR is executed, including, without limitation, the following ITD Security Policies: (1) the Cybercrime Security Incident Policy; (2) the Enterprise Access Control Policy; and (3) the Enterprise Information Security Policy;. Copies of these documents are available online at http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-andtech/cyber-security/security-for-state-employees/security-policies-andstandards/ .
g. Certification. Bidder shall require appropriate, industry standard certification for individuals providing services for Managed Network Service under this RFR (e.g., for MPLS Network Services, Cisco CCIE, CISSP, Avaya ACIS, ACSE, Voice, Security etc.). 32. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Services. Bidder shall provide Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Services. Bidder will develop with ITD a business continuity/disaster recovery plan that will include at a minimum prioritization of circuit and system recovery, a definition of recovery time objectives, and recovery point objectives for Bidder managed infrastructure, identification of Bidder emergency response teams and procedures for ITD’s interaction with such teams during an incident. 33. Security and Other Updates. Bidder shall maintain all hardware and software delivered or relied upon in delivering services under any agreement entered under this RFR per their vendor’s requirements. Specifically, Bidder shall routinely update such hardware and software with the latest patches and bug fixes available from their respective vendors within the timeframe suggested by such vendors.
A.
ADDRESSES.
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Bidder shall not make changes to the current IP addressing schema currently used by ITD for the Data portion of the network. B.
PROXIES. Bidder will not implement any proxy servers in connection with any agreement entered under this RFR without prior written approval from ITD.
C.
PEER TO PEER FILE SHARING. Bidder shall implement safeguards designed to prevent any peerto-peer file sharing over the MPLS Network except for agency business use.
D.
GENERAL. Bidder shall specifically identify to ITD in writing all ports and lock down all ports; secure the MPLS Network against attacks, including (without limitation) unauthorized intrusion, DNS, replay attacks and man in the middle attacks.
34. Termination And Transition Prior to the expiration or termination of any agreement entered under this RFR, the Bidder shall provide reasonable transition assistance to ITD. ITD will at all times during the term of any agreement entered under this RFR have access to a Bidder-maintained portal at which it can review a database of the model and serial number of all devices under Bidder management under any agreement entered under this RFR. The Bidder NOC will work with the Bidder account team and ITD, using ITD’s standard change management process, to coordinate removing configurations and server agents used explicitly for management by Bidder, change device passwords/account credentials as directed by ITD, and support a live hand-off (Bidder engineer to ITD or new ITD vendor engineer) of management responsibility for the Managed Network Services. The transition from Bidder management to ITD management will be conducted in a phased manner to be agreed upon by the ITD and the Bidder. Upon termination of any agreement entered under this RFR for any reason, Bidder shall not unreasonably withhold assistance to the Commonwealth in the transition of its receipt of services to a third party. Upon the dissolution, failure, conversion, bankruptcy or receivership of Bidder, the Commonwealth shall be entitled to retain all of its rights under any agreement entered under this RFR.
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Should any agreement entered under this RFR be terminated by Bidder for any reason, the Commonwealth shall have the right require the Bidder to continue to provide the Managed Network Services under the terms of any agreement entered under this RFR for a reasonable period of time, up to a maximum of one hundred and eighty (180) days, to enable it to seek an alternate network services arrangement with a third party.
35. Changes in Scope/Additional Responsibilities ITD shall have the option at its sole discretion to modify, increase, reduce or terminate any activity related to any Agreement entered into under this RFR whenever, in the judgment of ITD, the goals of the RFR have been modified or altered in a way that necessitates such changes. 5.1 WHOLESALE CONNECTIONS AND RELATED SERVICES Bidder’s responsibilities with respect to Wholesale Connections and Related Services include: 1. Provision of and management of WAN bandwidth services (wholesale broadband network services); including a range from 5 mbps Broadband services to 10 Gbps interconnect 2. Wavelength and “IOS or similar interface” services connecting POIs and sites in the Initial Sites (e.g., CAIs) 3. Gateways, including Boston and Chelsea area Gateways for ITD and/or customers to interface with the network 4. Lit and dark fiber lease services WAN Service Management; Performance Management WAN Service Management 1. The Bidder shall interface with ITD Network Operations to provide the Managed Network Services, including without limitation the following WAN support services: a. Installing, troubleshooting and repairing – or facilitating the installation, troubleshooting and repair of – communication lines, data circuits and associated equipment, and other network infrastructure, as required b. Configure, maintain and troubleshoot WAN performance c. Continuously identify potential network problems and report outages with corrective actions d. Coordinate with Commonwealth sites to recover and restore WAN connectivity in case of an outage and communicate to ITD management RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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e. Perform diagnostic testing among WAN components to verify performance and connectivity f. Install, configure and maintain routers per established policies and procedures as required or directed g. Develop and perform Communications Plan h. Effectively represent all network status and activities to ITD i. Open and manage trouble tickets and/or coordinate and communicate with other network service providers as required. The Commonwealth currently uses COMiT as the ticket system, built on the IBM Tivoli Service Desk solution. j. Report promptly on and provide frequent updates on investigations of and final conclusions with respect to all incidents Performance Management: The Managed Network Services shall include: 1. Management of the layers of the Network Layer Model as shown in Figure 1. 2. Strategy and approach to Commonwealth’s networks and security, regarding separate Operation Centers for Network Operations (NOC) and Security Operations (SOC) 3. Pro-active management of quality of service (QoS) to provide a strategy for 24/7/365 uninterrupted network access and functionality 4. Fault detection, isolation, diagnosis, remediation, and communication to ITD management 5. Fault tolerant, redundant architecture 6. Periodic, scheduled reporting of usage, traffic analysis, network utilization, service levels, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and other reports to provide guidance to ITD of Bidder performance management 7. Managed Network Services governance, including monthly/quarterly status reviews and emergency problem resolution work flows. 8. Management of third party maintenance agreements and spare parts strategy 9. Management of issues using electronic, enterprise level trouble ticketing systems; including customer access and visibility and integration with other systems (e.g. Tivoli, Solarwinds, HP Openview) 10. The ability to support the ongoing integration of VoIP and Video Conferencing “applications”, from a network perspective. 11. Maintenance of equipment release levels, i.e., “hardware equipment refreshing” or “software release upgrade” management; with no impact on network availability or downtime. 12. Prevention of network down time for release updates, equipment maintenance, and other network activities 13. Management of hardware/software maintenance contracts; including equipment sparing, SLAs, and prevention of downtime
5.2 MANAGEMENT OF PROVIDERS OF WHOLESALE CONNECTIONS RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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The Winning Bidder’s responsibilities with respect to Management of Providers of Wholesale Connections include: 1. Management of wholesale connections either supplied by 3rd parties, e.g. Axia in western MA, or supplied by 3rd parties partnering with Bidder, or wholesale connections provided by Bidder 2. Manage business relationship with provider of wholesale connections 3. Manage different service subscriptions provided, by location e.g. Broadband 5Mbps versus Ethernet 100Mbps 4. Extract billing records and provide summary and detail level for all aggregated Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) enabled connections 5. Capacity Planning - the Managed Network Services shall include: a) Continuous monitoring of network volume and usage performance b) Pro-active recommendations for network improvement in service, as well as capacity requirements c) Procurement and implementation of capacity expansion requirements d) Network congestion issues and mitigation e) Resolution of network outages, bandwidth shortages, and spikes in service demand 6. Configuration Management - the Managed Network Services shall include: a) Strict, disciplined change management process, including identification, service and cost quotes, procurement, and installation b) Management of Commonwealth orders and change requests c) Timely resolution of Change Requests d) Performance metrics to support change requests
7. Procurement and Installation - the Managed Network Services shall include: a) Collaboration with ITD procurement teams in connection with their exercise of the Commonwealth procurement process, including providing quotes, proposals, alternatives, that comply with ITD practice and policy b) Collaboration with ITD teams in connection with the acquisition, installation, and integration of network changes in equipment, software, or other related network improvements. 8.
Geographic Limit on Data Transmission and Storage - the Managed Network Services shall include assurances and guarantees that data transported over the network remains within the continental United States, both in transit and at rest.
9. Security - the Managed Network Services shall include:
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a) Development and adherence to a comprehensive network security architecture and infrastructure b) Security monitoring and firewall services intrusion detection systems, and intrusion prevention systems to protect from unauthorized access and use of network assets c) Prevention of unauthorized access, malware infection, and inappropriate use of confidential data d) Separation of Bidder’s private network, other Bidder managed networks and the Commonwealth network e) Secure and maintain appropriate network certifications and industry best practice compliance standards
10. Current Service Levels And Service Level Agreements The current service levels provided by PAETEC/Windstream, Verizon and MBI have been separately uploaded to Comm-PASS with this RFR as Exhibits D, E and F respectively; the service levels for ITT46 are available online on CommPASS at the pages for those statewide contracts. Collectively, the service levels are the baseline service levels for the Managed Network Services (the “MPLS Service Levels”). Where there is a conflict between a service level from Windstream, Verizon MBI or the statewide contracts, the service level most beneficial to the Commonwealth is the baseline service level required as one of the MPLS Service Levels under this RFR; Bidders should attempt to offer higher service levels. Outlined in this RFR Section is a framework for a detailed minimum Service Level Agreement to be developed, and agreed upon, with the Bidder based on the Service Levels.
The following table is a selected list of minimum service levels. The Bidder must review the SLAs attached to this RFR for the ITD MBI Sites, Verizon Sites and Windstream Sites and bid service levels that are at least equal to the most superior of the service levels in each such SLA and in the following table. Furthermore, the current service levels received by the Commonwealth under Exhibit E, the Verizon Agreement, are a combination of service levels for Verizon’s MPLS and VoIP services. The Winning Bidder, who may provide MPLS network services for the Verizon Sites, must collaborate with Verizon to ensure that EOHHS receives at least the same combined service levels (MPLS plus VoIP) for its VoIP and MPLS services at the Verizon Sites as it does today while receiving Managed MPLS Network Services under the Verizon Agreement.
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Service
Service Level
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Description
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Service Network Intersite Availability
Service Level Core: 99.999% uptime. Connections (2 types): a. Enterprise (2 grades) (99.9% or 99.99%) and b. Broadband (99% uptime. All uptime figures are to be measured 24x7x365 Maximum SIP Trunking blocked or failed call percentage cannot exceed 1% (blocked plus failed call attempts added together and divided by all call attempts) during the busiest hour of the year Maximum SIP call blocking percentage (e.g. at CAI locations) over MPLS connections cannot exceed 2% (blocked plus failed call attempts added together and divided by all call attempts) during the busiest hour of the year.
