REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL For Citrix Virtual Desktop ...

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

For Citrix Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Support Services

HARBOR REGIONAL CENTER 21231 HAWTHORNE BLVD.

TORRANCE CA 90503

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

JUNE 22, 2021

PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ...................................................................................... 2

1.1 RFP SCOPE ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 2.0 RFP INSTRUCTIONS, SCHEDULE AND CONDITIONS ................................................................ 4

3.0 BASIS OF SELECTION .......................................................................................................... 7 3.1 MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS .................................................................................................................................... 8 3.2 EVALUATION OF RESPONSES ................................................................................................................................ 9 3.3 CONTRACT AWARD .............................................................................................................................................. 9

4.0 CURRENT DELIVERY MODEL .............................................................................................. 11 4.1 USER ENVIRONMENT ......................................................................................................................................... 11 4.2 IT INFRASTRUCTURE .......................................................................................................................................... 11 4.3 IT SERVICES ..................................................................................................................................................... 12

5.0 SPECIFICATIONS ................................................................................................................ 14 5.1 CITRIX ARCHITECTURE ...................................................................................................................................... 14 5.2 SYSTEMS AVAILABILITY OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................... 16

6.0 RESPONSE SECTION .......................................................................................................... 18 6.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................... 18 6.2 CORPORATE OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................................................... 18 6.3 IMPLEMENTATION TEAM ..................................................................................................................................... 18 6.4 DEPLOYMENT PLAN ........................................................................................................................................... 18 6.5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT .................................................................................................................................... 19 6.6 DESCRIPTION OF APPROACH TO MEET IT SERVICES GOALS AND OBJECTIVES ......................................................... 19 6.7 SECURITY MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................................... 19 6.8 REPORTING ...................................................................................................................................................... 20 6.9 SERVICE DESK .................................................................................................................................................. 20 6.10 WARRANTY/MAINTENANCE/SUPPORT TABLE ........................................................................................................ 20 6.11 SURVIVABILITY OF DATA ASSETS ........................................................................................................................ 21 6.12 TERMINATION OF CONTRACTED SERVICES ........................................................................................................... 21 6.13 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................... 21 6.14 BILL OF MATERIALS ........................................................................................................................................... 23 6.15 PRICING ATTACHMENT ....................................................................................................................................... 23

Harbor Regional Center - Citrix VDI RFP

Harbor Regional Center Proprietary and Confidential Page 1 of 23

BIDDER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The undersigned hereby proposes and agrees to furnish and deliver the goods or services as quoted in accordance with the terms, conditions, specifications, and prices herein quoted. Bid is subject to cash discount of ____________________% ______________________days. FIRM NAME: _________________________________________________________________________ SIGNED BY: _________________________________________________________________________ (Manual signature – unsigned bids will be rejected) NAME: _____________________________________________________________________________ TITLE: ____________________________________________ DATE: ___________________________ ADDRESS: __________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ PHONE NO.: ________________________________ FAX NO. _______________________________ TYPE OF BUSINESS: ___ Corporation ___ Individual ___Sole Proprietorship ___ Partnership FEDERAL TAX ID NO.: __________________________________________

This form is to be submitted with your bid.



1.0 Introduction and Background

Harbor Regional Center is one of 21 centers in California operating under contract with the California Department of Developmental Services to provide community-based services to citizens with developmental disabilities and their families through partnerships with local private sector organizations. Harbor Regional Center (HRC) began providing services in 1973 and serves nearly 15,000 people in the South Bay, Harbor, Long Beach, and southeast areas of Los Angeles County. Regional centers serve people of all ages with developmental disabilities and their families, infants with a significant developmental delay, high risk, or established risk for developmental disability, and pregnant women who are at risk for having a child with this type of disability.

HRC’s main business operations and primary datacenter are situated at the Torrance CA headquarters. An additional office is located in Long Beach and is used for individual and group meetings, individual assessments, parent training groups, and workshops. There are approximately 550 staff between the two locations with the majority of desktop services originating out of the Torrance office. HRC is in the process of updating certain aspects of fundamental IT Infrastructure. IT management desires a partner to deploy suitable infrastructure to deliver virtual desktops using on-premise hardware given adjacency considerations to its core clinical software known as Virtual Chart. The VDI sessions are primarily LAN-based but will also need to serve a portion of the case workers and clinical staff that operate in a mobile circumstance.

1.1 RFP Scope

1.1.1 Purpose

HRC seeks a Vendor who will provide a turnkey Citrix solution for virtual desktop infrastructure and Tier 3 support services.

1.1.2 Scope 1) The Bidder is expected to consider the current conditions and requirements described in

Section 4 and propose the Solution which will integrate well with HRC’s existing IT infrastructure.

2) The Bidder should provide a complete Solution including a detailed description of technologies, features and functions of the proposed Solution.

