UK-Cambridge: servers 2011/S 233-377329. Contract notice. Supplies

1/10 This notice in TED website: http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=ted:notice:377329-2011:text:en:html UK-Cambridge: servers 2011/S 233-377329 Contract notice Supplies Directive 2004/18/EC Section I: Contracting authority I.1) Name, addresses and contact point(s) European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) EMBL Outstation - European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton For the attention of: Jon Houldsworth CB10 1SD Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM Telephone: +44 1223492611 E-mail: dcc-project-info@ebi.ac.uk Internet address(es): General address of the contracting authority: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ Address of the buyer profile: http://www.mytenders.org/search/search_authprofile.aspx?id=aa24767 Further information can be obtained from: European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI) EMBL Outstation European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton For the attention of: Jon Houldsworth CB10 1SD Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM Telephone: +44 1223492611 E-mail: dcc-project-info@ebi.ac.uk Internet address: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/dcc Specifications and additional documents (including documents for competitive dialogue and a dynamic purchasing system) can be obtained from: European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI) EMBL Outstation European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton For the attention of: Jon Houldsworth CB10 1SD Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM Telephone: +44 1223492611 E-mail: dcc-project-info@ebi.ac.uk Internet address: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/dcc Tenders or requests to participate must be sent to: European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI) EMBL Outstation European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton For the attention of: Jon Houldsworth 1/10

2/10 I.2) I.3) I.4) CB10 1SD Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM Telephone: +44 1223494620 E-mail: dcc-project-info@ebi.ac.uk Type of the contracting authority European institution/agency or international organisation Main activity Other: Bioinformatics, science Contract award on behalf of other contracting authorities Section II: Object of the contract II.1) Description II.1.1) II.1.2) II.1.3) II.1.4) II.1.5) Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority: Data centre equipment supply and installation procurement framework. Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance Supplies Purchase Main site or location of works, place of delivery or of performance: United Kingdom. NUTS code UKH12 Information about a public contract, a framework agreement or a dynamic purchasing system (DPS) The notice involves the establishment of a framework agreement Information on framework agreement Framework agreement with several operators maximum number of participants to the framework agreement envisaged: 15 Duration of the framework agreement Duration in years: 3 Estimated total value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement Estimated value excluding VAT: Range: between 14 000 000 and 23 000 000 GBP Short description of the contract or purchase(s) The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) is a non-profit academic organisation that forms part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). EMBL-EBI is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics. The Institute manages databases of biological data including nucleic acid, protein sequences and macromolecular structures. There is an ongoing, and growing, need to collect, store and curate all this information in ways that allow its efficient retrieval and exploitation by researchers. EMBL-EBI receives more than 3.5 million web hits a day, and more than 30 000 unique users every month. The data and the vast majority of its software systems are open source, allowing the research Community to use its bioinformatics resources openly available, and without restriction but see section below on data protection. Increasing demand for EMBL-EBI services necessitates the expansion of its capacity. As part of this expansion, EMBL-EBI is seeking to increase its data storage, data processing and networking capacity. The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is seeking to establish a multi-supplier data centre equipment framework with the requirements for the framework broken down into three lots as follows: (the requirement for equipment to be both supplied and installed will vary depending upon particular EMBL-EBI requirements). Lot 1 networking equipment a maximum of 5 suppliers are envisaged, Lot 2 data storage equipment a maximum of 5 suppliers are envisaged, 2/10

3/10 II.1.6) II.1.7) II.1.8) II.1.9) II.2) II.2.1) II.2.2) Lot 3 data compute equipment a maximum of 5 suppliers are envisaged. The duration of the framework will be 3 years with an option to extend one additional year. For consistency, the frameworks will be referred to as "lots". The estimated value ranges quoted throughout this notice are for the 4 year duration. Pre-qualification questionnaires can be downloaded from www.ebi.ac.uk/dcc or requested by emailing dccproject-info@ebi.ac.uk. Please note: The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is exempted from being subject to Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 31.3.2004 and as the Directive is implemented in EU member states. Therefore, any references or inferences that may at any time be derived from or in relation to this contract notice or any other documentation, information or material in any form relating to the procurement of the data centre equipment supply and installation framework contract referred to in this contract notice, is or are not intended to be taken as the EMBL being other than exempt as so provided, nor that the EMBL has waived its exempted status or its privileges and immunities from jurisdiction and suit including as apply under The Agreement with the Government of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1994 and The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1994. This contract notice along with any adherence to a particular procedure for the procurement of the framework contract which may or may not follow a procurement procedure in accordance with Directive 2004/18/EC or associated legislation or regulation of any EU member stage is on an entirely voluntary basis on the part of the EMBL. Any recipient of this contract notice and any person relying upon the content of the contractor notice is not intended to proceed or otherwise assume that the EMBL is other than exempted and privileged and immune from jurisdiction and suit as previously stated. Note: to register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the mytenders Web Site at http://www.mytenders.org/search/search_switch.aspx?id=84632. Common procurement vocabulary (CPV) 48820000, 30210000, 30230000, 30230000, 32400000, 32580000 Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) The contract is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA): yes Lots This contract is divided into lots: yes Tenders may be submitted for one or more lots Information about variants Variants will be accepted: no Quantity or scope of the contract Total quantity or scope: The supply of IT equipment will fall into three categories; networking equipment (Lot 1), data storage equipment; (Lot 2) and data computer equipment; (Lot 3). Framework participants will be required to take part in equipment procurement processess as defined in the framework contract. This contract will initially provide for the expansion of EMBL-EBI data centre equipment, funded by a singular grant, but may also be utilised for further capacity expansion as and when other funding streams become available with a consequent proportional increase in value. Estimated value excluding VAT: Range: between 14 000 000 and 23 000 000 GBP Information about options 3/10