Latency
50 ms
Monitoring
24x7x365
Outage Notification Onsite Arrival
Within 15 minutes
Description Network Core must be available 99.999% of the time. Network connections (e.g. as measured from CAI sites to Core nodes) must be available in two service types also with grade selectable by site: 99.9% (regular) or 99.99% (high availability) Broadband connection type must deliver 98% of the advertised speed during the busiest hour of each year. For busy hour percentage measurements on connections in service for less than one year, monthly or weekly busy hour measurements can be used until annualized statistics are available Reports much contain all measurements cited in this SLA. Roundtrip delay times between any two locations in MA Monitoring at site and circuit levels
Critical: 4 Hours High: 4 Hours Med: 6 Hours Low: as needed
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Service Maximum Repair Time
Change Requests – no site visit required Remedies
Service Level Critical: 4 Hours High: 6 Hours Med: Next business day Low: as needed 2 Business Days
Description
Network Intersite Availability: 1/30 MRC per hour of downtime
Credits to increase as amount of time increases for lack of network availability
Time To Arrival (TTA) onsite: 2% of Monthly Recurring Charges (MRC) (2-4 hrs.) 4% of MRC (> 4 hours) Max time to repair: 5% of MRC Latency: (1) day MRC credit if latency exceeds 50 ms, reported by Commonwealth 50% credit of NRC install fee if device not installed within 45 business days 5% MRC for site if TTR is > 6 hours 10% MRC per site for failure to report > 15 minutes
Priority Levels Level Critical RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
98% of Sample traffic to be used as criteria
Description Network at one or more sites is completely unavailable Page 41
High Medium Low
Network at one or more sites is not available and is adversely affecting daily business requirements Network performance is impaired; non critical business functionality may not be available; Network performance has been affected, but all business functionality is available
Table 2: Service Level Agreement 5.3 MANAGED MPLS NETWORK SERVICES Managed MPLS Network Services include managing the assets and services associated with the electronic transport of data, across the Commonwealth infrastructure, and/or external third ITD and the Bidder, at least the service levels set forth in this RFR Section 5.12. The Bidder shall deliver the Managed MPLS Network Services, which will consisting of, but not be limited to: 1. Management and responsibility for all MPLS cloud infrastructure network equipment 2. Quality of Service (QoS) for all enterprise applications 3. Virtual Private Network (VPN) memberships support and services 4. Management to agreed Service Level Agreements (SLA) 5. Demarcation at the Managed Services Provider Router(s) 6. Intrusion Detection and other security measures in the MPLS cloud (not a replacement for ITD’s network firewalls) 7. Management and responsibility for all MPLS cloud infrastructure network equipment 8. Performance testing and monitoring to insure reliability and growth capacity 9. Maintenance of current release levels for MPLS network hardware and software and edge routers 10. Service strategy, service operation and continual service improvement aligned with ITD methodology 11. Single administrative interface for coordination of trouble tickets 12. Single point of contact 13. Capacity Planning 14. Service monitoring with reports pro-actively and regularly provided to ITD operational management 15. Cloud connectivity (to ITD private cloud installations at SDC/MITC or to external public cloud services)
5.4 PROVIDING FIELD SERVICES 1.
Edge Device Managed Services
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2. 3.
6
Tier 2 Service Tier 3 Service
EXCLUSIONS
The following services are excluded from this RFR: 1. ITD will continue to manage its own firewalls; Bidders’ responses must not include management of ITD’s firewalls as part of the Managed MPLS Network Services. 2. The ITD Campus Facilities are excluded from the services provided under this RFR except for Wholesale Connection edge devices (aka WAN Edge Device as per Figure 3). 3. VPN Services. 4. ITD will provide Tier 1 Service to all edge devices at both the Remote Sites and at ITD’s Campus Facilities.
7
CONTRACT DURATION
The initial term of this Contract is five (5) year(s). In addition, this Contract has options to renew, in at least one (1) year increments, out through the maximum period permitted by the respective RFR, which is approximately 9/30/2019 for contracts entered under ITT46 2. 8
ORDER OF PRECEDENCE
The contract resulting from this RFR shall consist of the following documents in the following order of precedence: (1) the Commonwealth’s Terms and Conditions; (2) the Commonwealth’s Standard Contract Form; (3) this RFR ; (4) the Bidder’s response hereto response hereto, inclusive of all attachments and modifications subsequent to negotiations between the ITD and the Bidder, including without limitation any Statement of Work or other agreement negotiated by the ITD and the Bidder.
(5) if the Bidder is on statewide contracts ITS43 or ITS46, the RFR for such contract;;
2
Section 1.7 of RFR ITT46 allows contracts to run “one (1) year beyond the final termination date of this Statewide Contract.” The 9/30/2020 date is assumes all ITT46 renewals are exercised to reach the ITT46 maximum end date of 09/30/2019.
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(6) the Bidder’s response thereto, inclusive of all attachments and modifications subsequent to negotiations between the OSD and the Bidder, including without limitation any Statement of Work or other agreement negotiated by the ITD and the Bidder. 9
EVENT CALENDAR All times in this RFR are prevailing Eastern Time. All dates may change and are not binding on ITD. ITD reserves the right to modify these dates and times at any time, with appropriate notice to prospective vendors via the Comm-PASS website.
Table 1: Event Calendar CALENDAR EVENT RFR Post to Comm-PASS Forum: Start date for Bidders to submit written questions to the Comm-PASS forum (“QA Start”) Forum: Deadline for submission of written questions (“QA End”) Answers Posted to Forum (Estimated) RFR Responses Due Oral Presentations for Selected Bidder(s) (Estimated)
DATE December 24, 2013 December 24, 2013
TIME 5:00 PM
January 17, 2014
5:00 PM
January 31, 2014 March 14, 2014 Bidders will be notified individually and be given at least 2 business days’ notice if Oral Presentations are required.
5:00 PM 5:00 PM
Table 3: RFR Information RFR Name: RFR Number: Purchasing Department:
Managed Network Services 14-06 ITD
10 WRITTEN QUESTIONS The Bidders’ Forum or Online Forum is the opportunity for Bidders to ask written questions and receive written answers from the ITD Procurement Management team (PMT) regarding this RFR. All Bidders’ questions must be submitted through the Bidders’ Forum found on Comm-PASS (See “Locating an Online Bidders’ Forum,” below). Questions may be asked only between the “QA Start” and “QA End” dates, when the “Ask a Question” link (located in the right-hand corner above the Forum’s “Question/Answer” tab) is available. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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Please note that any questions submitted to the PMT using any other medium (including those that are sent by mail, fax, email or voicemail, etc.) will not be answered. To reduce the number of redundant or duplicate questions, Bidders are asked to review all questions previously submitted to determine whether the Bidder’s question has already been posted. Bidders are responsible for entering content suitable for public viewing, since all of the questions are immediately accessible to the public. Bidders must not include any information that could be considered personal, security sensitive, inflammatory, incorrect, collusive, or otherwise objectionable, including information about the Bidder’s company or other companies. The PMT reserves the right to edit or delete any submitted questions that raise any of these issues or that are not in the best interest of the Commonwealth or this RFR. Only written response(s) posted on a Bidders’ Forum which has been “finalized” will be binding on the Commonwealth. The last entry in a Forum’s Summary tab indicates whether answers are final. Locating an Online Bidders’ Forum • Go to www.comm-pass.com. • Select the “FORUMS” tab from the main navigation bar. The “Forums” tab is separate from the “Solicitations” tab. You cannot link to a forum directly from the solicitation view but must search for it on the “Forums” tab. • • • • •
Select the “Search for Bidders’ forum” link. Enter the Document Number appearing on the front of this document in the “Referenced Solicitation Number” field. Select the “Search” Button. Select the search results link appearing at the top of the Search page. Select the view icon (eyeglasses) to access the Forum. There may be more than one Bidders’ Forum for a RFR.
11 ORAL PRESENTATIONS In its discretion, ITD may request that the top two (2) scoring Bidders participate in Oral Presentations at the Bidders’ cost and expenses (including any travel costs and expenses). Selected Bidders who are asked to participate in Oral Presentations will be expected to prioritize this in their schedules. The PMT will make every effort to find a mutually convenient time for the Bidder and the PMT. However, failure to appear at the scheduled time of the presentation may result in disqualification, reduction of points or other action that the PMT deems appropriate. ITD will re-score the responses of the top two (2) Bidders after the Oral Presentations. 12 SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
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HOW TO SUBMIT A BID RESPONSE All Bidders may begin creating and compiling response materials as soon as the Solicitation containing files on the Forms & Terms tab and the Specifications tab is in an OPEN Document Status. When submitting response materials prior to the Solicitation Close Date, the ability to upload documents is only available to active SmartBid account holders after the Solicitation Amendment Deadline has passed. Once the Solicitation Close Date and Time has passed, interested Bidders will be unable to submit a Response online. Bid Response Method Online Bid Submission via SmartBid is required to eliminate direct and indirect costs associated with the production, delivery/receipt, storage and management of traditional paper bids incurred by Bidders, ITD, OSD, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Bids submitted via the SmartBid tools also promote environmental conservation and preservation by eliminating printed materials as well as fossil-fuel consumption associated with delivery. All Bidders must submit Responses online using tools available to Comm-PASS SmartBid Subscribers only. Comm-PASS SmartBid requires an annual subscription. To subscribe, go to www.commpass.com. Complete the SmartBid subscription process by selecting the JOIN tab from the main navigation bar to review subscription benefits, and create a custom account. All Bidders who are awarded a contract resulting from this RFR, if any, will be required to maintain an active subscription account during the duration of the Contract, by renewing their subscription annually. SmartBid Support Technical assistance is available during the procurement process. Every effort is made to respond to inquiries within one business day. Website: Go to www.mass.gov/osd and select the Comm-PASS Resource Center link offered within the Conduct a Procurement menu. Email: Send inquiries to the Comm-PASS Helpdesk at
[email protected] Telephone: Call the Comm-PASS Helpline at 1-888-MA-STATE (1-888-627-8283). The Helpline is staffed from 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday Eastern Standard or Daylight time, as applicable, except on federal, state and Suffolk county holidays. Bidders are advised that Comm-PASS will be unavailable during regularly scheduled maintenance hours as displayed under the “Comm-PASS System Availability” link offered at the bottom of any Comm-PASS page. Bid Response Deadline All Bids must be received by ITD before the specified date, month, year and time displayed on the “Solicitation: Close Date / Submission Deadline” set forth in Section 9. Times are Eastern Standard/Daylight Savings (US), as applicable. All Bidders are advised to allow adequate time for submission by considering potential online submission impediments like Internet traffic, Internet connection speed, file size, and file volume. ITD is not responsible for delays encountered by Bidders or their agents, or for a Bidder’s local hardware failures, such as computers or related networks, associated with bid compilation or submission. Bids submitted RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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via SmartBid are time stamped by the Comm-PASS system clock which is considered the official time of record. Bid Package Bidders submitting via SmartBid must name their Response by entering “[Bidder Name] - RFR 14-06 Managed Network Services ” in the Response Nicckname field in Step 3 of the submission wizard. Bid Response Contents. Interested Bidders must submit one (1) electronic copy of the response to the RFR via SmartBid. The electronic copy should be both in PDF format and in the format provided (e.g., MS Word, MS Excel, etc.). The PDF version of the electronic copy must include copies of signed documents in accordance with Section 13. The response must be sent via SmartBid. If any files that are a required part of a response were supplied or requested in a format that was not MS Word format (e.g., it was supplied or requested in MS Excel format), such files should be returned using the same format as they were supplied or requested (e.g., MS Excel). Hardcopy responses may not be submitted. If Bidder is awarded a position on this Contract, ITD will contact Bidder for original signatures in accordance with Section 13. Deadline for Responses – Responses must be received no later than the date and time listed in the Estimated Procurement Calendar set forth in Section 9 of this RFR and MUST be submitted via SmartBid.
13 BIDDER RESPONSES Bidders’ responses must include, at a minimum, the following: 1. 2.
3.
A signed cover letter in which the Bidder states that it agrees to the terms of this RFR. A description of three current managed Network Services customers. Provide name and contact information of at least one person at each of the three (3) customer entities who can discuss in detail with ITD the service performed by the Bidder. References must be submitted in the format required by OSD’s Business Reference Form, available at http://www.mass.gov/anf/docs/osd/forms/busreffm.doc The Bidder’s business and technical response, detailing the Bidder’s affirmative agreement to engage in the tasks and deliver the deliverables required under Section 5 of this RFR, as well as any proposed additions to the Section 5 tasks or deliverables required in connection with the Bidder’s proposed approach. The
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business and technical response must not include any cost information. The business and technical response must include a point by point response to section 5 section, and fully describing the Bidder’s approach to meeting each of the requirements outlined in section 5, in as much detail as possible, and in addition must include: a. A complete list of supported platforms and devices b. Description of training available for ITD personnel (e.g., helpdesk staff, finance staff, etc.) c. Documentation of the bidder’s security policy and procedures for Network Managed customers, and corporate security policy documentation; d. A detailed project plan outlining the steps required to implement the Managed Services. e. Documented escalation procedures for each agency or Commonwealth entity. f. A detailed list of other vendor-provided network managed related services. These services would be above and beyond the standard services offered g. A completed SOW in editable, unprotected MS Word format, in the form included with the RFR that includes, in detail, the tasks and deliverables needed to perform discovery, design, install and start-up of the Services, which map back to the requirement numbers from Section 5. All Bidders are required to complete the Statement of Work (SOW), which has been uploaded separately to Comm-PASS. The Bidder’s version of the SOW must: 1. Be task order based 2. Reference deliverables such as a project plan and design 3. Be broken down into Phases 1 through 3 (Phase 1 Discovery and Approach Validation; Phase 2 Pilot; Phase 3 Rollout) 4. Phase 1 Discovery must include a site survey and the development of a gap analysis between existing equipment and services and those required for the MassNet “to be” state. h. Include a commitment to perform tasks to provide supporting documentation for any site work done including but not limited to: at least 3 high resolution electronic photographs (before, after of wall/rack space in question plus pertinent detail), changes to floor plan for equipment room and connection in question, logical technical drawings and changes), and a Site Visit Report Summary (filed electronically using a template to be developed and sent via email to an address to be provided). i. The timeframe for delivery of the services once a purchase order is issued. j. A list of any third party software or hardware required by ITD to interface with the managed service (it is ITD’s expectation that there should be no or extremely limited third party software or hardware required that is not provided by the bidder as part of the managed service). i. The organizational structure of the Bidder’s customer service team, including the names and roles of Bidder personnel who will perform the services.
