DevOps Platform Support Team

Description

Summary of the work The DevOps Platform Support Team will provide Level 2/3 platform support for HMPO Digital Services Expected Contract Length Up to 2 years Latest start date Tuesday 1 May 2018 Why the Work is Being Done HMPO’s 2020 vision moves passport applications online for the majority of customers. The HMPO platform requires ongoing DevOps support to ensure that the services being provided to users continue to operate and meet their availability and security requirements. Digital services are now live and will be launching additional features over the next twelve months at an increasing pace. The platform team are required to provide DevOps support for development and continuous improvement for all HMPO digital services. Problem to Be Solved The HMPO platform deals with a significant amount of data and requires ongoing DevOps support. The Home Office has determined that it requires a supplier to support the provision of DevOps engineers developing and maintaining the HMPO platform. This will include supporting the platform to ensure it is available 24/7. The supplier team will work alongside existing DevOps engineers in the Platform team. The supplier will be required to work to standards and practices set by GDS and the Home Office Centres of Excellence, as well as adopt common agile practices. Who Are the Users As a stakeholder, I need to know that: • The platform is available for use 24/7 so end users can use the HMPO digital platform. • The projects developing the digital services have the DevOps support required to meet their milestones. • The platform is being developed in alignment with HMPO Technical Design Authority Strategy and coding standards. I need to provide: • Digital services to move passport applications online for the majority of customers. • The right level of support to the digital services teams so that digital projects can meet the roadmap and achieve the optimum business benefits. Work Already Done A working platform has been developed and is being used for a number of services and developing services. Level 1 support will be in place using the Service NOW system. Standard DevOps tools are already in place to monitor and alert. Sensu/PagerDuty. The service has gone live and is in the process of completing a migration from a private data centre to public cloud. There is ongoing development work across all the HMPO platform. Existing Team You’ll be working with the Platforms team, HO Digital, Data and Technology and HMPO Digital project teams. Preparing to move to a true DevOps environment as part of the BAU need. Supporting Digital Projects to deliver digital services to their agreed milestones. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • We want to recruit an established team who have a good working relationship – who can work well together and blend their skills set together to meet objectives. • Team members need to be self-starters and self-managing, capable of working at a fast pace • Excellent communicators both from wider team perspective and with users and stakeholders alike. • Looking for clear evidence of how the proposed team has moved an organisation and its people forward on a journey from a staid way of working to a new concept. • We want to utilise an outcome based model rather than a headcount one to allow flex in the resources needed to meet the work. • All Team members must meet the essential criteria as set out GDS job description requirements for the roles supplied which at a high level are. Nice to Haves • Proven experience of working in an agile development environment • Previous experience working within government services • Experience of managing environments in AWS • Experience of providing DevOps services • Experience of running service management • Experience of using Industry Standard tools to manage Infrastructure-as-Code • Experience of maintaining documentation about the environment being managed • Experience of monitoring and optimising resource utilisation in AWS • Experience of deploying services using Docker and Kubernetes • Experience of cross-account VPC peering in AWS Work Location Majority of the engagement for development and maintains work will be Central London and other Home Office sites as required. Support can be completed remotely. Working Arrangments We expect the supplier to : • Work collaboratively with existing cross-functional teams transforming application processing • Align service design and development with the HMPO strategic technical architecture and technologies • Be aware that this arrangement may also be used by other Programmes within HMPO and Home Office wide Security Clearance All staff must hold or be prepared to undergo SC Security Clearance to operate on this project. HM Passport Office will support the clearance process. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Technical solution • Approach and methodology • How the approach or solution meets user needs • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal • Estimated timeframes for the work • How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Team structure • Value for money • Evidence of ability to provide high quality professionals Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Take responsibility for their work • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Share knowledge and experience with other team members Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 15% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers 1. Could you confirm that this work will be treated as being outside of IR35? We expect this engagement to be outside IR35, however status is assessed on a case-by-case basis. 2. Can you confirm that you expect this work and the team to be outside of IR35? We expect this engagement to be outside IR35, however status is assessed on a case-by-case basis. 3. ’Previous experience of working with government services’’ Do you want is to elaborate on our experience with government organisations or are you looking for anything specific within government services to quote as experience? Previous experience relevant to this role would be useful. 4. Is SC required for all team members before 1/5/2018? Whilst SC clearance is preferred, HMPO will sponsor clearances if necessary. 