Public Website Hosting - Electoral Commission

Returnable Documents:

The Electoral Commission (IEC) is seeking to procure website hosting services from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to host its website applications for a period not exceeding 12 months from 01 March 2026 to cater for Local Government Elections (LGE) 2026. The service provider is required to provide a number of Virtual Machines for the Web sites, Application Program Interface (API) and Maps services. The service provider is also required to provide data storage facility. The Electoral Commission will provide security infrastructure in the form of Fortinet equipment and licenses, it is required of the service provider to configure these to secure the Electoral Commission’s website over and above at their own hosting security environment. The service provider will also provide redundant connectivity to the Internet with bandwidth ranging from 10 Mbps up to 10 Gbps. The bandwidth should be scalable up and down. The service provider is also to provide support services including daily, weekly and monthly configuration, files and database backups. This is a consumption-based requirement where the Electoral Commission will only pay for the infrastructure and services utilized during the hosting period. Bidders must place a bid on the Votaquotes (e-Procurement) system and then provide all the required documentation before the due dates as specified in this document and on the Votaquotes web site. 2 Background Information During elections, the Electoral Commission prefers to host the public website at an Internet Service Provider, away from its data centre mainly for the following reasons: a) Being at an ISP means that Internet Access is not limited to the physical line capacity between the ISP and the Electoral Commission. The Internet Connectivity can be scaled up/down at request to allow good response times as and when needed. b) Being at an ISP, other infrastructure elements such as servers and storage can be increased much quicker and easier as the need arises than at Electoral Commission’s data centre. This request is to host the public website of the Electoral Commission for a period of 12 months starting in March 2026. 2 | P a g e The Electoral Commission has invested extensively in ICT technologies, which provide a platform to effectively support and enable its business processes and to meet its goal of providing a free and fair election process in an open and transparent environment. The Electoral Commission’s ICT Department intends to continue running a highly efficient, secure and stable ICT environment making full use of industry standards, best practices and disciplines based upon stable, secure and reliable technologies. 3 Bid Requirements The Electoral Commission seeks a hosting solution on an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) mechanism for a period of 12 months at a hosting facility that includes the following: Item Category Sub Item Description Quantity 1 Data Centre Bidder to quote on 1 rack to accommodate the security equipment 1 baseline and the 1 x physical server to be provided by the Electoral Commission Structured Cabling for the equipment that includes fibre for the 1 security equipment and Ethernet for the physical server to be provided. . Provision of redundant 10 Gbps or more switch(es) for the 144 ports environment Consumption based contract - for adjudication purposes the bidder is to quote on 144 ports (3 x 48 ports switches) 2 Infrastructure Provision of Virtual Servers. The bidder is to quote on 134 servers 134 as a Service to be used for adjudication. (IaaS) Provision of 100 TB usable redundant storage with an option to 1 scale up to 200 TB usable storage. The bidder must provide Solid State Drives (SSD) storage Racking and stacking of 1 x physical server to be provided by the 1 Electoral Commission. Connection of all equipment on the Network including hooking up 1 DB Servers to the Storage 3 Security The Electoral Commission will provide the security equipment and 2 licenses Deployment and configuration of the Fortigate Firewalls (2U) 3 | P a g e Item Category Sub Item Description Quantity 4 Internet Redundant Internet (Dual Diverse) Lines with capacity that ranges 1 Connectivity from 10 Mbps – 10 Gbps, i.e. that can be auto scale up to 10 Gbps 5 Support and Remote access for Electoral Commission’s staff for management 1 Maintenance purposes First Level Monitoring, Management, Backups and other operational 1 requirements for the deployed equipment The Electoral Commission will provide second level support to all 1 deployed equipment The servers must be self-managed with the Electoral Commission 1 having full remote access to the server environment The Electoral Commission will also provide 1 x physical server (2U) to be used for utilities. The bidder must house this server in the rack space provided as well. The Electoral Commission will also be responsible to install the applications running on the environment including the database structures and the data itself. The bidder must however understand that this is a consumption-based service, and the capacity will be adjusted up or down from time-to-time based on consumer demands. 