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k. Copies of resumes of all Bidder personnel who will perform the services (if specific individuals are not known, representative resumes for roles are permissible, but specific individuals will need to be identified in the SOW). l. A statement as to whether the Bidder has conducted and, if applicable, passed industry standard audits, including without limitation external, third-party audits relating to PCI-DSS, HIPAA, IRS Pub. 1075, FISMA, SAS 70 Type II, and make the results available to ITD. m. An unlocked, editable copy submitted in MS Word format of any relevant managed services agreement, service level agreement, warranties; software licenses (if applicable); software maintenance agreements (if applicable); maintenance and technical support descriptions for any available levels of maintenance and support (e.g., silver, gold, platinum, etc.), including detailed service levels and response times for incidents of varying levels of severity; and any other boilerplate forms related to the procurement of the Bidder’s proposal. Note that the service levels proposed by the Bidder must be at a minimum industry standard, be offered 24 x 7 x 365, and meet or exceed the Service Levels. n. Editable, unprotected MS Word copies of any terms or conditions that the Winning Bidder would require the Commonwealth to sign. o. A list of any assumptions made by the Bidder in submitting their bid p. A table of key personnel names and titles related to the implementation of the SOW. q. An organizational table related to the provision of ongoing managed services, including the Customer Service Team and the titles and certifications of all key personnel. The Commonwealth reserves the right to interview the Customer Service Team leads for all, none, or some of the Bidders. r. A copy of the Bidder’s business continuity and disaster recovery plans s. Bidder Experience and Service Capability: Bidder proposals must clearly identify relevant Vendor experience and depth of service capability for all Managed Network Services. Responses should include, but not be limited to: i. Identify your depth of industry certifications such as ITIL, ISO 20,000, and/or CMMI, CCIE/Voice, CCIE/Security, CCIE/Routing, Avaya ACIS, ACSE ii. Describe your experiences in providing Managed Network Services for Government (i.e. municipal, state, federal) networks iii. Management experience with a hybrid mix of physical circuits combined with additional privately-owned circuits (for example, privately-held IRUs, dark fiber, etc.). iv. The number of network staff (on board today) with experience with the type of Cisco and Ciena Network equipment deployed in the Initial Sites (and the Future Sites). Detail their specific certifications - Cisco CCIE, CISSP, Voice, Security etc. and years’ experience for each staff member. v. Your experience working with multiple network service providers in the scenario where one vendor is managing the transport and physical
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layers of the network model and another vendor is managing the remaining layers (for example, IP, VOIP, etc.) of the network model. vi. List any industry standard services you would recommend for the Commonwealth. vii. List any implications of an organization’s ability to respond with the concept of a layered approach to network services as described. t. Timetable - Discovery, Transition, Cutover i. Outline the “transition model” for network management between existing management organizations and a Managed Network Services provider, from development of the Statement of Work (SOW) through Cutover. ii. Describe your plans in support of keeping a network “operational” during a proposed network transition. What technologies and best practices will you follow to minimize downtime while providing for faster transitions to managed services? iii. Estimate the timeframe for the periods of Discovery, Transition, and Cutover iv. Describe your project management approach and process for a successful implementation v. Define the roles and responsibilities in the ongoing management and operations of the WAN network between Vendor and existing ITD Network team. u. Confirm the compatibility of the Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38) offered by the Bidder, with the following: 1. PSTN connection 2. Long distance and International 3. Fax 4. E911/NG911 5. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) 6. Local calling 7. Class of service 8. Provisioning of DID’s 9. Caller ID 10. Voice trunking to PRI/Analog failover 11. Compression/codecs 12. Application performance management 13. Portals (management, reporting, admin) 14. Auto call redirect on route 15. PBX interoperability (certification and interoperability, e.g. with Avaya); interoperability with other call processing equipment, e.g. Cisco Call Manager) 16. Another provider’s MPLS cloud solution 17. Call center treatment over SIP
4.
A cost response which includes:
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a. Four different versions of Attachment A, based on the four variations set forth therein. Each version of Attachment A must include all costs for Managed Network Services for the Initial Sites. This part of the response must: i. Describe how pricing was calculated. ii. Quote pricing using two methods: (a) a managed network service fee that subsumes the cost of the Statement of Work and (b) a separate fixed price cost for the Statement of Work and separate managed network services fee. iii. For the part of the bid including a fixed price for the SOW that is not rolled up into the Managed Network Services Fee, if any, include a fully completed Table 3 and Table 4 of the SOW iv. Quote pricing for recurring monthly Managed Network Services Provide pricing from statewide contract vendors for any new hardware and/or software that ITD must acquire in order to use the proposed Services. v. Quote pricing for project-based work related to but other than that described in the SOW that ITD or its customers are likely to need to order over the term of the Agreement in order to expand or enhance their use of the Services. vi. Furnish information on any pricing incentives for longer term contracts or as Future Sites are added to the Managed Network Services. b. Itemize any volume based cost savings for the Initial Sites or as Future Sites are added to the Managed Network Services. c. Itemize costs associated with Service level agreements (SLAs) including financial compensation to the Commonwealth (service credits) for unfulfilled service levels. d. Include hourly rates for Bidder personnel for tasks related to but not described in this RFR which may be requested by ITD in the future.
The cost response must be all inclusive; ITD will not pay for any costs that are not referenced in the cost response. Costs must be held stable with no price increases for the initial term of the agreement to be entered under this RFR, and a single rate increase of no more than three percent (3%) of the rate for the previous term for any term thereafter. This quoted pricing must be good for 360 days from the date of submittal. 5. The Bidder’s Financial Records for the last five (5) years Standard Commonwealth forms (forms located on the Solicitation’s Specifications tab): 6.
Commonwealth Standard Contract Form. Sign electronically as described above; if notified of Contract award, complete as directed below and submit on
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7.
8.
paper with original ink signature and date. By executing this document or signing it electronically, the Bidder certifies, under the pains and penalties of perjury, that it has submitted a Response to this RFR that is the Bidder’s Offer as evidenced by the execution of its authorized signatory, and that the Bidder’s Response may be subject to negotiation by the PMT. Also, the terms of the RFR, the Bidder’s Response and any negotiated terms shall be deemed accepted by the Operational Services Division and included as part of the Contract upon execution of this document by the State Purchasing Agent or his designee. If the Bidder does not have a Vendor Code beginning with “VC,” or does not know what their Vendor Code is, the Bidder should leave the Vendor Code field blank. The Bidder should NOT enter a Vendor Code assigned prior to May 2004, as new Vendor Codes have been assigned to all companies since that time. Signature and date MUST be handwritten in ink, and the signature must be that of one of the people authorized to execute contracts on behalf of the Contractor on the Contractor Authorized Signatory Listing (See below). Commonwealth Terms and Conditions. Sign electronically as described above; if notified of Contract award, complete as directed below and submit on paper with original ink signature and date, or submit a copy of a previously executed, up-to-date copy of the form as directed below. If the Bidder has already executed and filed the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions form pursuant to another RFR or Contract, a copy of this form may be included in place of an original. If the Bidder’s name, address or Tax ID Number have changed since the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions form was executed, a new Commonwealth Terms and Conditions form is required. The Commonwealth Terms and Conditions are hereby incorporated into any Contract executed pursuant to this RFR. This form must be unconditionally signed by one of the authorized signatories (see Contractor Authorized Signatory Listing, below), and submitted without alteration. If the provisions in this document are not accepted in their entirety without modification, the entire Proposal offered in response to this Solicitation may be deemed non-responsive. The company’s correct legal name and legal address must appear on this form, and must be identical to the legal name and legal address on the Request for Taxpayer Identification and Certification Number (Mass. Substitute W9 Form). Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification (Mass. Substitute W9 Form). Sign electronically as described above; if notified of Contract award, complete as directed below and submit on paper with original ink signature and date, or submit a copy of a previously executed, up-to-date copy of the form as directed below. If a Bidder has already submitted a Request for Taxpayer Identification and Certification Number (Mass. Substitute W9 Form) and has received a valid Massachusetts Vendor Code, an original W-9 form is not required. A copy of the form as filed may be included in place of an original. If the Bidder’s name, address or Tax ID Number have changed since the Mass. Substitute W9 Form was executed, a new Mass. Substitute W9 Form is required. The information on this form will be used to record the Bidder’s legal address and where payments under a State Contract will be sent. The company’s correct legal name and legal address must appear on this form, and must be identical to the
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9.
10.
11.
12.
legal name and legal address on the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions. Please do not use the U.S Treasury’s version of the W9 Form. Contractor Authorized Signatory Listing. Sign electronically as described above; if notified of Contract award, complete as directed below and submit on paper with original ink signature and date. In the table entitled “Authorized Signatory Name” and “Title,” type the names and titles of those individuals authorized to execute contracts and other legally binding documents on behalf of the Bidder. Bidders are advised to keep this list as small as possible, as Contractors will be required to notify the Procurement Manager of any changes. If the person signing in the signature block on the bottom of the first page of this form will also serve as an “Authorized Signatory,” that person’s name must be included in the typed table. With regard to the next paragraph, which begins “I certify that I am the President, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Fiscal Officer, Corporate Clerk or Legal Counsel for the Contractor…,” if your organization does not have these titles, cross them out and handwrite the appropriate title above the paragraph. The signature and date should be handwritten in ink. Title, telephone, fax and eMail should be typed or handwritten legibly. The second page of the form (entitled “Proof of Authentication of Signature”) states that the page is optional. However, the “optional” aspect of the form is that Commonwealth Departments are not required to use it. In the case of Statewide Contracts, this page is REQUIRED, not optional. The person signing this page must be the same person signing the Standard Contract Form, the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions, and the RFR Checklist. Please note that in two places where the form says “in the presence of a notary,” this should be interpreted to mean “in the presence of a notary or corporate clerk/secretary.” Either a notary or corporate clerk/secretary can authenticate the form; only one is required. Organizations whose corporate clerks/secretaries authenticate this form are not required to obtain a Corporate Seal to complete this document. Supplier Diversity Program Plan Form 1. Download this form and complete as directed below; include with online submission. Ink signature is not required. The specific Supplier Diversity Program (SDP) requirements for this procurement can be found earlier in this document. Bidders are required to state a specific percentage of contract revenues that will represent the SDP commitment for the entire contract period, including any renewals. Additional Environmentally Preferable Products / Practices. In line with the Commonwealth’s efforts to promote products and practices which reduce our impact on the environment and human health, Bidders are encouraged to provide information regarding their environmentally preferable/sustainable business practices as they relate to this Contract wherever possible. Bidders must complete this form and submit it with their RFR Response. Prompt Payment Discount Form. Download this form and complete as directed below; include with online submission. Ink signature is not required. Pursuant to the Prompt Payment Discount terms set forth in the RFR Required Specifications for Contracts and on the Prompt Payment Discount Form itself, all Bidders must execute this form. After entering the “Bidder Name” and “Date of Offer for Prompt/Early Payment Discount”, the Bidder must identify the prompt payment
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13. 14.