3) HRC is also replacing its enterprise storage platform as part of this RFP. Solution should take into account storage requirements for both the VDI platform and the converged virtual farm storage. Professional services should include the effort to create and attach LUNs from the new storage platform and to migrate (vMotion) workloads to the new storage platform and test.

4) HRC’s data center is in Torrance CA. The envisioned deployment is a single environment in a single data center with recovery operations driven from routine backup.

5) The Bidder is required to supply the Software, Licensing and Hardware required to provide the Citrix application and virtual desktop solution with Citrix Gateway Services and management components delivered in the Citrix Cloud. The solution should comply with the technical requirements provided in Section 5.

6) The Bidder should quantify on the provided Pricing Quotation Sheet (Attachment A) the professional services effort to arrive at a detailed engineered solution design and final Bill of Materials.



7) Bidder must also provide a Project Plan that describes the tasks and durations for installation, testing, and commissioning.

8) Bidder must identify a project and deployment team with appropriate skills, experience and certifications on the platforms included.

9) Bidder should offer post-deployment “Day One” support for a period of 30 days to ensure proper operation of the environment. For on-going “Day Two” support, HRC desires Bidder to provide a Tier-3 support option to supplement HRC’s internal IT support capabilities. This on-going support should be offered as an annual arrangement with rolling allotment of hours from month-to-month.

1.1.3 Implementation Schedule

HRC envisions deploying a premise-based solution in the Torrance data center to support the new Citrix environment but is also looking to position the main management components and gateway services using the Citrix cloud-based model. Following is a sequence for the deployment and cutover to production (some tasks may overlap and run in parallel):

a) Purchase order issued to Integrator, lead time for equipment delivery. [4 weeks] b) Integrator deploys premise-based hardware in HRC data center. [1 week] c) Integrator configures the Citrix management components in the Citrix Cloud. [1 week] d) Integrator configures Citrix VDI and image delivery via VDA pools on the premise hardware.

[3 weeks] e) Integrator works with HRC IT to create an appropriate number of user images and delivery

groups to satisfy the various collections of applications required per department. [2 weeks] f) Integrator provides engineering training and knowledge transfer for deployment. g) Integrator manages the premise-based and cloud-based environments and creates a stable

operating environment through User Acceptance Testing (UAT). [3 weeks] h) Integrator fully transitions the premise systems at the primary data center to operational

Production mode. [4 weeks] HRC envisions awarding in August 2021 with cutover to Production in October 2021; target dates and durations subject to change.



2.0 RFP Instructions, Schedule and Conditions

2.1.1 Non-disclosure Agreements

In order to participate in this RFP, you may be asked to complete a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This NDA between the parties should also establish the necessary controls to allow respondents to supply necessary information about their corporate financials in order to be considered as a viable supplier/provider.

2.1.2 Schedule of Events

The following timeline represents the desired schedule of events. Timeline is subject to change at the sole discretion of HRC. Note: Duration includes weekends.

EVENT/TASK DATE DURATION (from

RFP Distribution) 1 RFP Distribution to Bidders 6/22/2021 RFP Distribution 2 Deadline for written questions (Q&A) from Bidders 7/2/2021 ~2 weeks 3 Distribution of Q&A answers to Bidders 7/7/2021 ~2.5 weeks 4 Responses Due (Electronic) from Bidders 7/23/2021,

2 PM Pacific ~5 weeks

2.1.3 Project Contact Info Any questions concerning technical specifications or Statement of Work (SOW) requirements must be directed to the specified contact. Any contact with HRC personnel related to this RFP during the RFP bid process is strictly prohibited until the project has been awarded. Existing suppliers currently providing services to HRC must limit their communications to their existing support operations and must not use the relationship to explore additional information about this project scope. Please submit any questions electronically no later than July 2, 2021 to: Name: Mark Berg Subject: HRC “Citrix VDI RFP” -- <Responder Organization> Q&A Email: [email protected] HRC will respond to Questions by July 7, 2021.

2.1.4 Proposal Submission Instructions

The following documents comprise this RFP package:

• Citrix Solution & Services RFP (this document) • Attachment A - Pricing Quotation Sheet • Attachment B - Service Catalog & SLAs

1. Complete and sign the Bidder Acknowledgement table on Page 1. This section is HRC’s assurance that the Principal signing is in full agreement with the Proposal and has the authority to execute the Proposal and subsequent contract.

2. Respondents may incorporate their responses to Section 6 within the body of this electronic document. The RFP has been structured such that the response sections have all been

mailto:[email protected]



organized in Section 6. It is not necessary to insert acknowledgments or response language in other sections of this document. All embedded responses, unless in the response tables within Section 6, should be clearly identifiable as a response by the use of indentations, bold, italicized or colored response text.

