Questions and Answers. For. NETWORK Services RFP #

Transcription

1 Questions and Answers For NETWORK Services RFP # Can a tour of the supported facilities be available to be scheduled this week or next week?*, not at this time 2. Can the points of contacts responsible for managing the network services vendors be available for this onsite visit as well?*, not at this time 3. How many physical locations will be supported? Is this a centralized facility or will multiple facilities need support within this RFP? Can addresses be provided? There are five (5) physical locations. The Heart of Texas Workforce Board has Workforce Solutions (WSHOT) offices in Marlin, Texas, Hillsboro, TX, Teague Texas, and an office on New Road in Waco, TX and an administration office in Waco, TX. 4. How many supported network devices, servers, workstations, network printers, scanners and other hardware will be required to be supported? There are approximately 15 servers, 22 network devices and 23 networked printers. Support for scanners and computer workstations are not included in this proposal; support is provided by a separate IT contract, which is currently in place. a. Can an asset inventory report or approximate count of devices be provided? Please see question 4 above. b. What brand or models of printers\scanners will need to be supported? The Board maintains a separate contract for support of non- networked printers and scanners 5. Can an approximate count of service requests per week, month or past year be provided? Is a breakdown between remote vs. onsite requests known? An approximation (best guess) is fine. On an average of 5 service request are made monthly.

2 6. Can an approximate amount of network hours spent per week, month or past year be provided? Is a breakdown between remote vs/ onsite hours known? An approximation (best guess) is fine. Approximately, an average of 16 network hours is being provided monthly. The majority of these hours are remote hours. 7. Can projected minimum and maximum network hours per week, month or past year be provided? An approximation (best guess) is fine. The projected number of network hours will be the same as in question 6 above. 8. Is an approximate onsite trip visit per week, month known? An approximation (best guess) is fine. Approximately 2-4 times annually 9. Is remote support the preferred method of support for the network services? 10. Is onsite support the secondary method of support if not able to resolve via remote? Is there a primary preference? onsite is a secondary method however remote is the primary preference. 11. Are there any regularly scheduled onsite support or maintenance tasks known on a weekly or monthly basis? Monthly 12. Will the Contractor be required to provide their own remote and monitoring helpdesk support tool for workstations? 13. Is RMM software already provided by HOTWDB? 14. Is all anti-virus, imaging utilities, enterprise software and end user software already provided by HOTWDB? 15. Will the Contractor need to provide any software utilities or hardware tools? This is not a requirement

3 16. Any planned or projected network\server tasks expected in 2017? 17. Any planned hardware\software upgrades expected in 2017? 18. Could last years or a previous years cost schedule (menu item list) be provided for reference? A general schedule is fine., not at this time. An IT budget is developed annually dependent on state and federal funding. The total IT budget covers Network services, IT technical support, from an in place contractor, travel, supplies, software and hardware. 19. What firewall device is used? (type, model) CISCO 20. What type of routers are being utilized? (type, model) CISCO, models vary 21. What type of switches are being utilized? (type, model) CISCO, models vary 22. Do the switches and routers have an SLA backed manufactures hardware warranty? i.e. advanced parts replacement and support?, warranties vary 23. Does the organization have wireless? 24. What level of network access control is in place? (Radius Auth, PEAP, RSA, WEP, WPA2) WPA2 25. What type of wireless equipment is used? Cisco Meraki 26. If you have wireless, how critical is it to your organization? Wireless is not mission critical

4 27. What type internet circuits are providing internet to the organization? (Fiber, Coax, T1's)? T1s, AT&T U-Verse, Cable, and Fiber 28. Who is the internet provider? Time Warner and AT&T 29. Does your server room have a dedicated cooling system? Please describe. Only at the New Road Office in Waco, Texas 30. Do you have battery backup for your core server and network infrastructure?, we have UPS 31. How many servers does the organization support? Approximately What operating system are the servers that are supported or in production? Windows 33. Is the organization utilizing virtualization technology? If so, what type? (VMware, MS Hyper-V, Virtual Box, Etc), we utilize MS Hyper-V 34. If virtualization is in use, please describe the number of Hosts, Hypervisors, and virtual instances? Approximately Does the organization have centralized data storage, i.e a SAN or NAS? NO 36. Does the SAN or NAS utilize iscsi, CIFS, LUNS? N/A 37. Is the centralized storage (SAN/NAS) used in any way for "virtualization"? N/A 38. Do you perform automated onsite backups?