15.
discount(s) terms by indicating the “Percentage Discount off of the Proposed Pricing” and the “Turn-around-time for Payments.” In the event of a hardship that prevents the Bidder from offering a prompt payment discount, the Bidder must document this fact and provide supporting information. If awarded a contract, the final negotiated prompt payment discounts should be reflected on the Commonwealth Standard Contract Form. Consultant Contractor Mandatory Submission Form. Download and complete this form; include with online submission. Ink signature is not required. Business Reference Form. Download this form and complete as directed below; include with online submission. Ink signature is not required. Bidders must provide all requested information on this form for three (3) business references. In completing this form, note that the “Bidder” is the name of the company submitting a Response to this RFR and the “RFR Name/Title” and the “RFR Number” can be found on the cover of the RFR and on the Summary Tab on Comm-PASS in the Document Number field. Also, please note that: “Reference Name” is the name of the organization (if not applicable, then name of the individual) that is providing the reference; “Contact” is the name of the individual inside the organization that will provide the reference; and the “Address,” “Phone #” and “Fax/Internet Address” are those of the “Contact” so that the PMT may be able to reach them. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). All bidders responding to this RFR must agree to participate in the Commonwealth Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) program for receiving payments. EFT is a benefit to both contractors and the Commonwealth because it ensures fast, safe and reliable payment directly to contractors and saves both parties the cost of processing checks. Contractors are able to track and verify payments made electronically through the Comptroller’s Vendor Web system. A link to the EFT application can be found on the OSD Forms page (www.mass.gov/osd). Additional information about EFT is available on the VendorWeb site (www.mass.gov/osc) or go to https://massfinance.state.ma.us/VendorWeb/EFT_FORM.pdf . Successful bidders, upon notification of contract award, will be required to enroll in EFT as a contract requirement by completing and submitting the Authorization for Electronic Funds Payment Form to this department for review, approval and forwarding to the Office of the Comptroller. If the bidder is already enrolled in the program, it may so indicate in its response. Because the Authorization for Electronic Funds Payment Form contains banking information, this form, and all information contained on this form, shall not be considered a public record and shall not be subject to public disclosure through a public records request.
14 EVALUATION CRITERIA AND ALTERNATIVES
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The responses to this RFR will be evaluated based on the criteria listed below. The criteria are listed in descending order of importance with the most important criteria listed first. The procurement management team reserves the right to remove from further consideration nonresponsive bids and those that include attempts by the Bidder to alter the Commonwealth’s standard legal terms. 1. Relevant experience of the organization providing Managed Network Services 2. Quality and appropriateness of proposed approach to meeting the requirements of this RFR 3. Service levels – the purpose of this RFR is to create a contract that will provide the same level of services for the Initial Sites, and possibly the Future Sites, as those currently available through these networks, and potentially more, with at least the same and potentially higher service levels. ITD will, in scoring vendors, award additional points for (a) vendors that can demonstrate, based on past experience and strong references, that they have been successful in providing network services for third party VoIP implementations (such as Cisco, Mitel and Avaya implementations) and (b) Verizon, the current vendor of EOHHS’ combined MPLS and VoIP solution under the Verizon Agreement. Seamless operation is the goal. VoIP will be acquired via a separate procurement. A vendor that neither has a successful track record of providing MPLS services to support third party VoIP implementation, nor is Verizon, EOHHS’ current VoIP services provider, will be graded lower than the vendor described in (a) and (b) in the previous paragraph. 4. Quality of underlying infrastructure and business processes 5. Price and price structure (normalized over a 5-year total cost of ownership for evaluation purposes, but including the cost of the first hardware refresh for the option of ITD-owned infrastructure if that cost is inside the 5-year period) 6. Proposed team and time to completion of deploying to the Go-Live Date for the Initial Sites 7. References 8. SDP response. Note that the PMT’s scoring criteria will assign 10% of the available points to SDP. A response which fails to meet any material term or condition of the RFR, including the submission of required attachments, may lose points or be deemed unresponsive and may be disqualified. Unless otherwise specified, Bidders may submit responses proposing alternatives which provide equivalent, better or more cost effective performance than achievable under the stated RFR specifications. These alternatives may include related commodities or services that may be available to enhance performance during the period of the contract resulting from this RFR. The response must describe how any alternative achieves substantially equivalent or better performance to that of the RFR specifications. The PMT will determine if a proposed alternative method of performance achieves substantially equivalent or better performance. The goal of this RFR is to provide the best value of commodities and/or services to achieve the goals of the procurement.
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15 MISCELLANEOUS A.
By submitting a proposal in response to this RFR, Bidders agree to the following terms: 1. ITD will not pay for any costs other than those set forth in the Bidder’s cost response to this RFR. Note that the Commonwealth does not reimburse any costs related to travel and expenses in the course of providing products or services. 2. All bids submitted in response to this RFR must be valid for a minimum of ninety (90) calendar days. 3. Extraneous marketing or promotional materials are discouraged and such information will not be factored into the evaluation of Bidders B.
Bid/Response Rejection
ITD reserves the right to reject any or all bids (responses), in whole or in part and for any reason deemed non-compliant or non-responsive per this RFR, its attachments or any subsequent changes. Bidders are advised to check prior to submitting a response to ensure that they have the most recent RFR files and forum questions and answers. Bidders may not alter (manually or electronically) the RFR language or any RFR component files. Modifications to the body of the RFR, forum questions and answers, specifications, terms and conditions, or which change the intent of this RFR are prohibited and may disqualify a response. ITD reserves the right not to enter any agreement under this RFR. C.
Contract Amendments
ITD reserves the right to amend this RFR or any contract resulting from this RFR. ITD may negotiate changes to the original performance measures, reporting requirements or payment methodologies tied to performance at any time during the contract duration if they are consistent with the specifications of this RFR. ITD reserves the right to negotiate and execute contract amendments with the vendor(s) which ITD determines as necessary to result in the intent of this RFR, to amend the specifications for necessary requirements, or to result in a better valued contract. Negotiation would be with the successful vendor(s) of this RFR. Amendments may include, but are not limited to, contract dollars, contract performance, increased or decreased obligations, scope of work, quantity, etc.
D.
Limitations
This RFR does not commit the Commonwealth or ITD to approve a Statement of Work, pay any costs incurred in the preparation of a bidder’s response to this RFR or to procure or contract for products or services. ITD reserves the right to accept or reject any and all proposals received as a result of this RFR and to contract for some, all or none of the products and services as a result of this RFR. ITD further reserves the right to negotiate with any or all qualified RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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bidders and to cancel in part or in its entirety this RFR if it is in the best interest of ITD or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to do so. E.
Review Rights
Responses to this RFR may be reviewed and evaluated by any person(s) at the discretion of ITD including non-allied and independent consultants retained by ITD now or in the future, for the sole purpose of obtaining an analysis of responses. Any and all respondents may be asked to further explain or clarify in writing areas of their response during the review process. ITD retains the right to request further information from respondents.
F.
Nonresponsive Bids
ITD reserves the right to exclude from further consideration nonresponsive bids that fail to meet the submission requirements of this RFR.
G.
Proprietary Notices
All bids submitted in response to this RFR shall be public record. All notices included in such bids to the effect that bid content is confidential or proprietary, that the distribution of such bids is prohibited or that by opening or accepting the bid ITD is accepting such terms, are null and void, and any portions of the response so marked shall still be considered public record. H.
Environmental Specifications
Executive Order 515, Establishing an Environmental Purchasing Policy Products and services purchased by state agencies must be in compliance with Executive Order 515, issued October 27, 2009. Under this Executive Order, Executive Departments are required to reduce their impact on the environment and enhance public health by procuring environmentally preferable products and services (EPPs) whenever such products and services perform to satisfactory standards and represent best value, consistent with 801 CMR 21.00. In line with this directive, all contracts, whether departmental or statewide, must comply with the specifications and guidelines established by OSD and the EPP Program. EPPs are considered to be products and services that help to conserve natural resources, reduce waste, protect public health and the environment, and promote the use of clean technologies, recycled materials, and less toxic products. Questions concerning the EO or the appropriate specifications may be directed to OSD’s EPP Procurement Program, www.mass.gov/epp. The Order can be seen at http://www.mass.gov/Agov3/docs/Executive%20Orders/executive_order_515.pdf. I. Estimated Value of the Contract. Please refer to the “Estimated Value (US$)” and “Estimated Units” fields indicated on the Summary tab for this Solicitation on Comm-PASS. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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The Commonwealth makes no guarantee that any commodities or services will be purchased from any Contract resulting from this Solicitation. Any estimates or past procurement volumes referenced in this Solicitation are included only for the convenience of Bidders, and are not to be relied upon as any indication of future purchase levels.
K. Regulatory/Tariff Filings The Contractor is required to construct and submit all DTC required tariff related items to provide the proposed services. Any and all costs associated with these filings must be borne by the Contractor. The Contractor must file, with the appropriate regulatory body, any “tariff amendments” to ensure that the required terms and conditions of this RFR as well as the Standard Commonwealth Terms & Conditions are part of the tariff document on file with the Federal Communications Commission and/or the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable. The Contractor must ensure that this “tariff amendment” is such that in the event of a conflict between the terms of any standard tariffs on file and the terms and conditions of any contract resulting from this RFR that the latter will prevail.
Tariff Notice The Contractor agrees to provide written notice of any tariff filing, including tariff amendments, which may affect the terms and conditions, including pricing, of this Contract. Such notice must be delivered to the Commonwealth’s Contract Manager a minimum of 30 days prior to the filing.
L. Contract Management (Contractor’s Interface with Commonwealth’s Contract Manager) The contact in the Issuer tab on Comm-PASS for this Statewide Contract is the Commonwealth Contract Manager. The Contractor Manager shall have the final authority, with the approval of the SST, in all contractual matters pursuant to this Contract. Alterations, substitutions, or modifications to this contract must be approved by the Contract manager prior to implementation or performance. The Contract Manager, in consultation with the SST, can add, delete and make any changes to items on this Contract, at any time, during the Contract term and/or its extension years. Contractors should direct questions to the Commonwealth Contract Manager.
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Meetings Commonwealth Contract Manager Other Contractors The Contractor’s Account Team must work in conjunction with the Contractor to resolve technical issues that may arise during eligible entity’s use of the Contractor’s Network Services thus eliminating the need for the Eligible entity to be a mediator in problem resolution.
The Contractor’s Account Team must speak directly with the other Contractor, when requested by the Eligible entity or as the situation requires, ensuring the resolution of these technical issues by the timeframes detailed in the maintenance requirements of this RFR document. The Contractor is required to attend any Contractor meeting arranged by the Eligible entity to facilitate the resolution of a technical problem associated with the performance of any telecommunications systems purchased from this contract.
Should the Contractor (or an assigned designee) fail to attend this meeting at the agreed upon date and time without 24 hours of notice to the contracting Agency, the Contractor shall be responsible for reimbursing the contracting eligible entity for any charges levied by the other Contractors for time expended for this missed meeting. Web site The Contractor must provide a web site specifically designed for this contract at which it provides up to date cost tables and descriptions of the goods and services that it is offering under the Contract. The Contractor must maintain a secure customer web portal online which allows Eligible Entities to place orders, review account history and verify the status of open orders, service requests and trouble tickets. Bidders must agree to remove online access to inactive accounts within 90 days of customer request.
Change notification Changes to the Contractor’s contact information, company name, legal address, payment address, tax identification number, authorized signatories, SOMWBA-certification status, or EFT information must be promptly reported via email to the Commonwealth Contract Manager. In some cases additional paperwork will be required to effect the change.
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Contractor Account Team Single Point of Contact (Contractor Contract Manager) The Bidder must provide in its RFR the name of an individual who will be the Account Manager for the term of the contract. The Account Manager will be responsible for proper operation and administration of the Contract by the Contractor and must be the direct interface and Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for Commonwealth eligible entities to the Contractor. The Account Manager must be the SPOC for all aspects of the contract resulting from this procurement for Network Services, including any and all sub-contractors.