3. An electronic copy of your proposal is mandatory and due on the proposal deadline, Friday,

July 23, 2021, 2 PM PDT. Please submit your completed package including all required attachments before that deadline to:

Name: Mark Berg Subject: HRC “Citrix VDI RFP” -- <Responder Organization> Email: [email protected] Bidder should submit all response sections and the Pricing Quotation Sheet Attachment in native Word and Excel formats. Responses should also be submitted in PDF format to ensure consistency in the quoted information. No hard-copy submission is necessary. Any proposal received at the designated location after the required date and time specified for receipt will be considered late and non-responsive.

4. Provide a very brief Executive Summary that includes an overview of the Proposal deliverables.

The Executive Summary should also provide pertinent information regarding the competitive advantages of the proposed product(s) and solution. Where necessary to facilitate comprehension of the Proposal, Bidder should make use of appropriate charts, diagrams, and other graphics.

5. Describe any other unique characteristics of your organization that distinguishes your company and gives you a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

6. Complete the attached Pricing Quotation Sheet, Attachment A, providing your quotation on a fixed price basis. The price quotation must follow the format of the Pricing Quotation Sheet included in Attachment A of this RFP. A separate Bill of Materials (BOM) should also be provided.

2.1.5 Other Conditions

1. SUBSTITUTIONS All items bid must conform to the specifications set forth in these bid documents. HRC reserves the right to reject all bids that do not conform to the specifications. When bidding on brands other than those specified, the Bidder must state on the bid the brand, quality, model number, or other trade designation on each item bid other than “as specified.” 2. SALES TAX Do not include California State Sales or Use Taxes in unit prices. HRC is a Tax-exempt Organization. Vendors will receive a certificate of Tax Exemption when required if requested. 3. BID SECURITY Bid Security is not required for this bid.

4. BID SIGNATURES All bids must show the firm name and must be signed by a responsible officer or employee fully authorized to bind the organization to the terms and conditions herein. Obligations assumed by such signature must be fulfilled. 5. ACCEPTANCE OF BIDS

mailto:[email protected]



Awards will be made on a unit and line item basis unless otherwise specified in the bid package, on the bid form. The right is reserved to reject any or all bids and to accept or reject any line items thereon and to make any combination of line item awards. Bids may be rejected on grounds of non-responsiveness or non-responsibility. Bids are subject to acceptance at any time within sixty (60) days after opening of same unless otherwise stipulated. 6. PATENTS, ETC. The Bidder should hold HRC, its officers, agents, servants, and employees harmless and free from liability of any nature or kind on account of use (by publisher, manufacturer, or author) of any copyrighted or non-copyrighted composition, secret process, patented invention, article or appliance furnished or used under this bid. 7. FAILURE TO FULFILL CONTRACT/ TERMINATION When any integrator or vendor should fail to deliver any article or service or should deliver any article or service which does not conform to the specifications, HRC may, at its sole discretion, annul and set aside the contract entered into with said vendor or integrator, either in whole or in part, and make and enter into a new contract for the same items in such manner as seems to HRC management to be to the best advantage of HRC. Any failure for furnishing such articles or services by reason of the failure of the vendor or integrator, as above stated, should be a liability against such vendor and his sureties. HRC reserves the right to cancel any articles or services which the successful bidder may be unable to furnish because of economic conditions, regulations or other similar causes beyond the control of the bidder provided satisfactory proof is furnished to HRC, if requested. 8. PROMPT/TIMELY DELIVERY Upon award of bid, supplier should keep sufficient stocks of product and service material to insure prompt delivery and service schedules. There should be no minimum quantities required in order for HRC to place orders for needed items. Bid all items F.O.B. Destination, unless otherwise directed. 9. PAYMENT Prompt payment for equipment may be requested after actual delivery of goods to the required destination as outlined in Paragraph 8 (above). Payments for service contracts may be invoiced per the conditions set forth and agreed to in the service agreement. 10. STANDARD COMMERCIAL USE (Products Only) The Bidder, whether manufacturer, supplier, distributor or retailer, hereby certifies that the products offered under this bid should be new, current production models, have been placed in regular commercial use for a period of at least one (1) year, must remain in inventory at least two (2) to three (3) years after award of contract, and that adequate spare parts exist in the marketplace for the items sold (e.g., no EOL for 5 years). Submit all requests for deviations to this clause as an “or equal” deviation.

11. HOLD HARMLESS The vendor should save, defend, hold harmless and indemnify HRC against any and all liability, claim, and costs of whatsoever kind and nature for injury to or death of any person and for loss or damage to any property occurring in connection with or in any way incident to or arising out of the occupancy, use, service, operations, or performance under the terms of this contract, resulting in whole or in part from the negligent acts or omissions of vendor, and subcontractor, or any employee, agent, or representative of vendor and/or subcontractor. 12. AWARD OF BID Award of this bid should be made to the responsive and responsible bidder having the best compliant solution with the best cost/benefit ratio as determined by HRC. HRC also reserves the right to make multiple awards or no award at all and further reserves the right to reject any and all bids and to waive any irregularity or discrepancy associated with this bid.



