Internal Note Numbering in Column 1 to Be Redone After Legal Approves Start with Number
[Internal note – numbering in Column 1 to be redone after Legal approves – Start with Number #2 as #1 has already been posted
Q&A document posted for procurement RFQ 16-19 - Cloud Email, Communications, Collaboration, and Productivity Suite Services
(Software-as-a-Service) on the following statewide contracts: I ITS19 (Oracle), ITS41designatedITD (IBM); ITS53 (solutions providers and technical specialists); and ITS58 (software publishers willing to provide software as a service (“SaaS”) through statewide contract ITS58 (software resellers)).
Questions & Answers, Posted November 17, 2015
This document contains MassIT’s responses to questions submitted via CommBuys to MassIT’s RFQ 16-19 (Bid number 5719) through the deadline posted on CommBuys. Important Notes:
· Questions have been sorted by category and merged where duplicates appear; the second column contains the original question number(s).
· Some questions have been deleted as irrelevant to the Pilot envisioned in this RFQ.
· MassIT is currently evaluating responses to a separate procurement, RFQ/RFR 16-09 (CommBuys Bid numbers 5598, 5599 and 5601), whose aim is to inventory and plan a consolidation of two Active Directory environments, respectively in MassIT and the Department of Revenue (DOR). The Q&A for that procurement is included in this document below, beginning at page X. MassIT has determined that answers to appropriate questions on Active Directory, existing domains, forests, sites and objects are included in those answers. We have not included separate answers in the Q&A for this procurement, RFQ 16-19.
Q&A RFQ 16-19 Email, Communications, Collaboration, and Productivity Suite Services SaaS /Sort Sequence / Original # / Category / Question / Answer /
1 / 108 / 3rd party applications / What 3rd party applications have you implemented relying on Exchange servers aside from the ones specified as priority in RFQ? / NA for pilot project.
2 / 97 / Access control/permissions / Describe mailbox permissions requirements? Are permissions/delegations used heavily in your environment? Folder Level Permissions in Outlook? / Delegation is heavily used throughout the Commonwealth. Folder level permissions are sometimes used.
3 / MULTIPLE / Active Directory / Answers to all questions on Active Directory deemed appropriate by MassIT for this procurement are included in table below containing answers posted for RFQ/RFR 16-09, a concurrent procurement.
22 / 39 / Active Directory Forests / Are the AD Forests that contain the 5300 accounts integrated into the primary forest through directory replication or maintained separately? Please elaborate. If there is active co-existence can you detail that solution? / See table for RFQ/R 16-09 below.
18 / 90 / Active Sync / Does the state have any ActiveSync restrictions? If restrictions are in place, can you describe how they were implemented? / We use native Exchange tools to manage ActiveSync devices. We have limited restrictions (we require a password). We will be using Airwatch MDM in the future.
19 / 71 – 73 / AD Architecture / Is the State in the process of, or anticipate being in the process of any:
· On-Premises Exchange
· Network
· Active Directory Upgrades,
· Schema Extensions,
· Consolidations or Migrations
· Storage
· Integrated Application
during the timeframe of this project? / Development of MassIT’s capacity and configurations is ongoing . RFQ 16-09, a separate procurement, envisions planning for an AD consolidation in the near term future. Responding vendors should be able to accommodate changes in user groups / AD structure and/or network configurations, as well as the addition of applications and object interrelationships as they occur.
24 / 105 / Address Books / How many Address Books exist in Exchange? / Default only
25 / 162 / Adoption (Users) / How many training locations and where are they? / For end users involved in the pilot, fewer than 5 locations. For the MassIT administrators, the Mass. Information Technology Center (MITC) in Chelsea, and MassIT at Ashburton Place in Boston.
27 / 164 / Adoption (Users) / Do they currently have an Executive Sponsor identified for the project? / Yes
29 / 166 / Adoption (Users) / How have you handled training for a large software rollout on the past? / Agency- or project-specific.
31 / 168 / Adoption (Users) / Is there a formal training department within your organization? / No.
32 / 169 / Adoption (Users) / Is there a designated training room that could be used for onsite training? If so what is the capacity? / None for MassIT.