4 Technical Specifications The technical specification for the required products and services is as per the bid specifications provided below. It must be noted that the technical specifications below are the minimum requirements. The only variation that may be accepted will be in case where the service provider’s specification exceeds the minimum requirements. Any offers below the minimum specification requirement will be disqualified. 4.1 Data Centre 4.1.1 The bidder must provide racks for the 1 x physical server and the Fortinet security equipment to be provided, the switches and other equipment to be provisioned for the solution. For adjudication purposes, the bidder is to quote on 1 rack. 4.1.2 The bidder must install the structured cabling necessary to connect (ethernet) the equipment mentioned in 4.1.1, the virtual servers, storage and WAN links. 4 | P a g e 4.1.3 The bidder must provide redundant 10 Gbps switches or better for the environment. For the purposes of adjudication, the bidder is to quote on 144 ports. 4.2 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 4.2.1 The contract will be on a consumption basis with the Electoral Commission paying for only the servers and services utilized per month. 4.2.2 The Electoral Commission will provide VMware based ghost images to prepare the servers provided 4.2.3 For the purposes of bid evaluation, the bidder must provide, install and configure the 134 virtual servers that have the following specification at a minimum. The Electoral Commission will provide an image of the systems to be installed and will configure the applications: Item Value 1. Operating System The Electoral Commission will provide an image with Microsoft Windows 2022 Operating System 2. Processor 16 vCPU 3. Memory 64 GB 4. Hard Disk Space 500 GB (C:\ - 100 GB and D:\ - 400 GB) 5. Number of Servers 100 4.2.4 For the purposes of bid evaluation, the bidder must quote for the provision of the following SQL Server database servers. The Electoral Commission will configure the databases. . Item Value 1. Operating System The Electoral Commission will provide licenses for Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server software. 2. Processor 32 vCPU 3. Memory 512 GB 5 | P a g e . Item Value 4. Hard Disk Space 500 GB (C:\ - 100 GB and D:\ - 400 GB) 5. Number of Servers 4 4.2.5 For the purposes of bid evaluation, the bidder must quote for the provision, installation and configuration of the following GIS servers. The Electoral Commission will configure the applications . Item Value 6. Operating System The Electoral Commission will provide licenses for Microsoft Windows Server 7. Processor 32 vCPU 8. Memory 256 GB 9. Hard Disk Space 500 GB (C:\ - 100 GB and D:\ - 400 GB) 10. Number of Servers 30 4.2.6 The bidder must configure storage as follows: Item Value 1. SAN / NAS Storage Usable minimum Raid 5 Storage of capacity 100 TB. The storage capacity must be scalable to 200 TB. The Electoral Commission will provide the Logical Unit Number (LUN) sizes configuration requirements during implementation 4.2.7 The Electoral Commission will provide one (1) physical server to be used Utilities server. This 2U server will need to be accommodated in the supplied racks. 4.2.8 The bidder must be able to implement different Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs). At least six different VLANs are envisaged. 4.2.9 The bidder must be able to add Linux servers to the infrastructure when required. 6 | P a g e 4.2.10 The bidder must provide a solution design that shows how the IaaS components fit into the Data Centre, Wide Area Network and Security. Included in the design should be such information as Virtualization platform, Storage information, network switches and server information. 4.3 Internet Connectivity 4.3.1 The bidder must provide a redundant and Dual Diverse internet lines of minimum 10 Megabit per second (Mbps) from the hosting facility. This line must be scalable to up to 10 Gigabit per second (Gbps). For adjudication purposes the bidder should quote on 300 Mbps. 4.4 Security 4.4.1 The Electoral Commission will provide the Fortigate Firewalls together with the licenses and subscriptions: 4.4.2 The bidder must connect, configure (including patching) the Fortigate Firewalls in redundant mode working together with the Electoral Commission’s personnel. 4.4.3 The bidder shall provide first level support on the firewalls. 4.4.4 The environment should allow for the Electoral Commission to run vulnerability assessments and also provide security monitoring from their own and/or parallel Security Operations Centre (SOC). 4.5 Support and Maintenance 4.5.1 The bidder must provide remote access (Remote Desktop Support, Secure Shell (SSH) etc.) for the Electoral Commission’s staff to connect to the server environment over the connectivity provided. 4.5.2 The bidder must provide support and maintenance during the duration of the hosting that includes daily, weekly and monthly backups of the configuration, files and databases. The bidder is to describe support service levels. The bidder must also include as part of the submission an example SLA document. 