5 39. Do you have automated offsite backups? 40. How many servers are you backing up and how much total data? Approximately 15 with a total data 2TB 41. How long can you be offline before you suffer a business loss (RTO)? 48 hours 42. How much data can you lose before you suffer a business loss (RPO)? Unknown at this time 43. How often are your backups tested? At a minimum annually 44. Are there currently any known issues with local or offsite backups? t at this time 45. How much data are you backing up on a daily basis? 2TB weekly 46. Do you have a backup and disaster recovery plan?, however it in currently in revision 47. Has the plan been tested? t as of yet 48. What platform is utilized? (Google, MS Exchange, Office 365, Lotus tes) Office How many mailboxes are in use? Approximately Total size of mailstore(s) or combined mailbox size? 264 GB

6 51. What office productivity suite is utilized? Microsoft 2010 and What other software or applications are utilized in the organization? A variety 53. What operating systems are supported in the environment? Windows 7, 8 and How many desktops and laptops do you have? 250 approximately 55. Approximate age of equipment? 5 years 56. How many networked printers are supported? How many local (non-networked) printers supported? ne will be included in this contract. Local non networked printers are supported by an IT contract that is currently in place. 58. Does the organization currently use a MDM (mobile device management) solution? through Cisco Meraki 59. Does the organization have a BYOD Policy? 60. How many mobile devices (iphone, android, tablets, Chromebook) are supported? ne will be included in this contract. Mobile devices are supported by an IT contract that is currently in place. 61. What antivirus solution is being used in the organization? Microsoft Endpoint migrating to Kaspersky Advanced 62. Are AV updates and patches managed centrally (from one server or cloud solution)? Both

7 63. What spam monitoring service do you use? Office 365 and Barracuda 64. How many computers and users do you support in the organization? Approximately 150 users 65. How many remote or VPN users does the organization support? How many network sites (locations/offices) exist in the HOT Workforce organization? What are the organizations normal business hours? rmal business hours are 8-5 M-F with the exception of the New Road Office which has extended hours on Tuesdays What support hours will be required? rmal business hours are 8-5 M-F with the exception of the New Road Office which has extended hours on Tuesdays 8-7. Occasionally other hours may be required to avoid downtime. 69. What parts of your IT infrastructure/systems are the most vital to your day-to-day business activities? and Network Services 70. What are your most annoying IT time-wasters that have to deal with? t being able to fix an IT problem in a quick turnaround time 71. Is there anything that requires regular babysitting or troubleshooting? 72. Are there any systems that you suspect should or could work better? Less intervention and more automation? As with most systems, improvements can be made, turn around and down times can be shortened. 73. How critical is in your company? Central to daily operations.

8 74. How reliable would you say it is? Somewhat however speed may be less due to being in the cloud 75. Do you have or keep an IT vendors list? 76. Do you have a list or database of system information such as software, printers, web services, network device list and associated passwords? 77. Recently, have there been any major IT issues? What was the outcome?, there have been no major IT issues 78. How does your company use mobile devices and how do they fit into your IT strategy? Mainly during outside of normal business hours, travel and to VPN into the network and the Texas Workforce Commission systems 79. How would you rate your wireless network performance? Reliable 80. Do you offer guest or visitor wifi access? 81. What type of desk phones/pbx are you using? CISCO 82. What are the most used features? Voic and conference calls 83. Are there any you want and don t have? 84. What IT projects would you like completed in the next 12 months? Microsoft Windows Server 2012 upgrade and Hyper V Server high-availability 85. Do you have an IT budget?