36 / 173 / Archives / Do you require archived data to be migrated for any users? / In choosing users to participate in the pilot, MassIT will only pick users who are employed by agencies that are not currently using an email archive other than informal archiving of emails using .pst files. We will not require migration of pilot user .pst files to the cloud solution. However, the winning bidder must propose a means by which pilot users can access all of their pre-existing emails, in the form of .pst files, without losing any of their current functionality including the ability to create .pst files and move items from their mailboxes to such files. l
23 / 104 / Archives/Add-Ons / Have you deployed or do you expect to deploy any custom mail client add-ons? / SourceOne, which is a dedicated central archive.
38 / 126 / Attachment policies / Do you have an attachment size policy in place? If yes what is it for internal vs external emails? / 15MB
39 / 93 / Authentication / Do users currently use their Windows credentials to sign in to their mailbox or do you use a different solution such as ADFS? / Windows credentials
40 / 175 / Auto-Discover / Do you currently allow auto-discover access outside of your corporate network? / Yes
41 / 102 / Bandwidth / What is your current internet bandwidth? / 2Gb/s, with step-up as required.
42 / 103 / Bandwidth / What is your current "available" internet bandwidth? / typically >500Mb/s
43 / 225 / Bidder Evaluation/ Qualification / Do the ‘service provider’ (aka Microsoft with O365) and the bidder need to be ISO 20001, 27001 and 27002 certified? Or does the Commonwealth expect only the service provider to be certified? / Different qualifications required of bidders in the table set forth in section IV can be met by different members of the integrator/cloud provider team:
· Part A, Bidder certifications and affiliates, need only be met by the cloud provider.
· Part B, company experience, must be met by both the integrator and the cloud provider.
· Part C need only be met by the integrator.
· The References section, which was inadvertently not labelled (and if labelled would have been part D) need only be met by the integrator.
44 / 226 / Bidder Evaluation/ Qualification / If a Bidder is acting as systems integrator, must it enter a CJIS Agreement with the Commonwealth, or is the fact that Microsoft (i.e., the service provider) has signed a CJIS Agreement sufficient? / Only the cloud provider need enter a CJIS agreement.
45 / 227 / Bidder Evaluation/ Qualification / Can a Bidder suggest modifications to the Commonwealth’s Standard Contract Form or is it expected to sign it as-is? The wording on page 18 of the RFQ suggests that Bidder must execute and return the Standard Contract Form to the Commonwealth as part of its RFQ response. Is this correct or is this a document that the Commonwealth would expect Bidder to sign after Bidder’s proposal has been chosen and accepted? / The Commonwealth’s Standard Contract Form must be signed as is and included in the bid. The “blanks” in the Standard Contract Form will be filled in by mutual agreement of the parties during and after the negotiation.
46 / 228 / Bidder Evaluation/ Qualification / Are the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions another name for the Commonwealth’s Standard Contract Form or are they separate? If the latter, where can a bidder locate the Commonwealth Terms and Conditions? / No. There are two different documents, the Commonwealth’s Standard Terms and Conditions and the Commonwealth’s Standard Contract Form. Both documents are available at: http://www.mass.gov/anf/budget-taxes-and-procurement/oversight-agencies/osd/osd-forms.html explain two different docs
47 / 229 / Bidder Evaluation/ Qualification / Are both primary and subcontractor expected to comply with all rules and regulations required in the RFQ or is it sufficient that they comply with the regulations together as one entity? / This question is impossible to answer in the abstract. Some rules, by their nature, can only be complied with by the integrator, others by the cloud provider, and yet others can and must be complied with by both. For example, FedRAMP requirements will only apply to the cloud provider. See 225 above for further information.
48 / 118 / Blackout dates / Are there any blackout periods when migrations cannot occur? / No PST migrations are expected; MassIT will migrate all pre-existing emails of pilot users to .pst files prior to the migration of their mailboxes to the cloud. Pilot users will be migrated from MassIT’s on-premises MassMail solution to the cloud. MassIT does have a change freeze around the calendar year-end holidays.