4/10 II.2.3) II.3) Options: yes Description of these options: Expansion of framework contract by one year. Provisional timetable for recourse to these options: in months: 48 (from the award of the contract) Information about renewals Duration of the contract or time limit for completion Duration in months: 36 (from the award of the contract) Information about lots Lot No: 3 Lot title: Computing equipment 1) Short description EBML-EBI operates a large computing farm based on Red Hat (for Oracle systems) and Centos Linux hosting a variety of applications written in house and external software, such as BLAST, Oracle, MySQL. The computer farms are broadly split into three distinct functional areas: Input and processing: used to curate and process data, which is then stored in a variety of ways including flat file and Oracle and MySQL databases. Depending on the external service used the information is processed back to a flat file structure or to another external facing database, External services: provides services to clients, including web, database and ftp services, and these farms are replicated in the two off-site data centres providing a live/live configuration, Sequencing: repository of sequencing information, whereby contributing organizations load information which is recorded and stored. In total there are some 1 500 servers with the bulk being the compute farms, which utilise Platform LSF in order to provide a shared and horizontally extensible computing environment. The remainder are used as support servers, such as Web and logon servers. The growth in compute power broadly aligns with the growth in storage requirements, i.e. as biological instruments increase, so do networking, storage and compute power to process and store information. In addition as new processing techniques are researched and new services are delivered this increases the computational requirement. 2) Common procurement vocabulary (CPV) 48820000, 30210000, 30230000, 30200000, 32400000, 32580000 3) Quantity or scope Suppliers will be awarded membership to the computing framework as part of a small selected group, maximum of five suppliers. At each procurement point a mini competition will be held between these suppliers. Each project may differ in terms of scale and the services required. The suppliers will be expected to advise, supply and install a range of computing equipment, including high density blades and standalone servers, used for intensive bioinformatics processing and client facing applications. Depending on the specific project, the systems may be expected to integrate into the current Platform LSF suites, blade chassis and standard racks. Estimated value excluding VAT: Range: between 3 000 000 and 5 000 000 GBP 4) Indication about different date for duration of contract or starting/completion 5) Additional information about lots Lot No: 1 4/10

5/10 Lot title: Networking equipment 1) Short description The network infrastructure underpins the operation of EBML-EBI and provides services both internally and externally to clients. The scale of the computer and storage farms require high bandwidth and low latency across the whole EBML-EBI network, with resiliency and performance being paramount to successful operation. The network currently spans five sites: three production data centres, one disaster recovery site and one Networking Hub. The Wide Area Network (WAN) is implemented over 10Gb leased Ethernet circuits using MPLS/VPLS providing a multi-site Local Area Network (LAN) to all the EBML-EBI facilities. The core systems connect together over multi gigabit connections, typically 10Gb, with some systems up to 40Gb. The network team proactively monitors the LAN and WAN systems across all five sites, looking for potential performance or capacity bottlenecks. Maintaining quality of service is paramount the successful operation of EBML-EBI s facilities. The network is peered with a UK academic research network at three locations, providing high speed external services. The external services are presented over this network as a series of web services with programmatic access allowing for automated use of the EBML-EBI databases by clients. Over the next three years the network capacity will grow in order to support the growth in storage and computing capacity. It must be able to scale in order to provide sufficient bandwidth and performance to support the large volumes of data being utilised. Whilst storage requirements will grow, the ability to compress and store data more efficiently will improve, however, the network capacity will be carrying the raw uncompressed information and thus will need to be scaled to handle the large volumes of time sensitive information. The ability to scale and integrate new facilities into the existing network easily, is a key requirement for EBML- EBI, with suppliers expected to work to consistent standards of integration and interfacing to existing systems and procedures. With the high data volume requirements for bioinformatics, the application of new technologies to improve performance and resilience, even by a small percentage, can provide a much improved service or operational practice. The suppliers will be expected to be proactive in their approach to sharing advances in technology or potential new equipment, from a range of suppliers, with the EMBL-EBI network and systems team. The expected expenditure for networking is in the region of 15 % of the overall yearly budget. This will include equipment for both expansions of the infrastructure to cope with new equipment being added, but also for the retirement of equipment, mainly due to technological obsolescence and the requirement to upgrade to higher performing systems. 2) Common procurement vocabulary (CPV) 48820000, 30210000, 30230000, 30200000, 32400000, 32580000 3) Quantity or scope Succesful suppliers will be awarded membership to the networking framework as part of a small selected group, maximum of five suppliers. At each procurement point a mini competition will be held between these suppliers. Each project may differ in terms of scale and the services required. Suppliers will be expected to advise, supply and install a wide range of network equipment, suitable for both enduser and high end data centre environments. Equipment supplied under this lot may include, but not be limited to: Data centre switches and chassis, End user switches, 5/10