Replacement of Contractor staff The Contract Manager may require the contractor to relieve the Account Manager if in his/her opinion it appears that the Account Manager does not support the contract requirements. The Account Manager does not deliver work that conforms to the requirements stated in this contract: or Personality conflicts with the Contract Manager to hinder effective progress of the Contract. Personality conflicts with the Account Manager to hinder effective progress on the functioning of the Contract. Adding commodities and/or services to the Contract (Market Basket) Changes in national/global price lists Prices for those products and services priced at a percent discount from the Bidder’s national/global price list and published in the Cost Tables shall automatically follow the national/global price list with the same percentage discount.
Procedure for requesting the addition of commodities and/or services to the contract The Commonwealth of Massachusetts recognizes that services and goods related to the proposed Managed Network Services will change rapidly as technology advances and as markets evolve. Contractors may submit requests to add new services and/or goods to the Commonwealth’s Contract Manager at any time during the Contract term.
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The SST will review these Market Basket requests and will make their recommendation for approval, if any, to the Commonwealth’s Contract Manager. Items considered during the review include, but are not limited to, a determination whether:
• • • •
the new services and/or goods are within the scope of a Contract category for which the Contractor holds a Contract, the offer provides increased value to the Commonwealth, the Contractor is in compliance with all Contract reporting requirements, and the quantity and/or severity of complaints by Eligible Entities against the Contractor should disqualify the request.
Report requirements & due dates Contractor must submit sales reports, reports of its spend with its SDP Partner and Managed Network Services Fee reports, collectively “Engagement Reports” on a quarterly basis, on forms to be published on Comm-PASS. Sales reports must include all transactions under the established Contract and are not limited to new business. The Commonwealth Contract Manager may suspend the Contractor if reports are not filed accurately or in a timely manner. All reports will be based on full calendar quarters (Report Periods) and must be received by ITD on or before 45 days after the last day of the Report Period (as specified below) or a contractor will be considered in breach of contract: Quarter
Report Period
Quarterly Report Due Date
First Quarter
January 1st – March 31st
May 15th
Second Quarter
April 1st – June 30th
August 15th
Third Quarter
July 1st – September 30th
November 15th
Fourth Quarter
October 1 – December 31st
February 15th
Quarterly reports will include any periods less than a full calendar quarter if a contract does not start at the first day of a quarter or end on the last day of the quarter. Late/Inaccurate Report Assessment The Bidder will be assessed $5,000 for not submitting the required quarterly reports by the due date. This assessment will be offset against any available invoice submitted to the Massachusetts State Comptroller for payment. Failure to submit RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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any required report may be cause for suspension and/or termination from the contract. Contract suspension stops payments from Eligible Entities to the Contractor and deems the Contractor ineligible to engage in new assignments as a Contractor or as a subcontract for the remaining term of this contract including extensions. Advertising pre-approval The Contractor must receive the approval of the Contract Manager prior to enabling any contract-specific website for public access.
Invoice and payment specifications The incorrect or untimely billing of services will not be tolerated under this Contract. Repeated occurrences of incorrect or untimely billing of services may result in the assessment of financial penalties against the Contractor, and/or suspension and termination of the Contract. An invoice that does not meet the requirements of this section will be considered an “incorrect invoice” and may not be paid. Invoices must break out all charges line-by-line with a separate entry for each charge. Each charge must match the description and cost published in the Cost Tables. In addition, special construction and /or engineering costs must be included. The Contractor must provide, upon Agency request, a simple report listing all items and associated costs included in the basic service charge. This report must include the quantity of each item, a description of each item and the cost for each item in a simple report format. The use of “codes” in place of product description will not be acceptable in this breakdown report although the Contractor may list associated billing codes for its own use. Invoices must include the dates of service, the account number and a unique invoice number, the purchase order or work order number and Contractors must adhere to a monthly billing cycle. The Contractor must identify, separately on its bill, those charges “mandated” by regulatory bodies, etc. and not necessarily needed for the provisioning and providing of the services.
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Prohibited charges and actions Charges not accepted by the Commonwealth’s Contract Manager and published in the Contractor’s Cost Tables on Comm-PASS are prohibited. Charges and fees not directly related to service or usage are prohibited. Prohibited actions include: • Third Party Marketing Sales •
Referral to Collection Agencies
•
Suspension or Termination of Service without the written approval of the contracting Eligible Entity
Invoices and Payments Payment timeframes under this Contract shall follow the Bill Paying Policy of the Comptroller of the Commonwealth, published at: http://www.mass.gov/osc/guidance-for-vendors/policies-for-vendors.html. Contractors may not first bill for any monthly service or usage that was utilized sixty (60) days prior to the beginning of the then current billing cycle. Incorrect Invoices The Bidder must agree, in its response, that it understands the following instructions to Agencies for dealing with incorrect invoices. In compliance with the Office of the State Comptroller’s Expenditure Guidelines, Agencies may apply reasonable standards of invoice verification. Incorrect invoices from Contractors, whether paper documents or EDI, should be returned to and corrected by the Contractor and not adjusted by the Agency staff. A correct invoice must be received by the Agency within 60 days of the date of dispute to be paid. There must be evidence of a permanent solution of the error condition. Nonrecurrence of the error condition will be considered an acceptable solution. If the error is found to be inherent in the Contractor’s billing system, a correct bill is still required. If these guidelines are not met, the Contractor will assume responsibility for the charges. The above guidelines shall be followed by Agencies contracting for the proposed network services. Disputed Charges In order to avoid possible past due or termination notices, the Contractor must remove any disputed amount from the Eligible Entity monthly bill until resolution RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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of the disputed amount. Should the disputed amount actually be a valid charge, the Contractor can then re-bill the Eligible Entity for that amount – clearly identifying the re-billed figure. Should the disputed amount be an invalid or incorrect charge, the Contractor will not re-bill that amount to the Eligible Entity. It is desirable that disputed charges be reflected as a separate line item rather than a credit on the monthly invoice to the Agency. Inappropriate Information in Bills The Contractor must not include inappropriate or unrelated flyers, brochures, notices, etc. in any invoice for the contracted Network Services. Inappropriate inserts, for the purposes of this RFR, include notices for services not available on this contract, bill change notices for services for which the Commonwealth Agency has not contracted or for areas outside of Massachusetts. For example, a bill insert notifying the Agency that a new monthly charge for users in Texas will begin next month. Only inserts specifically designed to inform the Eligible Entity about the contracted services, new enhancements to those services, and new services approved for the contract or billing information specific to the contracted services may be included in the Contractor’s bill. Changes in Monthly Costs The Contractor is not allowed to invoice the Eligible Entity for any new or additional charges (recurring or non-recurring) to those costs proposed in the Cost Tables. These include any new charges mandated by regulatory bodies, new surcharges instituted by the contractor after regulatory approval, etc. The Commonwealth will only allow new charges that are mandated by law to the end user. Required Billing Format The Contractor must provide its monthly bill to the contracted Eligible Entities in “hard copy” paper format if requested by the Eligible Entity. The Bidder must describe, in its response, the format of its current “hard copy” and electronic bills and must include samples of such bills as an attachment to its response. Additional Monthly Invoices The Contractor must provide an additional “hard-copy” of the monthly invoice to the contracting Eligible Entity upon request. This additional copy may be for a RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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single month or for multiple billing months. This additional invoice copy must be provides at no cost to the requesting Eligible Entity. Optional Billing Format It is desirable that the Contractor allow the contracting Eligible Entity a choice of methods for its monthly invoice for the proposed services. Such additional optional methods may include: • Electronic Method – via internet access by the Eligible Entity •
Electronic Data Interchange - EDI
The Bidder must list and fully describe, in its response, the optional methods available to Eligible Entitles for receipt of its monthly invoice for the Network Services. Individual Agency Billing The Contractor must have the capability of billing each Eligible Entity for those specific network services contracted for by that particular Eligible Entity. Single Agency/Multiple Location Billing The Bidder must provide an individual invoice for each specific network service in each location of those Eligible Entities with multiple locations upon request. Single Agency/Multiple Location Optional Billing It is desirable that the Contractor be capable of providing a single “Master Invoice” to any Eligible Entity which has contracted for services in multiple locations. This “Master Invoice” must include all required monthly information and usage broken down by each location of the contracting Eligible Entity. The Bidder must include, in its response, a sample of such a “Master Invoice”. It is desirable that the Contractor be capable of providing a single “Master Invoice” to any Eligible Entity with multiple locations while continuing to send invoices to the individual locations as well. The Bidder must include, in its response, a sample of such a “Master Invoice” including samples of the individual location invoices. Payments to Contractors It is required that payments received by the Contractor be appropriately posted to the specific contracting Agency’s account for which the payment was received. The Contractor must not create a single “Commonwealth of Massachusetts” account to which it will post received payments.
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The Bidder must describe, in its response, how payments received are posted to the specific account. The Contractor is required to provide, at the request of the contracting Eligible Entity, written reports to demonstrate the contractor’s account receivables procedures including a payment history of the Eligible Entity. The Contractor is required to provide, at the request of the Commonwealth Contract Manager, a complete written report of its account receivables procedures including payment history of all contracting Eligible Entities. Penalty for Non-Compliance The contractor is required to provide the accounts receivable reports described in this document within 60 calendar days of the date of request. Should the Contractor fail to provide this information within 60 calendar days of a written request, the contracting Eligible Entity may withhold all payments against the account in question until the account is reconciled by the Contractor. Should the contractor fail to resolve the discrepancy with the requesting Eligible Entity, the Eligible Entity may terminate its account with the contractor resulting in the contractor assuming responsibility for the charges in question. Alternatives Contractors may propose alternatives for equivalent, better or more cost effective performance than specified under the Contractor’s original Response at any time during the life of the Statewide Contract.