49 / 1 / Build versus Buy / Is there a budget and timeline? Does the vendor provide the product/solution as well as the staff for implementation and training for this solution? / The budget limit is specified in the RFQ. The bidder should supply a complete solution with flexibility responsive to planning. We would like to have this completed as quickly as possible
50 / 21 / Central Requirement / What qualifies as 'Central Requirement' on page 20 of RFQ document? / A “central requirement” is a feature or function without which an application, service, element of hardware or software will not be able to do its work.
51 / 100 & 107 / Clients / What percentage of MassIT's user population are currently utilizing Mac OS? / <1%
53 / 80 / Coexistence / Is there any coexistence between messaging systems? Either for shared SMTP Namespace or Federation. / Shared SMTP Namespace, routing, hygiene.
54 / 2 / Complete Solution acceptance / Please confirm MassIT’s willingness to accept bids for and purchase the complete Solution (as defined in the RFQ) from Eligible Bidders through the listed statewide contracts, notwithstanding identified specialties or restrictions that might otherwise limit portions of the Solution in those contract. / MassIT will accept bids from bidders on any of the identified statewide contracts, with the understanding that certain statewide contracts will require MassIT to procure the bidder’s recommended solution or services through a second contract. For instance, RFRITS53 does not permit vendors on that contract to sell SaaS. If the winning bidder is an ITS53 vendor, MassIT will have to acquire the SaaS solution through ITS58, the statewide reseller contract.
Regardless of whether MassIT needs to use a second contract to acquire goods or services recommended by the winning bidder, the winning bidder will be responsible for the performance of all vendors recommended by it as part of the total solution.
55 / 106 / Conference Rooms / Are you using Conference Rooms? / Yes
56A / Current Environment / The Exhibit diagram shows E2K7/E2K10 CAS servers. Have all of CAS servers been upgraded to E2K13 already? / No.
56B / Are the E2K13 CAS Servers multi-role CAS/Mailbox, or have E2K13 mailbox servers been deployed [needed for Public Folder Migration] ? / Multi-role
56C / Have the AutoDiscover and OWA and Offline Address Book (OAB) been migrated to the E2K13 CAS servers? [needed for OWA redirection and Outlook configuration] / Yes
56D / Approximately what % of users will have been migrated from MassMail E2K7 to E2K13 by the projected start date of March, 2016? ? / 25%
56E / How many TB of email are stored in MassMail E2K7 and E2K13? ? How many TB of Public Folder storage is being used for the 3100+ Public Folders? / NA – to be researched and provided to selected vendor as appropriate.
57A / Current Environment / Are dynamic distribution lists used? Approximately how many of the 7,000 DLs are dynamic? / Yes. <100
57B / Approximately how many users will access the new mail platform from Outlook 2007? / Unknown
57C / What software is used as an application proxy for OWA to MassMail? / None
57D / What hardware load-balancers are used within the Exchange Environment? / NA
57E / What software is used to deploy Office to workstations today? / varies by agency
57F / Will Windows XP workstations access Office 365 [requires Chrome/Firefox browsers]? / unknown, but possible
57G / Is unified messaging (ie Cisco Unity, Avaya) currently being used within MassMail? If so, do UM dial plans need to be configured? / No
57H / How many AD Forests does the Commonwealth have with user accounts that have MassMail mailboxes to be migrated? / One
158 / Pilot/Future Environment / Is upgrading Office to 2016 Office Pro Plus part of this Pilot engagement? If Office 365 is chosen, will Massachusetts choose E3, E4, or E5 SKUs? / MassIT expects the bidder to provide us with these recommendations.
59 / 176 / Data size / How much data is currently on mail system(s)? (Estimate) / ~13 TB.
60 / 96 / Distribution Groups / Do you currently make use of Distribution groups, Dynamic Distribution Groups, Query Based distribution groups, etc. / Yes.
61 / 131 / Distribution Groups / How are distribution lists managed (e.g., Membership, Requiring authentication, delivery management?)? / Varies by agency.
62 / 132 / Distribution Groups / Do you allow end-users to manage distribution lists they own directly using the Outlook client (in Address Book)? / Yes