No. Question Answer
1
Could you please confirm contract will be potentially signed with the Geneva UNHCR main entity located in Switzerland (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), rue de Montbrillant 94,
1202 Genève)? Yes, contract will be signed with UNHCR Geneva as a main entity.
2
Leadtime to answer UNHCR RFP is June, 22, 2012.
Considering the fact we will propose you connectivity services (DF or Ethernet depending on your answers, Internet Access Multihoming BGP with an additional provider to Interoute for proper Internet Multihomed BGP), could you already extend the answer deadline to
June, 29th, 2012? The deadline for the RFP is 22nd June. No extension will be made. Site Survey for the interested vendors will be organized from 12-15 June.
3
What is the split between the 19” and 23” racks?
All racks need an install aperture of 19'' The racks currently in use are a mixture of 600x900 and 600x600 42U high- the option to reuse the current racks is also possible.
4
Will the 23” racks hold 23” wide equipment or 19” wide equipment? Note that the difference is found on the side supporting rails?
Prospective vendors should satisfy their requirements for the fixing arrangements for each individual item of equipment as part of the site survey. In general, all servers are HP DL series servers and use the rail fixing arrangement that comes as standard. The remaining equipment (Cisco etc) is fixed using front facing cage nuts and screws only.
5 Could you please clarify your power requirement in Amps or kW for
the 19” and 23” racks? Please refer to question no. 36.
6
ToR Page 2 – point 2.d:
Each power feed should provide the connectivity listed in Appendix A. This is unclear to us. Please provide more detailed description?
Reference Q&A Annex 1.xls (attached).
7
Page 2 – point 2.g. of ToR:
Power Generator should have fuel supply for at least 7-day continuous operation.
Q: We can currently guarantee minimum 48 hours continuous operations without any power back from grid outage and up to 72 hours with full tank. Fuel tank refill is available within 4h. Will that be acceptable for UNHCR?
This is acceptable.
8
ToR Page 2 – point 3.d:
Temperature, humidity and static control shall be in place. Temperature should be kept between 18 and 20 degree Celsius. Q: In order to improve our Data Centre energy management, our current SLA temperature is 23°C (+/- 3°C) - inlet within th e cold aisle which is fully compliant with ASHRAE TC 9.9 (applied by most of the main IT providers). Will this value be acceptable for UNHCR?
This is acceptable. With availabilty of 99.9%.
9
ToR Page 3 – point 5.b:
The Contractor shall be able to provide and manage multi-homed, WAN access e.g. router with BGP and AS Number in conjunction with another telecom supplier.
Q: Can UNHCR confirm it has itself a sufficient IP address Class range in order to handle the related routing and UNHCR being PI (provider Independent) and having an AS number (mandatory requirements to provide you an Internet Multihomed BGP solution)?
UNHCR has its own PI AS. Concerning the private Ips, UNHCR is going to extends the VLAN.
10
ToR Page 3 – point 5.f:
Provide (or sub-contract) optical fiber connectivity between UNHCR 94 Rue de Montbrillant, 1202 Geneva and the Supplier co-location center. The Supplier shall provide the technical service to move and connect the current ADVA optical multiplexor.
Q: Can you confirm you would need Darf Fiber (DF) and in this case number of pairs, type of fiber (mon/multi mode)?
Yes - single mode. 1 pair.
11
Q: Can you answer if instead of DF you would be more interested by having point-to-point Ethernet links between your main site and our Data Centre? And in this case at which bandwidth requirements and with which redundancy level?
The SAN is configured as Metro Cluster, and it needs FiberChannel connectivity. In addition we need Gigabit Ethernet for the TCP/IP server. If the above can be met, then there is no requirement for DarkFiber and ADVA relocation.
Questions and Answers
RFP/2012/490- Provision of data colocation service in Geneva, Switzerland
At the request of some vendors to be able to quote for these services, UNHCR will organize site survey for the interested vendors
from 12-15 June 2012. Interested vendors should send an email to Tawab Omary (email: [email protected]). The exact date/time
of the site survey for each interested vendor will be communicated later.
12
ToR Page 4 – point 8.a:
Physical transportation of the existing UNHCR’s infrastructure to the new data center.
Q: In order to quote the related move services (and related insurance services), could you please provide the exhaustive list of the systems and devices (including potential ADVA and SAN) to be moved with name (mark/model), high level description (server, router etc.), sizes and weight and list prices (mandatory required for final move quote)?
Refer to Q&A Annex 1.xls (attached) concerning servers. Vendors are invited to a site survey and draw up their own list, noting any equipment that requires special transprotation or packing.
13
Q: In order to quote these move services, would it be possible to
proceed with a potential third party to a UNHCR site survey? Yes. Site Survey for the interested vendors will be organized from 12-15 June.
14
Q: Could you please provide a detailed scheme of the current rack architecture (with systems/devices) and the current power and LAN (with patch panels) cabling scheme and/or requirements (both electrical and optical cabling) for each rack and between rack? Or at least your detailed LAN cabling requirements.
The current layout does not necessarily need to be the same in the new location. It is a vast mojority of standard RJ45 and LC optical fiber connectors. During the site survey the vendors will have the possibility to estimate the volume.
15 Q: Could you please provide the hardware configuration of your ADVA
(fibers, ports but also size & weight and list price)? The Adva network consists of 4 FSP2000 nodes (2 to be moved).
16 Q: Could you please provide the hardware configuration of
FiberChannel network SAN (size & weight and list price)? Details will be provided to the vendors during the site survey.
