ESMA REGISTERS OJ/26/06/2012-PROC/2012/004 Questions/ Answers Question n.10 (dated 18/07/2012) In the Annex VII Financial Proposal, an estimated budget of 1,500,000 Euro is mentioned for the total duration of maximum 4 years. Could you please clarify what is included in this budget? Will this budget cover all registers related to the first stage mentioned in the chapter 2.1 - Terms of reference? Will this budget cover also the registers related to the later stage? Answer to the Question n.10 The maximum estimated budget covers the implementation and the maintenance of all registers during the duration of the contract (maximum 4 years). Question n.11 (dated 18/07/2012) In the Annex VII Financial Proposal, chapter 2, we are requested to specify the total cost for the implementation of the Prospectus Register. How will ESMA define the cost for the implementation of the other registers? Answer to the Question n.11 The implementation costs for each register will be defined through specific contracts, governed by the framework contract. Question n.12 (dated 18/07/2012) In the attached Framework Service Contract Annex I, Article III.3 - Price, a total price to be paid by the ESMA is mentioned. Is this price related to the total service related to all registers? Is this price related to a single Register? Answer to the Question n.12 The Annex I from the Framework Service presents a Specific contract model which is one of the two ways in which a Framework Contract could be implemented (the other being a purchase order). The price indicated in a Specific Contract is related to the service ordered in this contract (can be a single Register or more, depending on the complexity of the workload and the schedule). Question n.13 (dated 18/07/2012) In the attached Framework Service Contract Annex I, Article II.10.2- Ownership of the results the articles define how the ownership of all the results shall be irrevocably and fully vested to the Union. Could you please clarify? Do you refer also to pre-existing software owned by the contractor? Will ESMA require a license to use such software? Will ESMA require full access to all source codes of such software? Answer to the Question n.13
ESMA will require the full access to all source codes of any custom developed software included in the ESMA Registers projects deliverables and licence to use any software included in the ESMA Registers projects deliverables. Question n.14 (dated 18/07/2012) We will prepare our proposal in English, submitting the Administrative documents required by ESMA in one of the official languages of the European Union, as provided by the competent Authorities. We have not found any contraindications in the tender. Could you please confirm that this approach is correct. Answer to the Question n.14 As for the tender specifications at point 1.6 b) Offers must be submitted in one of the official languages of the European Union. ESMA prefers, however, to receive documentation in English. Nonetheless, the choice of language will be not play any role in the consideration of the tender. Question n.15 (dated 18/07/2012) The data suppliers (ESMA or the European National Competent Authorities) shall likely have additionally the possibility to upload their data through an uploading service available through a web interface. Question: Shall the data suppliers have the possibility also to perform data entry activities? Is a file upload via a web interface or by a web service sufficient? Answer to the Question n.15 ESMA foresees supplying a file upload via a web interface and data entry via simple web form. This interface is foreseen only for small volumes and a low update frequency of data. Question n.16 (dated 18/07/2012) The core system is connected with the HUB and the extranet interface.. It shall process the following incoming data formats: XML, XBRL, PDF, csv, possibly other formats. The data shall be downloaded into a database.. Can you please clarify what you mean with data download? Can you please clarify what you mean with incoming data formats (i.e. pdf): acquisition, parsing, save of data for historical purposes, storage in the db? Answer to the Question n.16 There are two main categories of data provided: structured (e.g. XML, csv, etc.) and unstructured (e.g. PDF). The structured data should be parsed / checked for errors, and stored in a manner allowing data querying and publication. Moreover, in some cases the provided data includes both structured (XML, document metadata) and unstructured (associated document in PDF format) information for the same entity. This information must be stored in a manner allowing fast retrieval of unstructured data from the result of the structured data query. For more details please check the Annex X and XI. Question n.17 (dated 18/07/2012).The contractor will also provide a tool for collecting and publishing statistics about the operation of the portal, the availability of data and applications and the way in which they are used. Can you please give more details about requirements for the statist s tool?