9 86. Is it formalized? Operating Budget and/or Capital Budget? The IT budget is made up of operating costs, hardware, software, and supplies. 87. When do you submit your forecasted operating budget and Capital budgets? The budget process is conducted prior to Oct 1, every year 88. If no budget, do you have any metrics on IT spending in your industry? N/A 89. Have you done any research on what downtime cost? NO 90. What is the maximum amount of downtime the business can tolerate? (Explain RTO and RPO) 48 Hours 91. Do you have a backup system in place? 92. Is all of your critical data being backed up? YES 93. Do you have an offsite copy? YES 94. How confident are you in your ability to recover data in the event in the event of data loss? There have been no issues as of yet on recovery 95. Have you ever performed a trial data recovery or restoration? If so, when was the last time?. Within the Past 6 months 96. What measures have you taken to secure company assets and data? we have adopt the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) suggested security procedures and security requirements 97. Are there and compliance items or government directives you have to follow? YES, state and federal

10 98. How concerned are you about hackers and data theft? 99. Do you process credit card transactions? 100. Do you store sensitive customer information on/in an application server managed internally? 101. Has your network ever been hacked? 102. Has your network ever had a virus outbreak?, viruses 103. Are you concerned about employees stealing company data or technology assets? We have Personal Identify Information (PII) Policies and procedures in place to protect our assets 104. How do you keep track of software licensing? Applications, productivity suite, operating system, etc. Spreadsheets 105. In order to fulfill the request to recommend upgrades for software and hardware we need to know what you currently have. Can you provide a list of desktop, laptop, and server models and the operating system, including version, installed on each system? We also need a list of networking equipment, including firmware and software versions. Upgrades for desktops and laptops will not be required by Network services. Our current servers are Windows 2008; 2012R2 however there is no need to make upgrade recommendations at this point. Upgrades made be made at a later date and as funding allows The RFP mentions data backup using Symantec Backup Exec. Can you please tell us what physical media it uses: tape, hard disk, offsite? Data is backed up to LT06 tapes

11 107. Please clarify the following statement from the RFP:"Menu Item 2: Installation - Add TWC internet access for VPN to state network for off location access to TWC communications and local servers." Are you needing VPN access from your location to the state network, from state network to your location, or something else? We currently have Cisco VPN access configured to the state network. We will need to ensure the connection can be maintained and upgraded as needed Please explain what attachment F Budget Form, is for and how you l are wanting it completed. Can you explain what it s for and the information you are looking to see on it? The budget form will be used as follows: Section I Salaries and Benefits should reflect your hourly rate. Section II Should list your estimated expenses for travel as stated in section III page 4 of the RFP. Section III is for justification for these expenses 109. Also, some of the language on the RFP is saying you all are looking for a per/hour as need contractor, but in the menu sections it seems as if you re asking about ongoing maintenance, monitoring and back-up support. Are you all looking for both as needed support as well as ongoing monitoring? 110. Per the proposal name, this is an RFP for Network services, but in Part C Section I (Purpose), Computer Services and Network Services appears to be used interchangeably. It appears that both PC Support and Network Support Services are needed. Will one hourly for PC Support and another for Network Support be acceptable? PC support will not be included in the Network Services contract. The Board currently contracts with another entity for computer support What are the hardware and software platforms in the environment that need to be supported? Hyper V server, Cisco networking gear and Microsoft server applications on HP Hardware 112. Is there an expectation to keep replacement inventory in the event of hardware malfunction? 113. Under Section X, Conduct data-back-up and restore for all local data. Should this data be backup onsite or is offsite storage acceptable? Onsite

12 114. What backup solution is in place today? Backup Exec What specific devices types will need to be backed up (i.e., servers, PC s)? Servers