Bidder Qualifications and Requirements In order to submit a response to this RFR, the Bidder must provide the proposed network services via its own network facilities; the cooperative use of a subcontractor's network facilities; or the resale of another provider’s network facilities while operating as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC), a Data Local Exchange Carrier, or an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) as provided in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Bidders who wish to propose service must affirm their compliance with applicable Massachusetts laws and regulations, including M.G.L. c. 159, Section 12. Bidders are required to provide supporting documentation upon request. The Bidder must identify, in its response, which services are provided via its own network facilities and those being resold or provided by a subcontractor. In all cases, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts must be listed as the customer of record with the service provider. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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The Commonwealth will not accept responses from Bidders who are “independent sales agents” of a service provider or whose primary business is the traditional "reselling" or "aggregation" of another service provider's network of services. Unique Account Identifier Network infrastructure services are essential to the ability of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide for the public health and safety of the citizens of the Commonwealth. The Bidder must agree that, if awarded a contract, the Bidder shall create a “Unique Account Identifier” in its billing system to be associated with the accounts of all contracting Eligible Entities under this Agreement. The Contractor must associate all Eligible Entitles with this Unique Account Identifier in order to prevent the application of prohibited fees and/or actions, see Section 3.6.1.1 Prohibited Charges and Section 3.10.7.6 Prohibited Charges and Actions. Company Profile Bidders must provide the following information in the Bidder’s Response Form: Years in business in the industry Bidders must have at least three years in continuous operation and experience in the service being bid. In the case of companies formed via merger, acquisition or some other means, the SST may consider the experience of all companies involved in the transaction. Annual revenue Bidders of any network service with the exception of pay telephone services must have a minimum of $1,000,000 in verifiable annual revenue for each of the three years preceding the issue date of this RFR. Bidders of only pay telephone services must have a minimum of $100,000 in verifiable annual revenue for each of the three years preceding the issue date of this RFR. Company registration and certifications Bidders must identify their filing classification(s) with the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications & Cable (DTC), i.e. CLEC, DLEC, ILEC, Pay Telephone, Common Carrier, in the appropriate place on the Bidder’s Response Form. In addition, Bidders must provide their company name as registered with the DTC if it differs from the company name of the Bidder. It is desirable that Bidders provide copies of Certifications or evidence of compliance with IT industry best practices applicable to the category in which you are bidding, such as ISO/IEC 20000 certification and ITIL. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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16 DEFINITIONS The following terms in this RFR shall have the meanings set forth below. “Agency” shall mean a department, bureau, commission, board, office, council, or other entity in the Executive Department of government, which was created by the constitution or statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “Bandwidth” shall mean the connection speed, in bits per second, latency, packet loss, round trip delay, etc. “Business Day” shall mean Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM prevailing Eastern Time, excluding Bidder, Federal and Commonwealth Holidays. “Channel” or “Circuit” shall mean a communications path between two or more points. “Cisco” shall mean Cisco Systems, Inc. “CJIS” shall mean Criminal Justice Information Services. Additional information can be found here: http://www.mass.gov/eopss/law-enforce-and-cj/cjis/massachusetts-cjis-guidelines-forvendors.html “Commonwealth” shall mean the state government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the fifty states of the United States of America. “Continental United States” shall mean the contiguous 48 states and the District of Columbia. “Customer Premises Equipment” or “CPE” shall mean, consistent with its definition under Federal Standard 1037C, terminal and associated equipment and inside wiring located at the Commonwealth’s premises and connected with Bidder’s communication channel(s) at the demarcation point ("demarc"). “Demarc” shall mean the point of demarcation or interconnection between Bidder’s communications facilities and the terminal equipment, protective apparatus and/or wiring on ITD’s or another Commonwealth entity’s premises. “Design” shall mean a document specifying in detail the logical and physical structure of the technical system supporting Bidder’s delivery of Managed Network Services. “DOR” shall mean Department of Revenue, a part of the Executive Office of Administration and Finance (EOANF). RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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“EOHHS” shall mean the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services. “Executive Department” shall mean the Executive Department of the Commonwealth’s government, minus the Constitutional Offices of the State Auditor, Treasurer, Attorney General and Secretary of State. Additional information can be found here: http://www.mass.gov/portal/government-taxes/branches-agencies/executive/executivedepartment/ “Future Sites” shall be as defined in Section 1 and Exhibit B. “Gbps” shall mean billions of bits per second. “Go-Live Date” shall mean each date where the Bidder initially provides Managed Network Services to a given site in the Initial Sites or the Future Sites., accepted by ITD. “Gray Market Equipment” shall mean equipment flowing through distribution channels other than those authorized or intended by the original equipment manufacturer or producer. “Health Information and Data Privacy and Security Information” shall be as defined in Section 5 “Information Technology Division” or “ITD” shall mean the state agency established under Mass. Gen. L. ch. 7 sect. 4A(d). “Infrastructure Upgrade” shall mean ITD’s upgrade of the infrastructure at a subset of Sites to be determined under Task Order 1 to support the implementation of the Managed Network Services. These upgrades shall include, but not be limited to, work necessary to meet the minimum technical requirements for Site infrastructure provided by the Bidder under Task Order 1, and specified therein. Infrastructure upgrades may include, but are not limited to, improvements to network wiring (from main distribution frame (“MDF”) or intermediate distribution frame (“IDF”) patch panels to termination jacks at work areas), supporting environmental systems (heating/ventilation/air conditioning (“HVAC”), electrical power and grounding devices), battery backup/UPS, and other requirements as defined by the Bidder. “Initial Sites” shall be as defined in Section 1 and Exhibit A. “Invoice” shall mean a document or other written communication that discloses Bidder’s charges for service furnished to ITD. “IOS” shall mean Integrated Optical Service, an optical networking service offered by Verizon Business. “ITD Campus Facilities” shall mean and include the following: McCormack Building (One Ashburton Place, Boston, MA), the State House (Boston, MA), the Hurley Building (19 Staniford Street, Boston, MA), the Saltonstall Building (100 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA), the ITD data center in MITC (200 Arlington Street, Chelsea, MA) and the ITD data center in the Springfield Data Center (53 Elliot Street, Springfield, MA).
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“MAGNet” shall mean the Massachusetts Access to Government Network, an integrated Commonwealth wide network which serves as a wide area network for education, local government, and Commonwealth agencies. MAGNet supports converged IP applications (voice, data, and video) using high bandwidth telecommunications facilities (DS3, OC3, OC12, and T1) leased from the telecommunications industry in Massachusetts. “Managed MPLS Network Services” shall have the meaning set forth in section 5.3 herein.
“Managed Network Services” shall have the meaning given in Sections 1 and 5.
“Mbps” shall mean Megabits per second. “MBI” shall mean Massachusetts Broadband Institute, a part of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC). “MMNSP” shall mean MassNet Managed Network Service Provider. “MPLS” shall mean multi-protocol label switching, a data-carrying mechanism which emulates some properties of a circuit-switched network over a packet-switched network. “MPLS Network” shall mean the aggregate of Managed MPLS Network Services. “MPLS Service Levels” shall be at a minimum as defined in Section 5.2. “MTA” Massachusetts Transit Authority, now a part of MassDOT, a branch of the Executive Department. “NSV” shall mean MassNet Real-time Network Status View, a tool which permits ITD to see the real-time operational status of MassNet network edge devices and connections, along with key statistics that may affect performance for end user customers. “Rate” shall mean the price per unit of service. “Remote Sites” shall mean all Initial Sites that are not part of ITD’s Campus Facilities. “Response time” shall mean the period of time taken by Bidder to respond to an Incident reported by ITD. “RMV” shall mean Registry of Motor Vehicles, a part of MassDOT. “SIP Trunking” shall mean a Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”), streaming media service based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) by which Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs) deliver telephone services and unified communications to customers equipped with SIPbased private branch exchange (IP-PBX) and Unified Communications facilities. RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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“Sites” shall mean those Initial Sites or Future Sites for which Bidder is providing Managed Network Services under any agreement entered under this RFR; each tenant (or CAI) shall be considered a Site even if multiple tenants are located a single address and sharing a single connection. “Software Licenses” shall mean the licensing governing the terms of use for Bidder or third party software programs, in object code format, including any accompanying documentation associated with such software programs, as well as any corrections and modifications to the Licensed Software provided by Bidder thereto. “Service” shall mean any Bidder product or service provided to, or obtained by, ITD, any authorized user, or a third party. “Tier 1 Service” initial call, email or ticket receipt, simple problem resolution attempted, triage to Tier 2 Service/Tier 3 Service (passing of ticket or otherwise coordinating follow up with 3rd party), tracking until issue resolved, closing of ticket. “Tier 2 Service” more in-depth technical support than Tier 1 with more experienced and knowledgeable staff familiar with the issues and connection/equipment in question; Tier 2 is the contact point for ticket tracking when a third party support provider is interacting with the Tier 1 support specialist in direct contact with the end user or end site. Tier 2 support tracks 3rd party Tier 3 support progress and reports in a timely fashion back to the Tier 1 contact providing at least daily regarding progress/resolution and will responds to Tier 1 initial requests within one hour. Equipment break/fix support along with remote CAI site visits and equipment replacement. Manages spares for all CAI locations and visits sites capable of performing basic repairs in the event of equipment failure including equipment re-racking or remounting as needed. Basic router or managed switch configuration changes according to standard site configurations. “Tier 3 Service” engineering support to design alternative approaches or network based alternate path creation to resolve the outage or issue. This includes but is not limited to network routing or more sophisticated router configuration changes. Design services for IP networking addressing as needed at the “edge” though not without ITD approval. “UMASS” shall mean University of Massachusetts “United States” shall mean the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories. “Voice Trunking” shall mean any circuit or circuit segment established specifically for the transmission of voice, utilizing protocols including SIP, H.323 and T.38. These circuits will also be coded with QoS tagging for the prioritization of voice packets.
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“Verizon” shall mean Verizon New England, Inc., Verizon Business Network Services, Inc., Verizon Network Integration Corporation, and MCI Communications Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business Services, referred to in the aggregate as “Verizon”. “Verizon Sites” shall be as defined in Section 4.1. “VRF” shall mean Virtual routing and forwarding (VRF). VRF is a technology included in IP (Internet Protocol) network routers that allows multiple instances of a routing table to exist in a router and work simultaneously. This increases functionality by allowing network paths to be segmented without using multiple devices. Because traffic is automatically segregated, VRF also increases network security. “WAN” shall mean wide area network. “Wholesale Connections and Related Services” shall mean, in addition to Voice Trunking (including SIP, H.323 and T.38): Name of Service Offering
Distance Band or Point to Point
Minimum Peak Load Network Bandwidth Capacity (Mbps)
Broadband-50 (oversubscribed)
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
5
Broadband-100 (oversubscribed)
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
10
Ethernet-10 Ethernet-100 Ethernet-1000 Wavelength-2.5Gb/s Wavelength-5Gb/s Wavelength-10Gb/s
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
10 100 1,000 2,500 5,000 10,000
Other Comments / Description / Features or Limitations 50 Mbps Business Broadband 5 Mbps CIR 50 Mbps EIR 100 Mbps Business Broadband 10 Mbps CIR 100 Mbps EIR Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
Colocation Cross Connect
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
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ATTACHMENT A: COST RESPONSE
The contract entered under this RFR will be a rate-based contract. Each Bidder must submit four separate Cost Responses including all combinations of the following variations:
ITD purchases the underlying equipment upfront, and maintenance for the equipment, based on Vendor’s specifications and connections are charged on a monthly basis or Vendor purchases the underlying equipment upfront, and maintenance for the equipment, and roles equipment financing and capital costs into the monthly service fees. Vendor rolls cost of SOW activities into Managed Network Service Fee and Vendor charges a fixed price fee for the SOW activities.
Each quote must: Be based on deploying and managing all of the Initial Sites. Provide a commitment on future rate discounts as sites in the Future Sites are rolled out. To the extent the Bidder’s response requires an amendment to or addition to any rate card or market basket on the applicable RFR, Bidder must work with ITD to incorporate the final rates bid under this RFR into such rate card and/or market basket.
Wholesale Connections and Related Services Rates Name of Service Offering
Distance Band or Point to Point
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
Minimum Peak Load Network Bandwidth Capacity (Mbps)
Standard Commercial Monthly Pricing with Vendor Infrastructure
Monthly Pricing Offered Under this RFR with Commonwealth Infrastructure
Monthly Pricing Offered Under this RFR with Vendor Infrastructure
Other Comments / Description / Features or Limitations
1
10 Mbps Business Broadband 1 Mbps CIR 10 Mbps EIR
2
20 Mbps Business Broadband 2 Mbps CIR 20 Mbps EIR
5
50 Mbps Business Broadband 5 Mbps CIR 50 Mbps EIR
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Broadband-10 (oversubscribed)
Broadband-20 (oversubscribed)
Broadband-50 (oversubscribed)
Name of Service Offering
Broadband-100 (oversubscribed)
Ethernet-10
Ethernet-100
Ethernet-1000
Wavelength2.5Gb/s
Wavelength5Gb/s
Wavelength10Gb/s
Distance Band or Point to Point
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location) Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
Minimum Peak Load Network Bandwidth Capacity (Mbps)
Standard Commercial Monthly Pricing with Vendor Infrastructure
Monthly Pricing Offered Under this RFR with Commonwealth Infrastructure
Monthly Pricing Offered Under this RFR with Vendor Infrastructure
Other Comments / Description / Features or Limitations
10
100 Mbps Business Broadband 10 Mbps CIR 100 Mbps EIR
10
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
100
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
1,000
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
2,500
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
5,000
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
10,000
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
Colocation
Cross Connect
Point to Point (to any Service Providing Location)
Guaranteed Bandwidth, Point to Point
Table A: Cost Response Breakdown by Service
Bidder should customize the “Other Comments/Description/Features or Limitations” column to match its offering. Other Costs for the Managed Network Services not set forth above Service / Category Cost / Rate Cost / Rate Vendor Description Commonwealth Infrastructure RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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Infrastructure Edge Router Managed Services Tier 2 Service Tier 3 Service WAN Connections (wholesale broadband network services) Internet (MPLS Cloud) Quality of Service (QoS) for certain enterprise applications Provision of and management of WAN bandwidth services (wholesale broadband network services); including a range from 5 mbps broadband services to 10 Gbps interconnect Gateways, including Boston and Chelsea area Gateways for ITD and/or customers to interface with the network Wavelength and “IOS or similar interface” services connecting POIs and sites in the Initial Sites (e.g., CAIs) Virtual Private Network (VPN) memberships support and services Dark fiber lease services Management to agreed Service Level Agreements (SLA) Demarcation at the Managed Services Provider Router(s) Intrusion Detection and other security measures in the MPLS cloud (not a replacement for ITD’s network firewalls) RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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Management and responsibility for all MPLS cloud infrastructure network equipment Performance testing and monitoring to insure reliability and growth capacity Maintenance of current release levels for MPLS network hardware and software and edge routers Service strategy, service operation and continual service improvement aligned with ITD methodology Single administrative interface for coordination of trouble tickets Single point of contact [Add more rows as necessary]
Equipment Costs for Cost Alternative A Equipment Type
Description
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Quantity
Estimated Per Unit Cost
Estimated Total Cost (Quantity x Per Unit Cost)
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Equipment Professional Services (e.g., design, installation, etc.) Costs for Cost Alternative A Service Type
Description
Quantity
Estimated Per Unit Cost
Estimated Total Cost (Quantity x Per Unit Cost)
Equipment Maintenance Costs for Cost Alternative A (ITD Purchases Equipment) (provide maintenance quotes on at least 1-year, 2-year and 4-year basis) Service Type Description Quantity Estimated Per Estimated Unit Cost Total Cost (Quantity x Per Unit Cost)
For all cost responses and portions within, Bidder must agree to keep the cost of the services hereunder fixed per year for a 5-year term and in out years limit any rate increases in such services to an increase of 3% or less over the rate for such services for the previous year. Agreed? ________ Yes. The rate of increase will be: ___________% ITD reserves the right to procure any equipment and professional services related to installation under a separate solicitation under an applicable statewide contract(s).