13. PERFORMANCE BONDS Performance Bonds are not required for this bid. 14. INSURANCE Proof of insurance will be required of all vendors providing services for items specified in this bid. Upon notification of award of a contract resulting from this bid, vendor should provide to HRC Certificates of Insurance, naming HRC as additionally insured, with minimum limits as listed below. Refer to the SPECIFICATIONS for the listing of certification required for a specific item. General Liability Insurance $1,500,000 per occurrence, $3,000,000 aggregate Automobile Insurance $1,000,000 per occurrence Workers Compensation Statutory Limits 15. WARRANTY / QUALITY The supplier, manufacturer, or his assigned agent should guarantee the product against all defects or failures of materials and workmanship for a minimum period of one (1) year from the actual delivery date or as specified in the Specifications. Upon expiration of the warranty portion, the supplier should further guarantee parts and labor for a period of two (2) years for a total of three (3) years from the actual delivery date. Where applicable, all merchandise must be warranted to be in compliance with California energy, conservation, environmental, and product liability standards.

16. PRICING - TERM OF CONTRACT Quoted prices must stay in effect for six (6) months after award of bid. HRC prefers “Product Line” discounts where possible and encourages the bid responder to establish a discount structure by product family that should be in effect for a minimum of twelve (12) months. Price fluctuations may be negotiated subject to existing market conditions. In the event of a general price decrease, HRC reserves the right to revoke the bid award unless the decrease is passed on to HRC. Vendors will be required to sign a non-disclosure document in order to proceed to the final evaluation. HRC will supply the selected vendor(s) with information that will allow the vendor to evaluate the level of effort required to finalize the Statement of Work and finalize pricing. All proprietary and confidential information presented to vendors will be returned to HRC. All information reviewed and produced is the property of HRC. 17. NO MINIMUM OR MAXIMUM QUANTITIES, ORDER CHARGES, OR LIMITATIONS UPON

NUMBER OF ORDERS HRC anticipates contract term requirements for the supplies and commodities as listed in the quantities shown in your proposals. HRC, however, does not guarantee orders in these amounts nor should HRC be required to limit its order to only those figures. This is an indefinite-quantity bid. 18. TECHNOLOGY CLAUSE As technology advances, it is understood that improved or enhanced products may supersede existing products in both price and performance and yet be essentially similar. This request for bids seeks to address the rapid advances in technology by allowing functionally similar or identical products, as determined by HRC, that may be introduced in the future during the term of this bid to be included under the general umbrella of compatible product lines and are thus specifically included in this bid document. 19. APPLICABLE LAW The laws of the State of California should govern any agreements resulting from this bid.

3.0 Basis of Selection



In selecting the most responsible vendor, consideration will be given not only to financial standing but also to the general competency of the vendor for the ability to provide the equipment and services specified in the quantities required by this bid. By submitting a bid, each vendor agrees that HRC, in determining the selection of vendor, may consider the vendor’s experience and facilities, conduct and performance under other contracts, financial condition, reputation in the industry and other factors which could affect the vendor’s performance of the service. HRC may also consider the qualifications and experience of the vendor. Operating costs, maintenance considerations, performance data and guarantees of equipment and materials may also be considered by HRC. Supporting documentation must be submitted with bid(s). These elements will be the primary considerations in evaluating all submitted proposals. Proposals will be ranked according to an internal score and ranking method. The top two (2) vendors will be considered for further evaluation and final pricing. Scores are confidential and will not be discussed. HRC may, at their discretion and without explanation to the prospective vendors, choose to discontinue this RFP or reduce the scope without obligation to such prospective vendors.

No. Evaluation Factors 1 Solution -- Quote meets HRC’s specifications 2 Personnel Qualifications 3 Prior Experience 4 Cost / Value 5 Quality of Service & Support Guarantees 6 Management Capability

3.1 Minimum qualifications

Prospective Vendors must meet the following minimum qualifications in order to respond to this RFP:

1. Vendor must have entered into at least three (3) North America based IT Infrastructure deployment contracts within the last three (3) years which, at a minimum, include the following: • The average annual contract value of each was at least $200,000 • Each contract included the provision of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure • Each contract must be a reference account

2. Vendor must be willing to act as the prime contractor if subcontractors are required to provide in-scope services.

3. Vendor’s organization or any of its officers: • Are not presently debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment, declared ineligible,

or voluntarily excluded from covered transactions by any Federal or State department or agency

• Have not within a five (5) year period preceding this RFP been convicted of or had a civil judgment rendered against them for commission of fraud or criminal offense in connection with obtaining, attempting to obtain, or performing a public (Federal, State, or local) transaction or contract under a public transaction; violation of Federal or State antitrust statutes or commission of embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, falsification or destruction of records, making false statements, or receiving stolen property

• Have not within a five (5) year period preceding this RFP had one or more contracts terminated for cause or default



Term: Vendors must be able to meet the objectives over a term of three (3) years. HRC is seeking Vendor pricing responses for a term of three (3) years with a one (1) year option. HRC is assuming a Production cutover start date in October 2021.