6/10 Routers, firewalls & other wide-area equipment, Load balancers, Network monitoring equipment. Estimated value excluding VAT: Range: between 1 200 000 and 3 000 000 GBP 4) Indication about different date for duration of contract or starting/completion 5) Additional information about lots Lot No: 2 Lot title: Storage equipment 1) Short description Bioinformatics research generates a tremendous amount of data to be stored and accessed. This creates a unique challenge in managing and scaling storage requirement, whilst balancing the amount of raw data with the improvement of compression algorithms and also providing resiliency and disaster recovery plans for this information. Unlike other large scale applications, such as large email hosting or search engines, large volumes of information are accessed and moved between systems. This places a heavy load on storage with processing requiring sustained periods of intensive access to data whilst being curated and subsequently accessed by clients. EMBL-EBI currently have more than 15 Petabytes (PB) of raw storage in use, spread across 4 data centres. there is a constant expansion in the amount of storage in use at EMBL-EBI, and as such the architecture of the storage solution allows EMBL-EBI to seamlessly increase both performance and capacity. EMBL- EBI has three types of storage; storage area network (SAN), network attached storage (NAS) and back up devices. The bulk of storage (80 %) is based around Scale Out NAS solutions which provide a linear increase of storage and performance, with comparatively easy installation and commissioning. The remainder of EMBL-EBI storage is based on SAN and traditional NAS solutions. All the file systems are presented as NFS based storage. In order to maximize the efficiency of current storage, EMBL-EBI uses many of the advanced features available on the various platforms including snapshots, synchronous and asynchronous replication and online expansion and reduction. EMBL-EBI would expect suppliers to be presenting proactively new advancements in technology which will enhance our storage services. The future growth of storage requirements is extensive due to the high levels of data the new technology will produce. The level of data retention will have to be agreed, relevant to each data set, to ensure that the future storage requirements are achievable. It is key that the impact of service expansion and retirement is minimized, allowing for seamless transition. It is intended that storage will be retired after a 3 year period, thus the purchase of storage on an annual basis will include both new and replacement systems resulting in anticipated multi-petabyte procurements each year. 2) Common procurement vocabulary (CPV) 48820000, 30210000, 30230000, 30200000, 32400000, 32580000 3) Quantity or scope Suppliers will be awarded membership to the storage framework as part of a small selected group, maximum of five suppliers. At each procurement point a mini competition will be held between these suppliers. Each project may differ in terms of scale and the services required. 6/10

7/10 Suppliers will be expected to advise, supply and install a range of storage and backup solutions to meet EBML- EBIs extensive data requirements. Each project may differ in terms of scale and the services required and the systems will be expected to integrate into the current storage solutions. Equipment supplied under this lot may include, but not be limited to: SAN based storage, NAS and scale out NAS storage, Backup and deduplication systems. Estimated value excluding VAT: Range: between 10 000 000 and 15 000 000 GBP 4) Indication about different date for duration of contract or starting/completion 5) Additional information about lots Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information III.1) Conditions relating to the contract III.1.1) III.1.2) III.1.3) III.1.4) III.2) III.2.1) Deposits and guarantees required: EMBL-EBI reserves the right to require deposits, guarantees or other forms of appropriate security. Main financing conditions and payment arrangements and/or reference to the relevant provisions governing them: Payment 30 days from either the receipt of the suppliers invoice or the confirmation of performance (from a period to be agreed with the supplier in accordance with framework contract conditions) whichever is the latest. Legal form to be taken by the group of economic operators to whom the contract is to be awarded: Any contract will be entered into with the nominated lead organisation and all members of the consortium, who will in these circumstances each be required to execute said contract together with ancillary documentation, evidencing their joint and several liability in respect of the obligations and liabilities of the contract. It will be for members of the consortium to sort out their respective duties and liabilities amongst each other. For administrative purposes, any associated documentation will be sent to the nominated lead organisation. Other particular conditions The performance of the contract is subject to particular conditions: yes Description of particular conditions: Particular conditions will be set out in the tender documentation. Conditions for participation Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if the requirements are met: (1) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they are not bankrupt or the subject of an administration order, are not being wound-up, have not granted a trust deed, are not the subject of a petition presented for sequestration of their estate, have not had a receiver, manager or administrator appointed and are not otherwise apparently insolvent; (2) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that the candidate, their directors, or any other person who has powers of representation, decision or control of the candidate has not been convicted of conspiracy, corruption, bribery, or money laundering. Failure to provide such a declaration will result in the candidate being declared ineligible and they will not be selected to participate in this procurement process; (3) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have not been convicted of a criminal offence relating to the conduct of their business or profession; 7/10

