COPS Backup Support

Description

Summary of the work To provide a staged approach 'backstop' support contract behind the existing business-critical mainframe-emulation system support team, including familiarisation with the system, shadowing internal support team on a call-off days basis and potentially eventually replacing them. Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Tuesday 1 June 2021 Why the Work is Being Done For a variety of reasons, the current internal COPS support team may become unavailable at short notice and recruiting replacement engineers with the right expertise and familiarity is considered by the IPO to be difficult given the technology mix. Their constant availability is critical to ensuring the availability of the COPS system and so this represents a risk to the IPO until the system is replaced by the Digital Transformation Programme in approximately 3 years. The IPO seeks to mitigate that risk by engaging a third party for an initial 2 year contract to gain and maintain knowledge and expertise in the COPS system and provide support in the event of unavailability of members of the internal team. Problem to Be Solved 1. Provide ongoing and emergency support behind the existing team. Circumstances depending, this may eventually transition to becoming the primary COPS support function. 2. It is expected that the Supplier will be required to provide assistance to the Transformation Programme in respect of system/workflow knowledge, new interactions between COPS and other systems, documentation. 3. Occasional creation of new code, new configuration or new workflows as required. Who Are the Users 1. User Story 1: As a senior IT stakeholder accountable for the uninterrupted provision of the business-critical COPS service to the IPO, I want to ensure that service can be maintained regardless of internal staff availability so the IPO can continue to fulfil its legal responsibilities in respect of Patents. 2. User Story 2: As a member of the internal COPS support team, I want to ensure there is a group of people who know the system as well as I do so that if the system fails when I'm unavailable I can have confidence that fixes will be applied correctly. Existing Team The internal COPS support team consists of 4 individuals, most of whom have worked with the system for many years and know it intimately. There will be some interaction with wider IT and business teams in respect of the systems that interact with COPS, and there is likely to be interaction with the separate Digital Transformation team in the medium/long term (1y+) Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • COBOL experience: IPO uses Microfocus COBOL, custom-compiled from IDMSX COBOL. Supplier’s staff must be “extremely familiar” (have had long experience working with systems using it) with IDMXS COBOL • Supplier's staff must be “familiar” (have a passable working knowledge) with Microfocus COBOL (as it is compiled by the system and widely documented online). • Fujitsu/ICL VME mainframe Operating System. Supplier’s staff working on the contract must be “extremely familiar” with both the OS and the System Control Language (SCL) used to program it. • Application Master (3GL): Supplier’s staff working on the contract must be “extremely familiar” as it is not a common language and is poorly documented online. • Databases: Supplier’s staff working on the contract must be “extremely familiar” with both IDMSX and SQL databases. • Perl: Supplier’s staff working on the contract must be “familiar”. • Expertise and experience in examining systems and building an architectural and logical understanding of that system and subsequently documenting it clearly. Nice to Haves • Experience of having migrated mainframe (or mainframe-emulation) systems and/or the underlying data to modern, containerised services built using the micro-services concept using DevOps methodologies. • Experience of delivering Continuous Improvements to mainframe or mainframe-emulation systems in response to both business need and ongoing technical (non-functional) requirements. • Experience with Microsoft .NET and Visual Studio. Work Location The Supplier will primarily work remotely but must retain the ability to deploy staff to site on demand. This will be limited to no more than 2 days on-site attendance per year, but the tender response should permit additional days on a Time & Materials basis. Where onsite, address is: Concept House, Cardiff Road, Duffryn, Newport, NP10 8QQ Working Arrangments 1. Supplier’s team will be provided with IPO end-user equipment, individual authentication credentials and remote connectivity capability. 2. Supplier’s team will interact remotely with incumbent team using IPO’s MS Teams, and will be expected to liaise with that team as a minimum every contracted working day. 3. Account Manager will meet quarterly with the IPO either remotely or in person. 4. The Supplier must ensure that their team consists of minimum 2 staff covering the Essential Skills (see below), all of whom must know the IPO systems either through the Familiarisation period (see below) or through the Supplier’s own records. Security Clearance All Supplier staff with direct access to IPO systems must possess UK Security Clearance vetting status (“SC” vetting). Additional T&Cs Potential Suppliers will be expected to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the IPO in respect of any system documentation provided in advance of contract award. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Familiarisation Approach: How the Supplier proposes their team gain familiarity with COPS to the point they are able to begin supporting it with the oversight of the incumbent team. • Ongoing support approach: How the Supplier proposes to use their understanding gained during Familiarisation to provide a support service capable of maintaining/supporting COPS in the absence of IPO staff • Reactivity: How the Supplier proposes to react to situations requiring their support that occur out-of-hours or in excess of contracted days/hours. • Payment: Fixed price based on 60, 80 and 100 days a year options (including 30 day Familiarisation Year 1) • Payment: Rates should be quoted for overages (full days over the contracted days/year) on a per-day rate. • Payment: Rates should be quoted for ad-hoc out-of-hours support on a per-hour rate. Cultural Fit Criteria • The Supplier should work closely with the existing support team and with other teams inside the IT Department where areas of responsibility meet. This requires respect, transparency and equality. • The Supplier should be sensitive in respect of the sense of ownership in the COPS team of the system itself, having borne sole responsibility for it for many years. • The Supplier should work closely with operational delivery areas outside of IT that use and support the use of COPS in respect of resolving issues those teams encounter. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Case study Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. When you say the deadline is: Thursday 1 April 2021 at 11:59pm GMT, do you mean the deadline is 1 minute to 12 noon on 1st April, or 1 min to midnight on the 1st April? The deadline is 1 minute to midnight on Thursday the 1st of April 2021 2. Is there a current incumbent, if so who? The current 'incumbent' or people providing this service are IPO staff. 3. Is there a current incumbent, if so who? The current 'incumbent' or people providing this service are IPO staff. 4. What Platform and Operating System is the Target system operating on? Fujitsu/ICL VME mainframe Operating System. 5. Are you willing to sponsor SC clearance? Due to the nature of the data the supplier personnel will have access to it is a requirement for those individuals to have SC clearance. It would be preferential for the selected supplier to already have suitable staff to have this vetting in place to avoid additional cost and delay for either organisation. However, we recognise that your most suitable people may not have it. In your response please indicate whether you are proposing to use staff who already have SC clearance or if this will be needed and it will be taken into consideration. 6. Is there an indicative budget for this opportunity? With particular consideration as these are a rare set of skills in the present day. We are still going through the budgeting process for this initiative and the responses we receive as part of this activity will assist and contribute towards the budget amount being set. 7. Can you advise if the Supplier will have access to Personal Data? In the event of a data breach, if the breach is caused by the supplier the ICO will fine the supplier, that sits outside of the contract that would be in place between the supplier and IPO. If the breach led to third party claims to IPO, you would pass that liability onto the Supplier. It is in that respect that the liability cap needs consideration as the risk provision compared to contract value is too great. Therefore are you willing to consider a more suited liability cap? I can confirm that the supplier will have access to personal data and data that is highly sensitive relating to patents. The core terms and conditions of the contract between our organisations will be the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 5 Core Terms and Framework Schedules. These are available to view on the Digital Marketplace website for your consideration. I would need to consult with CCS to see if these terms could be amended in the Joint and Call-Off Schedules as it is my understanding they cannot.