Answer to the Question n.17 The tool for collecting statistics about the operation of the portal is intended for ESMA internal usage, in order to follow-up and to improve the portal activities; at this stage detailed specifications are not defined for this tool. Based on his own experience, the bidder should proactively propose a tool in order to fulfil above-mentioned requirement. Question n.18 (dated 18/07/2012) The exchange system shall:.c) Be available at least 95% in time over a monthly timeframe, excluding scheduled system maintenance. Can you please clarify how 95% availability is calculated, considering that the contractor will provide only the software? Answer to the Question n.18 The engagement covers only the quality of the deliverables under bidder s responsibility (e.g. software defects with proven impact on system availability). Indeed the contractor is not responsible for the infrastructure availability; nevertheless he must provide deliverables fully compatible and integrated within the ESMA standard infrastructure. Question n.19 (dated 18/07/2012) Specific security features could include: User authentication, Network access controls, Access control to functions and data of the application module, depending on the nature of the users (i.e. business role), Audit functions, enabling with a customizable granularity to keep track of users access to application data and functions. Can you confirm you don t require further security features to protect documents or data (i.e. digital signature, cryptography, etc.) Answer to the Question n.19 The data security requirements (integrity, confidentiality) depend on the classification of the information. No further security features are foreseen for public data (i.e. information published on the portal), nevertheless sanctions and administrative measures information have higher integrity requirements than other portal data (for more details see annexes X and XI). Question n.20 (dated 18/07/202) The system must integrate a disaster recovery plan. The software should be able to be recovered according to a provided backup/restore procedure and continue to be stable, without lost of data. Can you please give a more detailed description of DR requirements (i.e. RPO, RTO, etc.)? Answer to the Question n.20 The RTO and RPO requirements will be finalized during the project. The implementation of the disaster recovery and the backup policies are under the ESMA infrastructure provider responsibility. Nevertheless the provider must deliver disaster recovery and backup plans and commit their deliverables are fully compatible and integrated within ESMA s disaster recovery and system backup strategies. Those strategies are currently based on asynchronous SAN volume replication between the production and the disaster recovery site (VMware data store replication), virtual infrastructure backup mechanisms for ensuring local availability (whole VM) and Backup Exec for data backup and archiving (specific file system and / or data files).
Question n.21 (dated 18/07/202) The system should smoothly integrate within the ESMA technical infrastructure Is it mandatory to use the listed elements or equivalent elements can be used? Which environment must be provided by the contractor (Development? Development and test? Test hub?)? Answer to the Question n.21 Physical infrastructure (hardware, operating systems, virtual environments) and common middleware (such as Oracle relational database and OpenLDAP directory) requirements are mandatory. Other software architecture components currently used by ESMA are provided in order to guide the bidders through the optimal technical solution aligned with the needs of the project. ESMA strongly prefers reusing components of the in place software architecture whenever these components meet specific needs of the new projects. The contractor should provide only the development environment. Question n.22 (dated 18/07/2012) The impact of urgent incidents do not allow for the conclusion of a specific contract for each incident before the work can start. Consequently ESMA may request the Contractor to prepare a technical and financial offer to fix a number of such critical incidents, and consume the contract as incidents are declared... Can you please clarify? Answer to the Question n.22 The maintenance tasks and the associated service level agreement will be governed by the specific maintenance contract, which must include the process and procedures for fixing urgent incidents. Question n.23 (dated 19/07/2012) Le mode de connexion souhaité au portail et au module d administration est-il OpenLDAP ou JasigCAS? The desired mode for connection to the portal and the administration module is OpenLDAP or JasigCAS? Answer to the Question n.23 L utilisation d OpenLDAP comme backend pour comptes utilisateurs est obligatoire. JasigCAS est aujourd hui utilise par un projet ESMA et envisagé comme brique standard d authentification et SSO, toutefois le déploiement de l'infrastructure IAM n'est pas attendu avant fin 2013. Using OpenLDAP as backend for user accounts is mandatory. JasigCAS is currently used by one project and foreseen as standard component in the future ESMA IAM infrastructure. Nevertheless, the deployment of a common IAM (Identity and Access Management) infrastructure is not expected before late 2013. Question n.24 (dated 19/07/2012) Y a-t-il des fonctionnalités souhaitées dans l interface d administration autres que celles énoncées dans le paragraphe 2.2.2.D des spécifications techniques?