3.2 Evaluation of Responses Proposals will be thoroughly evaluated based on each of the categories listed above. In addition, the following details other possible evaluation criteria:

Solution

• How well the Proposal meets or exceeds HRC’s requirements • Functionality • Reliability and resiliency • Flexibility and adaptability • Ease of use and administrative “maintainability” • Level of integration with products from other vendors

Bidder

• Bidder profile (years in business, financial condition, size of company, number of customers, market share, etc.)

• Design, engineering, expertise and performance track record in the industry and specific geographic areas where systems will be located

• Experience and expertise with solutions of similar type, size and configuration • Completeness of the Proposal • Effective understanding of HRC’s requirements • Ability/willingness to meet terms and conditions of this RFP • Ability to provide operationally and financially flexible and competitive service and support

programs • Ability and willingness to work closely with other vendors that proposed solution(s) will

integrate with and/or interface to • Bidder ability to perform (local design engineering support, maintenance support, etc.) • Bidder experience including: technology, policy, and procedures • Bidder ability to maintain HRC’s information secure (encrypted) during transit and at rest

Costs

• Evaluation in this category will be based on total cost of ownership for the life of the system

• Cost items to be included in the financial analysis for each qualified Proposal should include: o All one-time equipment and/or software costs for complete system-wide deployment o All anticipated recurring (e.g., post warranty maintenance) costs for the anticipated

system life cycle • Infrastructure management tools (vendor or their partners)

3.3 Contract Award

Award of the contract resulting from this RFP will be based upon the most responsive Bidder whose offer will be the most advantageous to HRC in terms of experience, best practice methodology, project schedule, cost and other factors as specified elsewhere in this RFP. HRC reserves the right to:



• Reject any or all offers and discontinue this RFP process without obligation or liability to any potential vendor

• Change the scope of the engagement • Accept other than the lowest priced offer • Award a contract on the basis of initial offers received, without discussions or requests for

best and final offers • Select some/all of the items from the proposal • Award contracts to multiple vendors



4.0 Current Delivery Model The information provided below is to assist each Vendor with preparing the Quote to give an order of magnitude summary of the environment. This information is summary in nature and should not be construed as 100% accurate.

4.1 User Environment HRC has approximately 350 employees spread across two main locations with many mobile case workers and clinicians. HRC has a VMware 6.5 virtualization server farm that primarily serves client-server applications. The compute environment are two VMware clusters with the main Production cluster made up of four (4) HP DL380 Gen10 servers. The legacy cluster has four (4) HP Gen 8 servers and is expected to be retired. The storage platform for the clusters is HPE Nimble CS500 storage with 30 TBs, which is going end-of-life and needs to be replaced as part of the scope of this project. User endpoints are typically Windows 10 laptops or desktops.

4.2 IT Infrastructure

4.2.1 Data Center

• The current HRC enterprise data center is located in the Torrance, CA headquarters.

• A secondary data center is deployed in a colocation facility in Needham MA. HRC is able

to recover a subset of its production systems at this facility and maintain mission critical application uptime within established RPO/RTO targets.

• HRC currently deploys and supports a range of computing hardware environments that have evolved over time. These include:

o HP DL series servers – Windows servers & ESX host environment

o IBM P-Series AIX servers – State accounting system

o HP Nimble storage – Enterprise storage

o Juniper Networks – LAN core and access layer network electronics

o Sophos XG430 firewalls and Pulse Secure VPN

• There are approximately 100 virtual servers primarily running various versions of Windows Server. There are a few physical servers making up an Active Directory domain controller node and some Exchange servers. IT plans to reduce the physical server deployment through attrition and cloud migrations (ie, Office 365).

• HRC uses Barracuda for a disk to disk to cloud backup architecture. The target storage is

an appliance in the Torrance data center.

• Application environments service HRC clinical software systems, administrative and document management systems, as well as file services. User interfaces are a mix of web browser, and client/server thick clients.



4.2.2 Virtualization

• HRC utilizes VMware server virtualization technology (VMware ESXi v6.5 for the Production cluster, 5.5 for the legacy cluster). Currently, 90% of the deployed Windows servers are deployed as virtual servers with a server compression ratio of approximately 25 to 1.

