RailTel invites EOI for selection of Partner to provide Dedicated Cloud Services

March 19, 2021 Rail News, Tender

RailTel Corporation of India Ltd. (RCIL) has invited Expression of Interest (EOI) for Selection of Partner to provide Dedicated Cloud Services to the Customer of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.

  • EOI No.: RailTel/EoI/NR/Mktg/2020-21/Cloud-Services/02 
  • Name of work: Expression of Interest (EOI) for Selection of Partner to provide Dedicated Cloud Services to the Customer of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.
  • Tender Est. Value: INR 2,01,29,799/
  • Document Download / Sale Start Date: 19-Mar-2021 
  • Document Download / Sale End Date: 26-Mar-2021 
  • Bid Submission Start Date: 19-Mar-2021 
  • Bid Submission End Date: 26-Mar-2021
  • Bid Opening Date: 26-Mar-2021 

Scope of Work:

  • In order to cater the need of CoR, RailTel will provide the required number of Standard 42U Telecom Rack(s) in a Tier-3 Data Centre environment at Gurugram or Secunderabad and power supply i.e. upto 05 KVA per Telecom Rack to successful bidder, at chargeable basis.
  • Successful Bidder needs to bring in all the required Hardware and Software to provide PaaS in Dedicated Cloud(s) to CoR. The PaaS includes but not limited to Provisioning and Management of Virtual Compute and Storage Resources, Operating System (OS) Licensing and Management, Virtualization Licensing and Management, Storage Management, Anti-Virus Licensing and Management, Database (DB) Licensing and Management, Backup Storage and Backup Management of all CoR’s data, Network Components Management etc.. Bidder should design the Dedicated Cloud(s) with underlying Hardware and Software in a manner to provide a guaranteed uptime [ Service Level Agreement (SLA)] of 99.5% on Monthly Basis to the hosted Application / Data of CoR. Any penalty / penalties levied by CoR on RailTel, due to deviation from uptime (SLA) parameters attributable to bidder, will be imposed back to back on bidder by RailTel.
  • The Cloud so provisioned by bidder should be in compliance with standards with the latest version of : ISO 27001, ISO/IEC 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 20000-9 and PCI DSS. In case of requirement cited by CoR and accordingly communicated by RailTel, certificates for above mentioned standards may be procured and produced by Bidder at no cost to RailTel, for sharing with CoR. The certificates should be in the name of ‘RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.’ only.
  • In case of requirement cited by CoR and accordingly communicated by RailTel, the Bidder shall conduct vulnerability and penetration test from Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) empanelled third-party agency, at no cost to RailTel, on the provisioned Cloud facility and reports should be shared with RailTel for onward submission to CoR. The Bidder needs to update the system in response to the findings in the report, without any additional cost to RailTel. The report should be in the name of ‘RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.’ only.
  • The Cloud so provisioned shall comply or meet any security requirements published by Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India or any standard body setup / recognized by Government of India from time to time. The bidder should also be in compliance of the same while carrying out the operations on behalf of RailTel for CoR.
  • The Cloud so provisioned shall meet all the security requirements indicated in the IT Act 2000 and shall comply to audit criteria defined by Standardisation Testing and Quality Control (STQC) in this regard. The bidder should also observe compliance of the same while carrying out the operations on behalf of RailTel for CoR.
  • Bidder on the basis of requirement as mentioned at Annexure-5 of this EOI, must cite the number of Telecom Racks required for hosting the hardware components. Successful Bidder needs to do Intra-Rack and Inter-Rack cabling for the racks provided by RailTel for hosting the hardware, at no cost to RailTel. It is again submitted that a maximum of 05 KVA power supply can be provided per Telecom Rack.
  • Bidders should also cite the number of seating space required for the manpower deployed by bidder for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of the hardware / software deployed at RailTel Data Centre. In any case, minimum One (01) Seat have to be deployed by the Successful Bidder with Human Resource on 24×7 basis. All obligations of the labour laws related to the manpower(s) deployed by the Successful Bidder has to be observed and complied by the Successful bidder itself. However, RailTel will provide the required seating space to the manpower deployed at Data Centre of RailTel on a chargeable basis. Successful Bidder shall depute qualified and experienced personnel as per self-assessment, to perform the operational activities under the contract. Bidder is advised to perform proper and adequate background verification check, including qualification, experience and police verification, of all the bidder’s personnel before their involvement in the project, and irrespective of their deployment location i.e. at RailTel Data Centre (onsite) or Off-site location e.g. Bidder’s office location(s), bidder personnel working from home etc., RailTel or the person(s) nominated by RailTel would have all rights to take ‘Work Report’ from the Bidder’s personnel involved in the PaaS operations related activities (both onsite and offsite) of the contract at any time during the contract.