17
Could you please described the connectivity requirements for your SAN:
i. demarcations points (confirm your current site and our Data centre?) ii. Bandwidth? 1 or 2,5 or 4Gbps? SAN compatible? Potential redundancy?
Details will be provided to vendors during the site survey.
18
ToR Page 4 – point Timeframe and Cost:
The turnkey solution shall be completed within 1 month from the contract signature. Shorter time frame will contribute to higher technical evaluation points.
Q: Based on the fact UNHCR may take a decision within 120 days after June, 22nd, 2012; can you confirm you would mandatory the services delivered within 30 calendar days (which will requires “Expedite” mode for some specific telecommunications services - Dark Fiber or Ethernet GBs, Internet Access multihomed - with potential additional costs)?
Will you accept a standard delivery leadtime within a 2 -3 months time
(co-location should be delivered within about 1 ½ month)? The vendor is encouraged to provide the quotation for 30 days, and an optional discount for 2-3 months time frame.
19
Electrical consumption :
Can you please provide us with the total or per rack current data center electrical consumption?
Reference Q&A Annex 1.xls.
20
Type of Racks needed:
Can you please let us know if you need standard or evolutionary racks?
Standard racks are in use currently.
21
Type of servers to be part of the racks?
Can you please provide us with the list of hardware (inventory) that will be part of the racks?
Reference Q&A Annex 1.xls
22
Uptime/penalty:
You mention under 7a a request for uptime of 99.98%. Under 7d you mention a penalty applied at an uptime of 99.99%. Should it not be the reverse?
Yes.
23
Operating temperatures:
You request an operating temperature between 18°C and 2 0°C. Normal data centre operating temperatures are between 20°C to 24°C. Do you agree working with a data center providing a 20° to 24°C temperature range?
Ref. Q&A number 8.
24
Monitoring requirements:
Under 7e you mention a request for a 24/7 monitoring. Can you please specify the kind of monitoring your request?
Monitoring of the environment - temperature, humidity, power, flood etc
25
Telecom racks:
Can you please specify the number of telecom racks you need? Are these included in the 10 42u racks or are these additional? If additional, can you please specify their number and type?
Please see note above and that the prospective vendor will need to undertake a site survey to determine the footprint that they will need in the new location. (The current layout does not necessarily need to be the same in the new location).
26
Data center managed services:
We understand from your requirements that the UNHCR is to manage its IT hardware within the data center. In line with your connect and collaborate programme, are you in acceptance of us providing costing
for managed services, ie for example restore and/or back up of data? The vendor shall include a "remote hands" capability. Such function includes change of tapes, disks and similar.
27 Section “Scope”, subsection 1 a. What is the split (number) between data equipment racks and telecommunications equipment racks?
Vendor site survey.
28
Section “Scope”, subsection 2 b. Please confirm that you require « individual electronic locks” for each single racks in addition to the
biometric electronic lock for the secure room entrance? Vendor to provide security options that cover locks for individual racks and securing the perimiter of the entire area occupied by UNHCR property.
29
Section “Scope”, subsection 2 b. Would you agree to use the provider web-interface for the monitoring of the access or do you plan to use
your own system? Preferably the vendor to provide an easy to use web interface (the alternative is to develop our own in a short time frame).
30
Section “Scope”, subsection 2 d. “Each power feed should provide the connectivity listed in Appendix A”. There does not seem to be an Appendix A?
This is a typographic error in the RFP. There is no Appendix A.
31
Section “Scope”, subsection 5 f. “Provide optical fiber connectivity between UNHCR and provider” – you have not specified size of connection and whether they want a single or dual route?
It is specified "dark fiber" to be connected to ADVA optical multiplexor. A single route is sufficient.
32
Section “Scope”, subsection 8. Relocation services. Could you please provide a list and/or a schematic of the equipment to be migrated? Please note that a visit on-site is a pre-requisite to evaluate the relocation project workload and provide a detailed offer.
Reference Q&A Annex 1.xls.
33 What are the type of racks specifically their dimensions and the number per dimension ? All racks need an install aperture of 19'' The racks currently in use are a mixture of 600x900 and 600x600 42U high- the option to reuse the current racks is also possible. In the main to suit our HP
DL series servers.
34
What is the average IT power consumption of the 10x Racks? Reference Q&A annex 1.xls and Q&A number 36.
35
What is the total power you are using today within your IT equipment? Reference Q&A annex 1.xls for servers + 3500w for the network hardware.
36
What is the power density average you want per rack?
The current devices are using 15 kW, distributed on 7 racks. The plan is to upgrade the devices in the short term, and the expected load will be around 3 kW per rack.
37
How many Telco racks do you need? No racks are specifically Telco racks.
38
Could we see your actual installation? Site survey will be organized for the interested vendors from 12-15 June.
39
Who is your current Supplier for Network and Telecom Services? Swisscom, COLT, and SIG.
40
Point “c” it is mentioned the following: “The facility should provide an Internet Exchange point IXP for peering (desirable).
Question: As IXP is not a standalone service we would need to know the purpose of this request so that we understand it correctly.
Direct Internet connectivity for UNHCR Provider Independent IP (BGP) is desirable only. This is not a fundamental part of the project.
41
Point “f”. it is mentioned the following : “Provide optical fiber connectivity between UNHCR 94 Rue de Montbrillant, 1202 Geneva and the supplier co-location center. The Supplier shall provide the technical service to move and connect the current ADVA optical multiplexor”.
Question: are you looking for a new circuit ? If this is the case are you looking for dark fiber connection or managed solution ?
Yes, a new circuit with dark fiber to relocate the ADVA. Please refer to question no. 11.
If commercially feasible, an existing circuit with SIG might be relocated to the new co-location center.