4.2.3 Local Area Network

• The HRC data center network is a two-tier Juniper architecture with collapsed core/distribution layer on QFX hardware. The primary backbone to access layer switches is 10 Gbps.

• HRC user access networks are comprised of Juniper EX3300 and EX4400 switches, and Juniper Wireless Access Points including Wireless LAN Controllers.

• Network enabling services, such as DNS and DHCP are provided on the Active Directory domain controllers. External DNS is maintained via HRC’s service provider.

4.2.4 Wide Area Network

• HRC maintains two Internet circuits of 200 Mbps and 100 Mbps, respectively. They are front-ended with a FatPipe Warp Extreme bandwidth management solution.

• There is an additional dedicated SIP voice circuit for HRC’s cloud-based Mitel solution.

• HRC is working on increasing WAN bandwidth as part of overall carrier diversity architecture and contract reviews.

4.2.5 Security

• Currently HRC runs a pair of Sophos XG430 perimeter firewalls at the Torrance data center.

4.3 IT Services 4.3.1 Help Desk and Workstation Support

HRC IT currently supplies Help Desk services to the organization for internal IT support. HRC uses a packaged help desk application for tracking service issues. The IT Help Desk responds to and closes Tier 1 and Tier 2/3 calls and escalates certain Tier 3 calls to vendors for resolution as appropriate. Tier 1 and 2 calls are roughly defined as application support or hardware break/fix inquiries. Desktop support services are currently delivered through the Help Desk with remote hands-on support provided on an as-needed basis through HRC staff or through the use of a project-based service provider. In post-deployment role, the prospective integrator will be expected to assist in Tier 3 escalations as a service provider with “bucket of hours” allocation used for bench support to the HRC IT staff. No direct integration to the HRC help desk system is expected.

4.3.2 Core Business Applications



HRC’s featured application for its prospective Citrix environment is Virtual Chart, a custom clinical records application developed and maintained by a partner regional center. The thick client runs in Windows 10 and accesses a virtualized Windows Server and SQL Server application and database stack running in the VMware environment. The Microsoft Office suite of applications are also heavily used and expected to be delivered via Citrix Workspace. All other specialized applications are expected to be delivered within the Citrix virtual desktop, including those with audio/video capabilities, such as training video applications and conference calling platforms such as Teams and Zoom.



5.0 Specifications 5.1 Citrix Architecture 5.1.1 Architecture Overview

The following figure provides a conceptual architecture of the desktop transformation solution for HRC. It involves Citrix Cloud for management components and Citrix Gateway Services as well as on-premise compute/storage infrastructure to support a Provisioning Services (PVS) architecture.

Figure 2 - HRC Citrix Cloud with On-Prem VDA Pool Architecture



Figure 3 – Provisioning Server Reference Architecture

5.1.2 Users

In the new Citrix environment, HRC expects an average concurrent user load of 450 users, but would like to set scalable capacity to support up to a total of 600 concurrent users in the near future.

5.1.3 Endpoints

HRC is in the process of a hardware refresh cycle for their endpoint devices. Windows 10 desktops and laptops should be the presumed typical endpoint in use at HRC. Approximately 30% are desktops and 70% are laptops.



5.1.4 Software and Licensing

Bidder should provide pricing for two licensing models: perpetual licenses and CSP. Bidder should extend its licensing discounts to HRC for a minimum of 3 years. HRC reserves the right to source additional licensing for future expansion through its other channels.

5.1.5 Applications HRC will be transitioning from an environment where all internal users run applications on their local computers, to an environment where all applications are accessed via Citrix. As mentioned above, the primary driver of the new Citrix solution is access to Virtual Chart and the Microsoft Office suite of applications. HRC may provision the physical Windows 10 endpoints with copies of critical applications as a fail-safe for business continuity in the event that the VDI environment becomes unavailable. No use of published applications is envisioned at this time.

5.1.6 Authentication HRC expects first-level authentication integration with Active Directory. HRC would like to integrate in the future with a mobile device management platform offering multi-factor authentication, such as Microsoft InTune. While primary support responsibilities and licensing for InTune will be maintained by HRC, integrator must be prepared to coordinate authentication using InTune during initial deployment and to collaborate on troubleshooting during steady-state operational support.

5.1.7 Hours of Operation HRC maintains strict adherence to login times and requires a method for enforcing time-of-day restrictions. Solution must include the ability to automate these restrictions and ability to end sessions at defined periods while maintaining session persistence and intact session data.

5.2 Systems Availability Objectives

HRC desires to move to a virtual desktop delivery model with advanced platform support provided by the integrator in a managed service provider arrangement up through the operating system stack, with application-level support to continue to be provided by HRC in-house resources. Additional detail on service levels and system availability are located in Attachment B. Respondents must describe their ability to participate in maintaining corresponding SLAs in Section 6.11 of the RFP response section as well as the response table in Attachment B.