  • RailTel’s Next Generation Firewall on Shared basis and Payment basis, can also be used by the successful bidder on mutual agreement and if required by successful bidder. It will be the responsibility of the bidder to satisfy itself regarding compatibility of RailTel’s Firewall with proposed hardware / software deployed for CoR’s Dedicated Cloud. It is again mentioned that utilization of RailTel’s Firewall by Successful bidder is totally Optional and Successful bidder can bring its own Firewall(s). In case bidder wants to use RailTel’s Firewall, bidder needs to cite the ‘Number of Ports’ and ‘Corresponding Throughput’ required.
  • There will be no ownership of RailTel on the hardware / software deployed by the successful bidder at RailTel’s Data Centre and successful bidder will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the same. After the completion / termination of the contract and fulfilment of ‘Exit Management (Clause 35 of this EOI)’ process, the bidder needs to retain the hardware from RailTel Data Centre. However, if need arises, RailTel can take ownership of all or some of the hardware / software on mutual agreement in writing, at no cost to RailTel and bidder has to ensure seamless support from Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to RailTel, for the software / hardware whose ownership is taken by RailTel.
  • Successful bidder will also establish a helpdesk system in consultation with RailTel to raise, track and answer the trouble tickets of CoR. Successful bidder will enable a system to generate NMS Reports, Downtime Reports, Helpdesk Reports as and when required by RailTel.
  • The required Internet / MPLS-VPN / Point-to-Point Lease Line connectivity for CoR will be arranged by RailTel as per the mutual commercial understanding between RailTel and CoR.
  • Currently CoR requires ‘Dedicated Cloud Services’ from RailTel Data Centre. In case CoR desires to have ‘Data Recovery (DR)’ services, same is to be provisioned as per mutually agreed technical terms between RailTel and CoR and further communicated to bidder by RailTel. The ‘Per Unit’ price schedule in this case, will remain same, as quoted by bidder in the commercial bid i.e. Annexure-2. Further, in case of DR services taken by CoR, bidder needs to conduct DR Drill, as and when desired by CoR and communicated by RailTel to bidder. The DR operations should also have compliance at par with DC operations, as mentioned in the subclauses of Clause No. 3 above. In case DC operations of CoR are running from RailTel/Gurugram Data Centre then for DR operations of CoR, RailTel/Secundrabad Data Centre will be utilized. 

About RailTel:

RailTel, a “Mini Ratna (Category-I)” Central Public Sector Enterprise is an ICT provider and one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country owning a Pan-India optic fiber network on exclusive Right of Way (ROW) along Railway track. The OFC network covers all important towns & cities of the country and several rural areas.

  • Presently, the optic fiber network of RailTel covers over 55,000 route kilometers and covers 5,677 railway stations across towns and cities in India.
  • RailTel is an ISO certified company. 
  • Its operations are certified with various certifications including ISO 9001:2015, ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018, ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and CMMI Level-4 for its quality management systems, information security management systems, and service management systems, respectively RailTel has a strategic relationship with the Indian Railways and it undertakes a wide variety of projects including provision of mission critical connectivity services such as video surveillance system at stations and within trains, ‘e-Office’ services and implementing short haul connectivity between stations and long haul connectivity to support various organizations within the Indian Railways. 
  • RailTel also undertakes various passenger services including content on demand services and Wi-Fi across major railway stations in India.

EOI documents can be downloaded from website http://www.railtelindia.com or https://railtel.enivida.com.

Source: RailTel-Tender | Image Credit: RailTel