8/10 III.2.2) III.2.3) III.2.4) III.3) III.3.1) III.3.2) (4) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have not committed an act of grave misconduct in the course of their business or profession; (5) All candidates must comply with the requirements of the State in which they are established, regarding registration on the professional or trade register; (6) Any candidate found to be guilty of serious misrepresentation in providing any information required, may be declared ineligible and not selected to continue with this procurement process; (7) All candidates will have to demonstrate that they are licensed, or a member of the relevant organisation, in the State where they are established, when the law of that State prohibits the provision of the services, described in this notice, by a person who is not so licensed or who is not a member of the relevant organisation; (8) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions under the law of any part of the United Kingdom or of the relevant State in which the candidate is established; (9) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of taxes under the law of any part of the United Kingdom or of the relevant State in which the economic operator is established. As set out in the pre-qualification questionnaire. Economic and financial ability Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if the requirements are met: (1) All candidates will be required to provide a reference from their bank; (2) All candidates will be required to provide evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance; (3) All candidates will be required to provide statements of accounts or extracts from those accounts relating to their business. As set out in the pre-qualification questionnaire. Minimum level(s) of standards possibly required: As set out in the pre-qualification questionnaire. Technical capacity Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if the requirements are met: (1) A check may be carried out by the contracting authority or by a competent official body of the State in which the candidate is established, to verify the technical capacity of the candidate; and if relevant, on the candidates study and research facilities and quality control measures; (2) An indication of the proportion of the contract which the services provider intends possibly to subcontract. As set out in the pre-qualification questionnaire. Minimum level(s) of standards possibly required: As set out in the pre-qualification questionnaire. Information about reserved contracts Conditions specific to services contracts Information about a particular profession Staff responsible for the execution of the service Section IV: Procedure IV.1) Type of procedure IV.1.1) IV.1.2) Type of procedure Restricted Limitations on the number of operators who will be invited to tender or to participate Envisaged minimum number 15: and maximum number 27 8/10

9/10 IV.1.3) IV.2) IV.2.1) IV.2.2) IV.3) IV.3.1) IV.3.2) IV.3.3) IV.3.4) IV.3.5) IV.3.6) IV.3.7) IV.3.8) Objective criteria for choosing the limited number of candidates: A pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) will be used to asses the capability of those candidates who register an interest in tendering for this requirement. The number of intended candidates who will be invited to tender is circa: Lot 1 - networking equipment = 9; Lot 2 - data storage equipment = 9; Lot 3 - data computer equipment = 9. It is noted that candides may be invited to participate in tendering for one, two or all three lots. For any lot, if there is more than one candidate. Scored in the final place, then all suppliers will be placed equally in the final place and will be invited to tender. In addition, if a candidate's score is within 1 % of the score for the final place, they will also be invited to tender. The "final place" means scored in the 9th position. Reduction of the number of operators during the negotiation or dialogue Award criteria Award criteria The most economically advantageous tender in terms of the criteria stated in the specifications, in the invitation to tender or to negotiate or in the descriptive document Information about electronic auction An electronic auction will be used: no Administrative information File reference number attributed by the contracting authority: Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents or descriptive document Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate 6.1.2012-12:00 Date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates 27.3.2012 Language(s) in which tenders or requests to participate may be drawn up English. Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender Conditions for opening tenders Section VI: Complementary information VI.1) Information about recurrence This is a recurrent procurement: yes Estimated timing for further notices to be published: An equipment framework with an approximate value of 20 000 000 pounds sterling will be procured for the period of 2015-2019. VI.2) VI.3) Information about European Union funds Additional information (MT Ref:84632). The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement, and the contract will be awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender. 9/10

10/10 VI.4) VI.4.1) VI.4.2) VI.4.3) VI.5) Procedures for appeal Body responsible for appeal procedures Lodging of appeals Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained Date of dispatch of this notice: 29.11.2011 10/10