5.2.1 Desktop Services It is expected that desktop workstations and peripheral assets, such as network printers, would be owned and maintained by HRC. The Citrix environment (including any future thin clients), would be expected to be owned by HRC and operated by HRC with bench support from the service provider.

5.2.2 Operational Support



The Integrator/Supplemental services provider should provide operational support for HRC’s new Citrix computing environment, from the core infrastructure elements, through the hypervisor stack and up to and including operating system support. This would include performance monitoring of the virtual servers, storage and desktop environments; creation and management of VMs, LUNs and file systems; operating system patches; as well as virtual desktop session management. HRC will maintain responsibility for all application-level installations, application-level patch management, and other support issues relating to application content. See Attachment B for further details.

5.2.3 IT Services change management and lifecycle services

It is expected that the managed service provider will cooperate with HRC’s change management practices as part of its bench support service offering, following industry-standard practices (such as ITIL or similar) for change control and lifecycle management of information stores and assets.

5.2.4 Enterprise Storage HRC desires to replace the EoL HPE Nimble Storage CS500 platform currently provisioned with 30 TBs of usable storage. HRC desires the ability to separately manage VDI workloads for performance considerations.

5.2.5 Disaster Recovery Bidder must be able to establish regular backups of the fundamental components of the environment to HRC’s enterprise backup solution, which is Barracuda. It is expected that the vendor will be able to demonstrate a recovery capability from both the local Barracuda appliance and the cloud replication instance.



6.0 Response Section

6.1 Executive Summary Instructions: MSP may use this section to provide any high-level statements, without pricing information, related to their consideration as a provider of service to HRC, such as an overview of the proposed solution and the principal advantages to HRC that the MSP’s services will deliver.

Response

6.2 Corporate Overview

Instructions: Provide a general corporate overview of MSP, including how MSP’s organization is structured (e.g., lines of business, global presence, etc.).

• Official registered name (e.g., Corporate, D.B.A., Partnership, etc.), Dun & Bradstreet

number, Primary and secondary SIC numbers, main address, main telephone number, toll-free numbers, and facsimile numbers.

• Key contact name, title, address (if different than above), direct telephone and fax numbers. • Person authorized to contractually bind the organization for any proposal against this RFP. • Include a copy of your standard contract or agreement. • Third party agreements (e.g., deployment, outsourced services, etc.). Include a list of any

third parties that will perform under any of the proposed services. • Include a copy of company current financial statement and most recent annual report. • Include any pending legal claims, rulings or litigation.

Response

6.3 Implementation Team State by name and title, the proposed implementation team that will be assigned for the duration of this project. Provide a diagram and description of the support structure dedicated and available to this project. This should include project manager, engineers, technicians, installers, as required. The city and state where project managers and installers are located should be included in the diagram. The use of subcontractors must be clearly indicated in the organizational chart and project team list. Project team resumes are to be included and HRC reserves the right to qualify project team members through a review of the resumes and interview process. The Integrator should describe escalation procedures for the project team. HRC also reserves the right to replace implementation team members with comparable resources because of unsatisfactory performance.

Response

6.4 Deployment Plan

Describe the deployment process for your solution and include a Gantt chart that details the major milestones and depicts the key project phases and required durations in order to achieve fully integrated and operational system in place by October 2021 with assumption of project initiation and equipment orders in August 2021. Describe the role and functions that your Project Manager will perform in order to ensure a successful deployment.



Response

6.5 Project Management

Instructions: Describe the proposed methodologies that will be used to carry this engagement from concept to detailed design, through finished deliverables, including, but not limited to, project management, checkpoints and periodic status reporting back to HRC. Describe policies and procedures employed to ensure the timely completion of tasks in a quality fashion. Identify what the key phases and milestones in the migration process will be and detail the expectations and participation required of the HRC IT team during the course of migration.

Response

6.6 Description of Approach to Meet IT Services Goals and Objectives

Instructions: Provide a detailed description of how Integrator will architect a solution that will support the availability and recovery objectives referenced in the RFP and associated Attachments. Integrator should provide detailed descriptions of boundaries of responsibility and protocols for maintaining and enforcing SLAs where service outages at the application level could be seen to be a result of outages at the infrastructure or virtualization platform level.

Response

6.7 Security Management

Instructions: Describe how Integrator will maintain physical and logical security of the IT services it would provide to HRC. This should include an overview of the policies, practices, and tools to prevent, detect, and resolve security threats and breaches. Describe methods of securing server and storage instances including techniques for disallowing any legible artifacts for data in transit or at rest. Provide a description of how HIPAA compliance will be maintained for HRC’s computing and data infrastructure. Additionally, please provide the following information about the organizational Security Posture:

• Information Security program, policies, internal review practices. • Describe measures your company takes to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of HRC

proprietary and confidential information during and after engagement. • Describe your company’s physical locations and where customer data may reside. HRC is

required to keep all data US-based.