Are there any other features you require in the admin interface, other than those stated in paragraph 2.2.2.D technical specifications? Answer to the Question n.24 Le paragraphe 2.2.2.D décrit les groups de fonctionnalités requis pour le sous-système d'administration, qui seront détaillées ensuite dans la documentation des spécifications fonctionnelles. A ce stade nous n'envisageons pas d'autres groups de fonctionnalités dans cette catégorie. The 2.2.2.D paragraph describes the feature groups required for the administration subsystem, which will be detailed later in the functional specifications documentation. At this stage we are not considering other feature groups in this category. Question n.25 (dated 19/07/202) Le portail doit-il être intégré dans le site http://www.esma.europa.eu/ sous Drupal (donc développement spécifique sous Drupal) ou suffit-il d un lien du site ESMA vers une nouvelle application? The portal should it be integrated into the site http://www.esma.europa.eu/ realized with Drupal (thus Drupal specific developments) or is it enough to have a link from ESMA website to the new application? Answer to the Question n.25 A ce stade nous envisageons créer des pages spécifiques aux registres (max. une page par registre) sur le site ESMA (http://www.esma.europa.eu), avec des liens vers le nouvel portail, toutefois le «look and feel» des pages du portail doit respecter l ergonomie du site web. At this stage we plan creating specific pages (maximum one page per register) on the ESMA website (http://www.esma.europa.eu), with links to the new portal; nevertheless the look and feel of the portal pages must comply with the website ergonomics. Question n.26 (dated 19/07/202) With reference to "JasperSoft comment doit se passer l'import des fichiers? * connexion de l'utilisateur à JasperSoft ETL et utilisation de job prédéfinis * programme développé en java * programme java appelant les jobs JasperSoft ETL - est-il possible de faire appel directement à JasperReports pour le reporting?" With reference to JasperSoft how should be handled the file import? * User login to JasperSoft ETL and using predefined jobs * Java developed programs * Java program calling Jaspersoft ETL jobs - Is it possible to directly call JasperReports for reporting? " Answer to the Question n.26 Ces questions concernent surtout le design détaillé du système qui reste sous l entière responsabilité du soumissionnaire. Voir aussi la réponse aux questions no 16 et 21. These questions concern primarily the detailed design of the system which remains under the sole responsibility of the bidder. See also the responses to Question No. 16 et 21.
Question n.27 (dated 19/07/202) Avons-nous besoin de logiciels spécifiques (par exemple, installer JasperSoft en interne)? Qu'entendez-vous par importer des fichiers PDF? Avez-vous des solutions déjà en place? Do we need specific software (e.g. install JasperSoft internally)? What do you mean by importing PDF files? Do you have any solutions already in place? Answer to the Question n.27 Nous n avons pas des solutions de gestion de documents PDF en place et nous attendons une réponse alignée strictement avec les besoins de ce projet. Voir aussi les réponses aux questions n. 16, n. 26 et les Annexes X et XI. Currently we don t have any solution for managing PDF documents; ESMA expects an answer strictly aligned with the project requirements. See also the answers to questions n. 16, n. 26 and Annexes X and XI. Question n.28 (dated 19/07/2012) Could the Contractor expect that ESMA will provide the requested number of virtual servers (with the requested number of vcpus, amount of RAM and HDD space) as the proposed architecture define? Answer to the Question n.28 Yes, ESMA will provide the requested hardware infrastructure. Question n.29 (dated 19/07/2012) Could the current software and its licences in the ESMA infrastructure be used (e.g. Oracle database schema for data storage, Jasper BI platform) or the Contractor must propose and provide the required licenses for the ESMA Registers system? Answer to the Question n.29 ESMA will provide any software already provided via the current ESMA contracts (e.g. Red Hat Linux, Oracle, virtualization and backup middleware); all other required software should be provided by the Contractor. Question n.30 (dated 20/07/202) Technical Specifications and monitoring section 2.2.2 Description of the work/ tasks, page 15 The system should smoothly integrate within the ESMA technical infrastructure, which currently includes the following elements: Drupal CMS (6.x) used for the ESMA website. And Technical Specifications and monitoring section 4. Award of the contract, page 25 Offers must include a description of the technical architecture of the future portal, with a description of the software which will be integrated and the custom modules which will be developed. Our understanding is that there is no mandatory requirement regarding the technologies to be used for the future portal and that tenderers are free to propose their own preferred technical solution. Please could you confirm or clarify this point? Answer to the Question n.30 (dated 20/07/202) This point is clarified in the answer to the question 21.