4.5.3 The bidder must provide monitoring of the environment during the duration of the hosting to ensure that at a minimum 99.99% uptime is achieved. The monitoring should be provided on a 24x7 basis. 7 | P a g e 4.6 General Requirements 4.6.1 The bidder must provide a flexible environment that allows the Electoral Commission to adjust up or down the hosting capacity in the form of deploying more / removing servers or increasing / decreasing the capacities of the individual servers when the need arises. The same applies to the sizes of the data lines as well. 4.6.2 The hosting facility data centre must be within a radius of 100 km from the Electoral Commission’s National Office in Centurion. The bidder must confirm in writing that the hosting facility is within a radius of 100 km from the Electoral Commission’s National Office at 1303 Heuwel Road, Centurion. 5 Planning Assumptions The Electoral Commission has made the following assumptions: 5.1 The Electoral Commission will provide technical resources for all the Electoral Commission’s designated work including setup and configuration of own applications and databases. These include the configuration of the supplied ghost images, applications and databases to be deployed at the hosting facility. 5.2 Whenever the need arises the successful bidder shall do initial equipment configuration of operating systems and environmental specific requirements. 5.3 The Electoral Commission will provide one (1) physical server to be used as utilities server. 5.4 The Electoral Commission will also provide 2 x firewalls to be configured in redundant mode. 5.5 The bidder’s change control management process must be flexible enough to facilitate speedy deployment and resolution of problems without compromising management controls and security. 5.6 The recommended service provider shall provide all relevant details needed to ensure successful operations capability within the organization. 8 | P a g e 6 General Bid Conditions The following standard bid conditions must be adhered to and complied with; failing which the bid proposal will be disqualified. 6.1 All bids must be placed online on eProcurement website https://votaquotes.elections.org.za. 6.2 Bidders must complete and submit Appendix A - Technical Bid Response Sheet to demonstrate compliance with the required technical specification. Bidder to also provide details of how they are going to meet the requirements in the section provided. Bidder may provide the information in the space provided or reference a supporting document. 6.3 The bidder must provide at least five (5) contactable references of past and current products and installation and configuration services of a similar nature that the bidder provided or is currently providing (website applications hosting). Reference details must include the following: customer name, contact person, contact details (telephone, email, physical address) and service description and value of services defined in terms of estimated contract value and number of servers hosted. The Electoral Commission prefers to work with a service provider that shows that they are currently providing such services to clients. The table in Appendix C – Reference Guideline Table is attached as a guideline for the compilation of the required reference information to be submitted for each reference. 6.4 The bidder must host the Electoral Commission’s websites at a data centre located in South Africa. The hosting facility must be within a radius of 100 km from the Electoral Commission’s National Office in Centurion. The bidder must confirm in writing that the hosting facility is within a radius of 100 km from the Electoral Commission’s National Office at 1303 Heuwel Road, Centurion. 6.5 Bidder must have at least five (5) years’ experience in providing the services required. Bidder must provide a profile or letter to confirm. 6.6 The bidder must have achieved a Fortinet status with Fortinet or have acquired the services of a service provider that shows that they can handle a variety of implementation requirements including Fortigate. Bidder must therefore include a valid partnership certificate of themselves or their service provider that shows the status of the 9 | P a g e partnership with Fortinet. The Electoral Commission would prefer to deal with bidders with Advanced or Expert Fortinet Partner Status. 6.7 Even though the number of servers are listed above, the bidder must understand that this is a consumption-based service and capacity will be adjusted up or down from time- to-time depending on consumer demands. The Electoral Commission will pay only for the capacity consumed 6.8 The bidder must be an Internet Service Provider registered with Internet Service Provider Association (ISPA). Proof of registration in the form of a copy of registration certificate is to be supplied as part of the bid response documentation. 6.9 The bidder must also have an ICASA’s Electronic Communications Service (ECS) license to operate as an ISP with its own Internet Service. The bidder must submit a copy of the license as part of the bid response documentation. 6.10 Bidders must adhere to the delivery schedule in section 12. 7 Quality Control 7.1 The bidder takes responsibility for the completeness and quality of their bid submission. 