Response



6.8 Reporting

Instructions: Describe the proposed process for the development and maintenance of service delivery and management reports. Describe whether a single online Portal for accessing reports and real-time data (e.g., asset management, performance reporting, change management) would be provided to HRC. Describe the proposed solution(s) for providing clients real-time data access to system monitoring tools (including CGS and network performance stats). Describe procedures for change management and policy for reviewing service delivery issues with HRC management. Describe how the HRC IT team will be trained on any tools available to provide visibility into the operating environment, such as control consoles, service dashboards, performance monitoring and reporting engines.

Response

6.9 Service Desk

Describe how your support services become integrated to the support procedures of your customer’s service desk, how you track response time to tickets, and manage escalations.

Response

6.10 Warranty/Maintenance/Support Table Question Number Requirement Description Response Caveats / Exceptions 6.10.1 Describe the warranty for the

proposed equipment, including your company’s replacement policy if the equipment fails (how long for replacement, additional cost for replacement device, etc.)

6.10.2 Describe the different types of maintenance/support plans provided for the equipment and software being proposed. Is there a discount for multi-year contracts?

6.10.3 Describe how often regular software and firmware updates are typically made for the proposed equipment. Are these regular updates part of the maintenance plans described above?

6.10.4 Describe in detail your company’s ability to provide onsite repair of the proposed VDI equipment and software available to HRC. Describe the availability and average “on-site” response time for local Southern California resources.



6.10.5 Where are your equipment spare and replacement parts depots located?

6.10.6 Describe the communication mechanisms you use to notify customers of product changes and issues. Specifically how do you notify your customers of security vulnerabilities, major software or hardware issues, or recalls?

6.11 Survivability of Data Assets

Instructions: HRC expects to own all versions and configurations of its data, including backup snapshots, virtual server images, and any other compilation or collection of data within the construct of the on-premise and Citrix Cloud environment; Integrator should detail any limitations to access by HRC of these data compilations or collections.

Response

6.12 Termination of Contracted Services

Instructions: Describe Integrator’s policies for termination of annually contracted support services, such as early termination fees and required notifications of intent to terminate services. Demonstrate that Integrator/Service Provider has contractual provision for HRC to be released from its contract in the event of repeated SLA violations.

Response

6.13 References

Provide a list of similar projects where your company was selected and implemented similar security solutions and implementation services in the last three years. Please include three (3) references including: (a) name of customer, (b) one or more contact name(s), (c) contact’s phone number/email address. Optimally, these references should be close to the Southern California region.

Table 1.

Reference # 1 Customer Name Industry Contact Name and Title Address Telephone Project Manager Name Average Annual Contract Value (total) Average Annual Contract Value for prime contractor and each subcontractor



Reference # 1 Contract Value of each of the following services:

Data Center Services Managed Services Others

Contract Duration (in years) Subcontractors and services provided by each: (list)

Table 2.

Reference # 2 Customer Name Industry Contact Name and Title Address Telephone MSP Project Manager Name Average Annual Contract Value (total) Average Annual Contract Value for prime contractor and each subcontractor

Contract Value of each of the following services: Data Center Services Managed Services Others


Table 3.

Reference # 3 Customer Name Industry Contact Name and Title Address Telephone MSP Project Manager Name Average Annual Contract Value (total) Average Annual Contract Value for prime contractor and each subcontractor

Contract Value of each of the following services: Data Center Services Managed Services Others




6.14 Bill of Materials Include a Bill of Materials for all equipment, software, features, licenses and subscriptions for the complete Solution you are proposing. This BOM may be provided in your format but is expected to include a representation of your discount structure.

For each product line proposed, please indicate the discount structure in place for this proposal.

6.15 Pricing Attachment

In addition to the BOM provided in Section 6.11 above, bidders are required to summarize the entire cost of their Solution in the provided Pricing Quotation Sheet (Attachment A) for the purposes of the bid normalization process. Attachment A must be provided in native Excel format as part of the response package.

1) Alternate hardware solutions are also welcomed. Bidders should add a tab for each

alternate manufacturer platform or major solution configuration being proposed. HRC is not entertaining non-Citrix solutions; hardware platform can be bidder’s choice.

2) Additional “other” rows have been provided for hardware or software components not suggested in the pricing template but relevant to the Solution(s). Add rows as needed with a detailed description of the component/service.

3) HRC expects best pricing from RFP Bidders. Product line discounts should be available per the instructions in Section 2.1.6, Item 16 “Pricing – Term of Contract.”

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL For Citrix Virtual Desktop ...

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