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APPENDIX I RFR - Required Specifications In general, most of the required contractual stipulations are referenced in the Standard Contract Form and Instructions and the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions (either version). However, the following RFR provisions must appear in all Commonwealth competitive procurements conducted under 801 CMR 21.00: The terms of 801 CMR 21.00: Procurement of Commodities and Services are incorporated by reference into this RFR. Words used in this RFR shall have the meanings defined in 801 CMR 21.00. Additional definitions may also be identified in this RFR. Unless otherwise specified in this RFR, all communications, responses, and documentation must be in English, all measurements must be provided in feet, inches, and pounds and all cost proposals or figures in U.S. currency. All responses must be submitted in accordance with the specific terms of this RFR. Supplier Diversity Program (SDP). Massachusetts Executive Order 524 established a policy to promote the award of state contracts in a manner that develops and strengthens Minority and Women Business Enterprises (M/WBEs) that resulted in the Supplier Diversity Program in Public Contracting. M/WBEs are strongly encouraged to submit responses to this RFR, either as prime vendors, joint venture partners or other type of business partnerships. Similarly, Executive Order 546 established the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business Enterprise (SDVOBE) Program to encourage the participation of businesses owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans in all areas of state procurement and contracting, thereby including them in the SDP. All bidders must follow the requirements set forth in the SDP section of the RFR, which will detail the specific requirements relating to the prime vendor’s inclusion of M/WBEs and/or SDVOBEs. Bidders are required to develop creative initiatives to help foster new business relationships with M/WBEs and/or SDVOBEs within the primary industries affected by this RFR. In order to satisfy the compliance of this section and encourage bidder’s participation of SDP objectives, the Supplier Diversity Program (SDP) Plan for large procurements greater than $150,000 will be evaluated at 10% or more of the total evaluation. Once an SDP commitment, expressed as a percentage of contract revenues, is approved, the agency will then monitor the contractor’s performance, and use actual expenditures with SDO certified M/WBE contractors and the Center for Veterans Enterprise certified SDVOBEs to fulfill their own SDP expenditure benchmarks. M/WBE and SDVOBE participation must be incorporated into and monitored for all types of
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procurements regardless of size; however, submission of an SDP Plan is mandated only for large procurements over $150,000. Unless otherwise specified in the RFR, the following SDP forms are required to be submitted by the deadlines noted below in order to meet the mandatory participation requirements of the SDP: SDP Plan Form #/Name SDP Plan Form #1 – SDP Plan Commitment SDP Plan Form #2 – Declaration of SDP Partners SDP Plan Form #3 – SDP Spending Report
Submitted By All Bidders Newly Contractors Contractors
When Submitted With Bid Response
Awarded Within 30 days of contract execution Within 45 days of the end of each quarter
Supplier Diversity Program (SDP) Resources: • Resources available to assist Prime Bidders in finding potential Minority Business Enterprises (MBE) and Women Business Enterprises (WBE) partners can be found on the Supplier Diversity Program Website (www.mass.gov/sdp). • Resources available to assist Prime Bidders in finding potential Service-Disabled VeteranOwned Business Enterprise (SDVOBE) partners can be found on the SDO webpage on the Supplier Diversity Office Website (www.mass.gov/sdo). • The Supplier Diversity Program offers training on the SDP Plan requirements. The dates of upcoming trainings can be found on the OSD Training and Outreach Website. In addition, the SDP Webinar can be located on the Supplier Diversity Program Website (www.mass.gov/sdp). Supplier Diversity Program Subcontracting Policies. In addition to the Subcontracting Policies (See Subcontracting Policies section below and see Section 9, Subcontracting By Contractor, in the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions) that apply to all subcontracted services, agencies may define specific required deliverables for a contractor’s SDP Plan, including, but not limited to, documentation necessary to verify subcontractor commitments and expenditures with Minority- or Women-Owned Business Enterprises (M/WBEs) and Service-Disabled VeteranOwned Business Enterprises (SDVOBE) for the purpose of monitoring and enforcing commitments made in a contractor’s Supplier Diversity Program (SDP) Plan.
Best Value Selection and Negotiation. The Procurement Management Team (PMT) may select the response(s) which demonstrates the best value overall, including proposed alternatives that will achieve the procurement goals of the department. The PMT and a selected bidder, or a contractor, may negotiate a change in any element of contract performance or cost identified in the original RFR or the selected bidder’s or contractor’s response which results in lower costs or a more cost effective or better value than was presented in the selected bidder’s or contractor’s original response. Bidder Communication. Bidders are prohibited from communicating directly with any employee of the procuring department or any member of the PMT regarding this RFR except as specified RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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in this RFR, and no other individual Commonwealth employee or representative is authorized to provide any information or respond to any question or inquiry concerning this RFR. Bidders may contact the contact person for this RFR in the event this RFR is incomplete or the bidder is having trouble obtaining any required attachments electronically through Comm-PASS. Comm-PASS. Comm-PASS is the official system of record for all procurement information which is publicly accessible at no charge at www.comm-pass.com. Information contained in this document and in each tab of the Solicitation, including file attachments, and information contained in the related Bidders’ Forum(s), are all components of the Solicitation. Bidders are solely responsible for obtaining all information distributed for this Solicitation via Comm-PASS, by using the free Browse and Search tools offered on each record-related tab on the main navigation bar (Solicitations and Forums). Forums support Bidder submission of written questions associated with a Solicitation and publication of official answers. All records on Comm-PASS are comprised of multiple tabs, or pages. For example, Solicitation records contain Summary, Rules, Issuer(s), Intent or Forms & Terms and Specifications, and Other Information tabs. Each tab contains data and/or file attachments provided by the Procurement Management Team. All are incorporated into the Solicitation. It is each Bidder’s responsibility to check Comm-PASS for: • Any addenda or modifications to this Solicitation, by monitoring the “Last Change” field on the Solicitation’s Summary tab, and • Any Bidders’ Forum records related to this Solicitation (see Locating an Online Bidders’ Forum for information on locating these records. The Commonwealth accepts no responsibility and will provide no accommodation to Bidders who submit a Response based on an out-of-date Solicitation or on information received from a source other than Comm-PASS. Comm-PASS SmartBid Subscription. Bidders may elect to obtain a free SmartBid subscription which provides value-added features, including automated email notification associated with postings and modifications to Comm-PASS records. When properly configured and managed, SmartBid provides a subscriber with: • A secure desktop within Comm-PASS for efficient record management • A customizable profile reflecting the subscriber’s product/service areas of interest • A customizable listing in the publicly accessible Business Directory, an online “yellowpages” advertisement • Full-cycle, automated email alert whenever any record of interest is posted or updated • Access to Online Response Submission, when allowed by the Issuer, to support: • paperless bid drafting and submission to an encrypted lock-box prior to close date • electronic signature of OSD forms and terms; agreement to defer wet-ink signature until Contract award, if any • withdrawal of submitted bids prior to close date • online storage of submitted bids
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Every public purchasing entity within the borders of Massachusetts may post records on CommPASS at no charge. Comm-PASS has the potential to become the sole site for all public entities in Massachusetts. Contract Expansion. If additional funds become available during the contract duration period, the department reserves the right to increase the maximum obligation to some or all contracts executed as a result of this RFR or to execute contracts with contractors not funded in the initial selection process, subject to available funding, satisfactory contract performance and service or commodity need. Costs. Costs which are not specifically identified in the bidder’s response, and accepted by a department as part of a contract, will not be compensated under any contract awarded pursuant to this RFR. The Commonwealth will not be responsible for any costs or expenses incurred by bidders responding to this RFR. Debriefing. Non-successful bidders may request a debriefing from the department. Department debriefing procedures may be found in the RFR. Non-successful POS bidders aggrieved by the decision of a department must participate in a debriefing as a prerequisite to an administrative appeal.
Electronic Communication/Update of Bidder’s/Contractor’s Contact Information. It is the responsibility of the prospective bidder and awarded contractor to keep current the email address of the bidder’s contact person and prospective contract manager, if awarded a contract, and to monitor that email inbox for communications from the PMT, including requests for clarification. The PMT and the Commonwealth assume no responsibility if a prospective bidder’s/awarded contractor’s designated email address is not current, or if technical problems, including those with the prospective bidder’s/awarded contractor’s computer, network or internet service provider (ISP) cause email communications sent to/from the prospective bidder/awarded contractor and the PMT to be lost or rejected by any means including email or spam filtering. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). All bidders responding to this RFR must agree to participate in the Commonwealth Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) program for receiving payments, unless the bidder can provide compelling proof that it would be unduly burdensome. EFT is a benefit to both contractors and the Commonwealth because it ensures fast, safe and reliable payment directly to contractors and saves both parties the cost of processing checks. Contractors are able to track and verify payments made electronically through the Comptroller’s Vendor Web system. A link to the EFT application can be found on the OSD Forms page (www.mass.gov/osd). Additional information about EFT is available on the VendorWeb site (www.mass.gov/osc). Click on MASSfinance or go to https://massfinance.state.ma.us/VendorWeb/EFT_FORM.pdf. Successful bidders, upon notification of contract award, will be required to enroll in EFT as a contract requirement by completing and submitting the Authorization for Electronic Funds Payment Form to this department for review, approval and forwarding to the Office of the Comptroller. If the bidder is already enrolled in the program, it may so indicate in its response. Because the Authorization for Electronic Funds Payment Form contains banking information, this RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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form, and all information contained on this form, shall not be considered a public record and shall not be subject to public disclosure through a public records request. The requirement to use EFT may be waived by the PMT on a case-by-case basis if participation in the program would be unduly burdensome on the bidder. If a bidder is claiming that this requirement is a hardship or unduly burdensome, the specific reason must be documented in its response. The PMT will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis and communicate the findings with the bidder. Environmental Response Submission Compliance. In an effort to promote greater use of recycled and environmentally preferable products and minimize waste, all responses submitted should comply with the following guidelines: • •
•
• •
•
All copies should be printed double sided. All submittals and copies should be printed on recycled paper with a minimum postconsumer content of 30% or on tree-free paper (i.e. paper made from raw materials other than trees, such as kenaf). To document the use of such paper, a photocopy of the ream cover/wrapper should be included with the response. Unless absolutely necessary, all responses and copies should minimize or eliminate use of non-recyclable or non re-usable materials such as plastic report covers, plastic dividers, vinyl sleeves and GBC binding. Three ringed binders, glued materials, paper clips and staples are acceptable. Bidders should submit materials in a format which allows for easy removal and recycling of paper materials. Bidders are encouraged to use other products which contain recycled content in their response documents. Such products may include, but are not limited to, folders, binders, paper clips, diskettes, envelopes, boxes, etc. Where appropriate, bidders should note which products in their responses are made with recycled materials. Unnecessary samples, attachments or documents not specifically asked for should not be submitted.
