Invitation To Tender - Server Migration
- Job type
- Seeking a partner to assist us in migrating our on-premise servers to a cloud based alternative.
- Location
- London EC2A 3EA, UK
- Interview date
- Week Commencing 30th May
ABOUT US
As a global movement of more than 10 million people, Amnesty International is the world's largest grassroots human rights organisation. We investigate and expose abuses, educate and mobilise the public, and help transform societies to create a safer, more just world. We received the Nobel Peace Prize for our life-saving work. Amnesty International UK (AIUK) is a national section of this global movement. We have around half a million supporters, members and activists in the UK.
PROJECT BACKGROUND & CONTEXT
2022 sees AIUK embarking on a new strategic plan and theory of change that will take us up to at least 2030. This strategy is the most comprehensive and forward-looking we’ve ever had. It aims to help us effect deep, long-lasting change for human rights, underpinned by two key principles: taking a long-term approach, and focusing on addressing the root causes of human rights abuses. With these in mind, the strategy is organised into:
- Strategic goals
- Priority issues
- Cross-cutting themes
- Enablers
As part of the Enablers strand of this strategy we need to migrate all of our heritage servers in the basement to a secure, sustainable, safe environment. Whilst we have virtualised the servers, they currently sit on a 15 year old SAN that needs to be decommissioned. The server migration will lead to a large mitigation of our technology failure risk and thus helping to deliver our other strategic human rights goals.
OBJECTIVES
Our key objective for this project is to design and implement a cloud-based storage solution (public or private) that meets the following requirements:
- Secure storage of data
- High availability of data
- Value for money
- Scalability of storage capacity
- Performance of data access and transfer
- Integration with existing IT infrastructure and applications
- Compliance with UK data protection regulations
- Disaster recovery plan
ABOUT YOU
We would value a partner that is willing to work with us to refine our objective in order to help us pursue the best route to achieve our overall goal.
It is also important to us that any partner we work with shares AIUK’s values and understands the opportunities and challenges inherent in being a movement of people.
The successful consultancy will:
- Have extensive experience of supporting technology change projects for complex organisations who work on a range of issues.
- Have the knowledge, skills and experience required to provide insights and identify opportunities, in assisting us to set out our technical requirements.
SCOPE & SPECIFICATION
We have already undertaken considerable analysis of our existing server environment and computational requirements and as such the environment that needs to be migrated off our heritage SAN can be summarised thusly:
26 Windows servers operating across 71 cores with 278Gb RAM and 9760Gb of storage
5 Linux servers with 11 cores and 45Gb RAM and 563Gb of storage.
A detailed spreadsheet of sizing, ability and compute requirements is available upon request.
In addition we know that two (2) of the Windows servers have very high computational requirements necessary for the intense data processing and analysis of our legacy CRM system. This system is in the process of being replaced and what is required for this server is a temporary (2 to 3 year) solution that returns the greatest value for money and security; as it is a temporary arrangement it is not essential for it to migrate to the cloud, however if that is the case then new hardware would need to be found for it (e.g. we have considered local physical nimble storage).
These servers are:
- a 6 core Windows server with 44Gb RAM and 1.3Tb storage.
- a 4 core Windows server with 20Gb RAM and 670Gb storage
SUBMISSIONS / TIMELINE
We are very open to having virtual pre-meets (via Microsoft Teams) with interested parties to dissect the brief and answer any questions you may have before compiling your response. If this would be of interest, please contact the Head of Technology, Mike Robinson on mike.robinson@amnesty.org.uk to arrange.
We ask that written submissions (in Word or PDF format) are received by Midnight 21st May. We intend to shortlist these responses the following week and invite selected prospects to present on the week of 30th May, before making a final decision and awarding the contract.
We would like the initial written responses to address the following areas directly:
Preparation and presentation of ideas
A thorough outline of your proposed approach, including:
- Technical solution
- Implementation Methodology
- Timeline, including key project stages
- Detailed budget breakdown, including running costs, hosting, licensing and DR costs
- Identification of any challenges/barriers to the project that you foresee, and recommendations on how to overcome these
- Experiences and references for similar projects
SUPPORTING RESOURCES / FURTHER READING