TO: Mayor Thomas J. Weisner
FROM: Kenneth Nelson, Police Technical Services Coordinator
DATE: October 7, 2013
SUBJECT: title
Resolution to accept proposal for the purchase of a Storage Area Network (SAN) from CDW-G of Vernon Hills and additional consulting services from CDW-G and Merrimac Solutions, Inc. in the amount not to exceed $217,632.00 for the Aurora Police and Fire Departments.
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PURPOSE:
This resolution is requested to accept the winning response for the purchase of a Storage Area Network (SAN) from CDW-G for an amount not to exceed $217,632.00. The project entails replacing the Police and Fire Departments' primary and backup SANs. These SANs are used to store a wide variety of application data including but not limited to Police/Fire/Ambulance Computer Aided Dispatching, Police and Fire Reporting, False Alarm Billing, Arrestee Booking Photographs, etc, but more importantly, it is the primary data storage backbone for the majority of the Police and Fire Departments' critical data.
The Police Department is in the process of deploying a new in-car video evidence system. The SAN will support the in-car video system as it brings with it significant storage requirements for standard and high definition video evidence.
BACKGROUND:
One half of the SAN infrastructure will be installed in the Police Department Headquarters Building (PDHQ) while the second half will be installed at the City's disaster recovery facility. This SAN provides real-time data geo-replication which means that critical operations and data will be stored in two physical locations at all times. In the event a disaster disables one data center, the second data center will be available to maintain business continuity.
The Police and Fire Department's current SAN manufacturer issued an "End-of-Support" notice effective 12/31/2013. Given the importance of the data stored in the SAN, a fully supported replacement SAN was required and subsequently a decision package was approved for the 2013 budget year. The current Xiotech branded SAN was purchased in 2008. In the past year, it has begun to experience a much higher rate of drive and component failure due to age and wear on the disk drives and other hardware.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued by the City to elicit vendor responses for a replacement system. In response to this RFP, the City received six proposals. Proposals were required to be submitted with separate technical and cost proposals so that technical merit could be evaluated independently from cost. Value Added Resellers (VARs) were allowed to submit more than one proposal if they carried more than one SAN manufacturer's products. Each responding VAR chose to provide only a single proposal on one SAN manufacturer's solution.
Of the six submitting VARs, one VAR was found to be non-responsive based on two factors. First, the VAR did not separate their cost proposal from their technical response. Second, the VAR did not complete major sections of the RFP as directed. This proposal also turned out to be the most expensive proposal. The other five VARs' responses were subsequently reviewed and scored. The proposal from CDW-G (Value Added Reseller) of a NetApp (SAN manufacturer) solution ultimately received the highest combined technical and cost score. CDW-G's proposal for a NetApp SAN was also the lowest overall proposed price.
Included in this purchase is a block of approximately 60 consulting hours to be used with either the incumbent SAN provider (Merrimac Solutions, Inc) or the incoming SAN provider (CDW-G or its chosen consultant). This block of consulting hours will be purchased on a time and materials basis to facilitate the configuration of the new system and to migrate data from one system to the other. Basic configuration and training services have been estimated in the VAR's proposal, however, additional hours required to complete the project are billed on a time and materials cost.
DISCUSSION:
An additional 10% contingency is included in the overall project cost to cover unanticipated hardware, software and service expenses. These expenses may be needed in part due to the complexity of switching from one SAN manufacturer's product to an entirely new manufacturer's product line. Also adding to the complexity and unknowns is the fact that this purchase is being made off an RFP process which is less explicit than issuing a pre-defined bid specification. In this case, the RFP process was utilized in order to elicit responses from a variety of manufacturers with varying methods of meeting the same technical requirements. An RFP was chosen as the purchasing vehicle specifically in an effort to open the door for new technologies, new vendors, and new product lines.
Sufficient monies for this purchase will be drawn from the following budgeted funds and accounts: 255-1233-419.32-34, 255-1233-419.64-10, 255-1233-419.64-12, 101-1233-419.38-07, 101-1233-419.38-11, (Police Department funds for the in-car video portion of the storage purchase will be drawn from the Forfeiture Fund accounts 216-3536-421.64-10, 216-3536-421.64-12 and 216-3536-421.32-36.) These account numbers represent the project costs for hardware, software, maintenance, and services allocated for this project.
IMPACT STATEMENT:
It is not anticipated that the approval of this professional service contract will have a negative impact on other City Departments.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Recommend a resolution authorizing the purchase of a Storage Area Network (SAN) from CDW-G of Vernon Hills and additional consulting services from CDW-G and Merrimac Solutions, Inc. in the amount not to exceed $217,632.00.