. HIPAA: Business Associate Contractual Obligations. Bidders are notified that any department meeting the definition of a Covered Entity under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) will include in the RFR and resulting contract sufficient language establishing the successful bidder’s contractual obligations, if any, that the department will require in order for the department to comply with HIPAA and the privacy and security regulations promulgated thereunder (45 CFR Parts 160, 162, and 164) (the Privacy and Security Rules). For example, if the department determines that the successful bidder is a business associate performing functions or activities involving protected health information, as such terms are used in the Privacy and Security Rules, then the department will include in the RFR and resulting contract a sufficient description of business associate’s contractual obligations regarding the privacy and security of the protected health information, as listed in 45 CFR 164.314 and 164.504 (e), including, but not limited to, the bidder's obligation to: implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards that reasonably and appropriately protect the RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the protected health information (in whatever form it is maintained or used, including verbal communications); provide individuals access to their records; and strictly limit use and disclosure of the protected health information for only those purposes approved by the department. Further, the department reserves the right to add any requirement during the course of the contract that it determines it must include in the contract in order for the department to comply with the Privacy and Security Rules. Please see other sections of the RFR for any further HIPAA details, if applicable. Minimum Bid Duration. Bidders responses/bids made in response to this RFR must remain in effect for at least 90 days from the date of bid submission. Pricing: Price Limitation. The bidder must agree that no other state or public entity customer within the United States of similar size and with similar terms and conditions shall receive a lower price for the same commodity and service during the contract period, unless this same lower price is immediately effective for the Commonwealth. If the Commonwealth believes that it is not receiving this lower price as required by this language, the bidder must agree to provide current or historical pricing offered or negotiated with other state or public entities at any time during the contract period in the absence of proprietary information being part of such contracts. Prompt Payment Discounts (PPD). All bidders responding to this procurement must agree to offer discounts through participation in the Commonwealth Prompt Payment Discount (PPD) initiative for receiving early and/or on-time payments, unless the bidder can provide compelling proof that it would be unduly burdensome. PPD benefits both contractors and the Commonwealth. Contractors benefit by increased, usable cash flow as a result of fast and efficient payments for commodities or services rendered. Participation in the Electronic Funds Transfer initiative further maximizes the benefits with payments directed to designated accounts, thus eliminating the impact of check clearance policies and traditional mail lead time or delays. The Commonwealth benefits because contractors reduce the cost of products and services through the applied discount. Payments that are processed electronically can be tracked and verified through the Comptroller’s Vendor Web system. The PPD form can be found under the Forms and Terms tab of this solicitation. Bidders must submit agreeable terms for Prompt Payment Discount using the PPD form within their proposal, unless otherwise specified by the PMT. The PMT will review, negotiate or reject the offering as deemed in the best interest of the Commonwealth. The requirement to use PPD offerings may be waived by the PMT on a case-by-case basis if participation in the program would be unduly burdensome on the bidder. If a bidder is claiming that this requirement is a hardship or unduly burdensome, the specific reason must be documented in or attached to the PPD form.
Public Records. All responses and information submitted in response to this RFR are subject to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, M.G.L., c. 66, s. 10, and to c. 4, s. 7, ss. 26. Any statements in submitted responses that are inconsistent with these statutes shall be disregarded.
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Reasonable Accommodation. Bidders with disabilities or hardships that seek reasonable accommodation, which may include the receipt of RFR information in an alternative format, must communicate such requests in writing to the contact person. Requests for accommodation will be addressed on a case by case basis. A bidder requesting accommodation must submit a written statement which describes the bidder’s disability and the requested accommodation to the contact person for the RFR. The PMT reserves the right to reject unreasonable requests. Restriction on the Use of the Commonwealth Seal. Bidders and contractors are not allowed to display the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Seal in their bid package or subsequent marketing materials if they are awarded a contract because use of the coat of arms and the Great Seal of the Commonwealth for advertising or commercial purposes is prohibited by law. Subcontracting Policies. Prior approval of the department is required for any subcontracted service of the contract. Contractors are responsible for the satisfactory performance and adequate oversight of its subcontractors. Human and social service subcontractors are also required to meet the same state and federal financial and program reporting requirements and are held to the same reimbursable cost standards as contractors.
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APPENDIX II RFR - REQUIRED SPECIFICATIONS FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Refresh Date: August 13, 2007 Information Technology. Required for Information Technology contracts. All IT systems and applications developed by, or for Executive department agencies or operating within the Massachusetts Access to Government Network (MAGNet), must conform with the Enterprise Information Technology Policies, Standards and Procedures promulgated by the Commonwealth’s CIO. Non-conforming IT systems cannot be deployed unless the purchasing agency and their contractor have jointly applied for and received in writing from the Commonwealth’s CIO or his designee, notice that a specified deviation will be permitted. The Enterprise Information Technology Policies, Standards and Guidance, with the exception of the Enterprise Public Access Policy For e-Government Applications and the Enterprise Public Access For e-Government Applications Standards, are available at mass.gov/itd. The Enterprise Public Access Policy For e-Government Applications and the Enterprise Public Access For eGovernment Applications Standards are available in hard copy from the purchasing agency. Purchasing agencies may also obtain a current copy of these documents, on behalf of their contractor, by contacting the Information Technology Division's CommonHelp group at
[email protected] or 1 (866) 888-2808. Please Note: Given the pace of information technology innovation, purchasing agencies and their contractors are encouraged to contact the Information Technology Division's CommonHelp group at
[email protected] or 1 (866) 888-2808 to signal a system or application design and development initiative. Such advance notice helps to ensure conformance with the relevant Enterprise Technology Policies, Standards and Procedures. Contractor delivery of IT systems and applications that fail to conform to the Commonwealth’s Enterprise Information Technology Policies, Standards and Procedures, absent the Commonwealth CIO’s grant of written permission for a deviation, shall constitute breach of any contract entered as a result of this Request for Response and any subsequent Request for Quotes. The Commonwealth may choose to require the contractor, at his own cost, to re-engineer the non-conforming system for the purpose of bringing it into compliance with Commonwealth Enterprise Information Technology Policies, Standards and Procedures. Information Technology - Clarification of Language in Section 11, Indemnification of the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions. Required for the following object codes within the “Expenditure Classification Handbook” as issued by the Office of the Comptroller: OBJECT CODE U01 U02 U03
TITLE TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES DATA TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES VOICE SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) LICENSES
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OBJECT CODE U04 U05 U06 U07 U08 U09 U10 U75 U98
TITLE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) CHARGEBACK INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) PROFESSIONALS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) CABLING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) EQUIPMENT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) EQUIPMENT TELP LEASE-PURCHASE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) EQUIPMENT RENTAL OR LEASE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR ADVANCE ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES REIMBURSEMENT FOR TRAVEL EXPENSES FOT IT PROFESSIONALS
Pursuant to Section 11. Indemnification of the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions, the term “other damages” shall include, but shall not be limited to, the reasonable costs the Commonwealth incurs to repair, return, replace or seek cover (purchase of comparable substitute commodities and services) under a contract. “Other damages” shall not include damages to the Commonwealth as a result of third party claims, provided, however, that the foregoing in no way limits the Commonwealth’s right of recovery for personal injury or property damages or patent and copyright infringement under Section 11 nor the Commonwealth’s ability to join the contractor as a third party defendant. Further, the term “other damages” shall not include, and in no event shall the contractor be liable for, damages for the Commonwealth’s use of contractor provided products or services, loss of Commonwealth records, or data (or other intangible property), loss of use of equipment, lost revenue, lost savings or lost profits of the Commonwealth. In no event shall “other damages” exceed the greater of $100,000, or two times the value of the product or service (as defined in the contract scope of work) that is the subject of the claim. Section 11 sets forth the contractor’s entire liability under a contract. Nothing in this section shall limit the Commonwealth’s ability to negotiate higher limitations of liability in a particular contract, provided that any such limitation must specifically reference Section 11 of the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions.
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APPENDIX III RFR - Other Specifications Issue Date: November 1, 2005 Refresh Date: August 13, 2007 The following RFR provisions appear in this section at the department’s discretion. If a specification is selected by the department, it is required of the bidder. Access to Security-Sensitive Information. This solicitation contains security-sensitive information which, pursuant to MGL c. 4, s. 7, cls. 26(n), is generally exempt from public disclosure under the Commonwealth’s public records laws and must, for public safety purposes, be safeguarded from widespread public disclosure. This security-sensitive information is in the form of blueprints, plans, policies, procedures, schematic drawings, which relate to internal layout and structural elements, security measures, emergency preparedness, threat or vulnerability assessments, and/or any other records relating to the security or safety of persons (pursuant to M.G.L. c. 66A) or buildings, structures, facilities, utilities, transportation, information technology or other infrastructure located within the commonwealth. Qualified prospective bidders that are interested in accessing this information for the purpose of preparing a bid response must, before being allowed to access the information, sign a confidentiality agreement, thereby agreeing to: 1. restrict the use of these sensitive records for any other purpose than as authorized and for the purpose of putting together a bid proposal; 2. safeguard the information while it is in their possession (consistent with Section 6 of the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions); and 3. return such records and materials to the Commonwealth upon completion of the project. Alternatives. A response which fails to meet any material term or condition of the RFR, including the submission of required attachments, may lose points or be deemed unresponsive and disqualified. Unless otherwise specified, bidders may submit responses proposing alternatives which provide equivalent, better or more cost effective performance than achievable under the stated RFR specifications. These alternatives may include related commodities or services that may be available to enhance performance during the period of the contract. The response should describe how any alternative achieves substantially equivalent or better performance to that of the RFR specifications. The department will determine if a proposed alternative method of performance achieves substantially equivalent or better performance. The goal of this RFR is to provide the best value of commodities and services to achieve the procurement goals of the department. Bidders that propose discounts, uncharged commodities and services or other benefits in addition to the RFR specifications may receive a preference or additional points under this RFR as specified. Contractors may also propose alternatives for equivalent, better or more cost effective performance than specified under the contractor’s original response to enable the department to RFQ 14-06Managed Network Services
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take advantage of enhanced technologies, commodities or services which become available during the term of the contract. Brand Name or Equal. Unless otherwise specified in this RFR, any reference to a particular trademark, trade name, patent, design, type, specification, producer or supplier is not intended to restrict this RFR to any manufacturer or proprietor or to constitute an endorsement of any commodity or service, and the department may consider clearly identified offers of substantially equivalent commodities and services submitted in response to such reference.
Emergency Standby Commodities and/or Services. Due to a declaration of a state of emergency where the safety and well-being of Commonwealth citizens are at risk, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts may request specific commodities and/or services from its contractors. Contractors may be called upon to supply and/or deliver to the Commonwealth on a priority basis such commodities and/or services currently under contract. Such accommodations may be requested from a contractor during an actual emergency. To accommodate such requests, contractors may be requested and must make every effort to service these requests from regular sources of supply at the rates set forth in any standard contract resulting from this RFR. Environmentally Preferable Products and Services. The department and contractor(s) may negotiate during the contract term to permit the substitution or addition of Environmentally Preferable Products (EPPs) when such products are readily available at a competitive cost and satisfy the department’s performance needs. Estimated Provisions. The Commonwealth makes no guarantee that any commodities or services will be purchased from any contract resulting from this RFR. Any estimates or past procurement volumes referenced in this RFR are included only for the convenience of bidders, and are not to be relied upon as any indication of future purchase levels.
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