5. Are there any key milestones or dates, e.g. for significant ramping up of the service, or on-boarding of services? Are there any new services the platform aims to offer HMPO that it doesn’t currently provide? Looking to further develop the platform generally, e.g. more self serve and automation. Roadmap currently under construction. No significant ramp up. 6. Is part of the work to create the disaster recovery and scaling strategy or is it already been decided? There will be potential for the team to be involved in this activity. 7. Will the team be responsible for creating and implementing a continuous delivery strategy? We currently have a continuous delivery strategy, There will be potential for the team to be involved in this activity. 8. Will the consultants work on creating container images of the current applications or services? Work will include creating and improving our containers. 9. Will the consultants be expected to be part of the support activities at any level? We are aksing for an outcome based service which will cover support activites at a range of levels. 10. Is this purely supporting the platform that has been developed or will this encompass new development and its ongoing support? This will encompass new development also and it's ongoing support. 11. What is the size of the team required? 6 or more, with some to be allocated to support projects. 12. Can you please confirm the expected size and roles of the team you require? At least 6 DevOps Engineers and scope for a lead. 13. Can you please confirm if there is an incumbent supplier? No one individual supplier. 14. You mentioned requiring an established team are you able to give any indications as to the size of team potentially required? i.e. is the expectation a 3 man team or 23 man team? 6 or more, with some to be allocated to support projects. 15. What approximate percentage of the workload would you foresee being support that can be conducted remotely? 1 day a week. 16. How many development work streams would the proposed resources be expected to support? Up to 6 work streams. 17. Would the proposed resources work within a centralised team or would they be embedded in multiple development work streams? Both. 18. What are the roles you are looking for us to propose? Is there a need for a Delivery Manager, Lead Engineer? Potentially there is scope fo a Devliery Manager/Lead Engineer 19. What is the team size you are looking at? 6 or more, with some to be allocated to support projects. 20. What do you mean by Service Management - do you mean Service Management to ITIL standards or GDS or both? GDS 21. What do you mean by ‘’outcome based model’’ - does it mean we supply a team of different roles and resources and we are charged on a T&M basis on the Statement of Works? Yes - but specific outcomes are to be achieved. 22. You ask for ‘’Industry Standard tools’’ for managing Infrastructure-as-code. Is there any tool you have a preference for or would like us to elaborate further on? What are the tools being currently used on the project? Current tools used are Puppet, Ansible and Jenkins. Moving towards Docker and Kubernates. 23. How many team members do you envisage this will require from the start of the contract in May? 6 or more, with some to be allocated to support projects. 24. Please provide details of how 24x7/extended Support is currently supplied and how this is aligned with the onsite platform DevOps team? 24/7 is not an immediate requirement. Current devops team currently support out of hours on a rota basis. 25. Could you provide an indication of the budget for this piece of work? Budget is estimated at approximately between £3m to £4.5m. 26. Can you please confirm the budget for this 2 year contract? Budget is estimated at approximately between £3m to £4.5m. 27. Are you able to advise what the budget is for the DevOps Platform Support Team? Budget is estimated at approximately between £3m to £4.5m. 28. Are you able to give an indication of the budget range for this engagement? as difficult to understand size of team or expectations on bid value. Budget is estimated at approximately between £3m to £4.5m. 29. Does any or part of this opportunity intend to replace any of the current Application Container Platform (ACP) teams? No - this is not the ACP platform. 30. What is the budget that has been allocated for this? Budget is estimated at approximately between £3m to £4.5m. 31. Please confirm that scope is Development, Maintenance and Support of platform environments consisting of AWS Cloud IaaS and PaaS, using Infrastructure as Code, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment and an Agile approach? Yes 32. Is there any reason why essential skills focus on team management and structure while nice-to-have skills focus on the technical aspects? Usually, it is the other way round on the DOS Framework. What are the weightages, if any, for these questions? Weightings are 15% Cultural, 25% price and 60% technical. 33. Please can you clarify whether the essential criteria mentioned in this question: 'All Team members must meet the essential criteria as set out GDS job description requirements for the roles supplied which at a high level are.' are those points listed in 'Nice to have skills'. All roles must meet the GDS requirements for the role. 34. ’Team members must meet the essential criteria as set out GDS job description requirements for the roles supplied which at a high level are’’ please could you clarify what this question means? What do you mean by ‘’high level (are)’’? Please refer to GDS Job Description. 35. Team members must meet the essential criteria as set out GDS job description requirements for the roles supplied which at a high level are’’ please can you clarify if (a) you are expecting us to provide resource descriptions according to GDS job descriptions at a high level or (b) you are expecting us to provide resource descriptions according to GDS job descriptions for higher/senior roles? If it is (b) what roles are you looking at? Please refer to GDS Job Description. 36. There is a constraint on the DOS Framework that we can provide only one example per question. Are you happy for us to provide more that one example per question or will we get marked down if we don’t follow the DOS guideline? No they won't be marked down if they provide more than one example per question on this occasion. 37. Could you tell us what the expectation is for the security of premises when support is provided remotely? The room in which support is to be conducted must be physically segregated, and access must only be granted to staff who are authorised to work on HMPO systems. Access to HMPO systems must only take place from within the designated room.