7.2 The Electoral Commission may also call on bidders to make presentations in order for the Electoral Commission to ensure full compliance with all its requirements and as part of the bid evaluation process prior to the conclusion of the adjudication of the bid. Any such request for presentations shall only be for clarification purposes in support of mandatory requirements that must be adhered to as part of the written submission requirements of this bid. Failure to submit mandatory requirements shall not be rectified by the call for presentations. 7.3 Any restrictions or conditions associated with any elements of the service offering/s must be detailed. The Electoral Commission reserves the right to reject conditions which are considered unfavourable to its business or unacceptable. 7.4 The submission of a bid implies acceptance of the terms specified in the provisions laid down in the specifications, the procurement and, where applicable, additional documents. 7.5 Bidders are expected to examine carefully and respect all instructions and standard 10 | P a g e formats contained in these specifications. 7.6 A bid that does not contain all the required information and documentation will be disqualified. 7.7 Although the Electoral Commission will only deal with the principal service provider, if a bidder plans to sub-contract any of the services in this bid, they are required to attach copies of sub-contracting agreements in their bid response documentation. 7.8 Notwithstanding any shortcomings in these specifications, service providers must ensure that the proposed solution will form a workable and complete solution. 7.9 The Electoral Commission will issue a formal purchase order to the successful bidder before any services can be delivered. 7.10 The bidder’s personnel working may be subjected to security clearance. 7.11 The bidder will be required to enter into a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the Electoral Commission. 7.12 The Electoral Commission reserves the right and discretion to amend the quantities or cancel or not award this bid based on any reason including operational or financial requirements. 7.13 The supplier must undertake and warrant that all goods and services shall at the time of delivery comply with the bid specifications. 8 Supplier Performance 8.1 Contracting of any service provider to render goods and/or services to the Electoral Commission are subject to the fulfilment of the Electoral Commission’s due diligence audit requirements. 8.2 An essential component of the Electoral Commission’s due diligence audit requirements may involve site visits to potential suppliers/contractors as well as inspection of various key documents underpinning the establishment of the companies involved in bids of the Electoral Commission. This also includes confirmation of capability and capacity requirements to execute the services specified in such bids. 8.3 Upon notification of the Electoral Commission’s intention to award a contract, the 11 | P a g e successful bidder will be required to enter into a service level agreement (SLA/contract) with the Electoral Commission. 8.4 The purpose of the SLA (if applicable other than what the Electoral Commission’s standard purchase orders provide for) is to fix performance criteria within the key requirements of this request for quotation, namely quantity, quality and delivery. 8.5 The SLA may contain elements such as supplier progress milestones, delivery schedules, quality checkpoints and invoicing procedures. 8.6 The Electoral Commission reserves the right to reject any services delivered not conforming to the bid specification. 8.7 Where previously-agreed delivery schedules are not met by a supplier, the Electoral Commission shall have the right to appoint an alternative supplier to make good the shortfall in supply. Any additional costs incurred by the Electoral Commission in obtaining such corrective services or products from another source will be for the account of the defaulting supplier. 9 Pricing Requirements Completion of the detailed Pricing Schedule by responding to each item is compulsory. Failure to complete and submit this detailed pricing schedule as part of the bid submission shall lead to disqualification. 9.1 Total bid price must be submitted online on the eProcurement (Votaquotes) portal. The bid price on Appendix B1: Detailed Pricing Schedule must be the same as the bid price submitted online. If there is a discrepancy between the Detailed Pricing Schedule bid price and the online submitted bid price, the online submitted bid price will be used for adjudication. 9.2 Bidder must also complete and submit the Appendix B sub-appendices (B1, B2, B3 and B4) 9.3 All costs associated with the hardware, software licensing, implementation services and associated support and maintenance must be included in the total bid price. The total bid price must be inclusive of all factors which may contribute the cost of fulfilling the bid, factors such as: 12 | P a g e 9.3.1 Hardware and Software costs. 9.3.2 Configuration and/or customization services costs. 9.3.3 Hosting, support, monitoring and maintenance costs for a period of 12 months. 9.3.4 Any other costs required to provide a complete solution 9.3.5 For bid evaluation purposes, bid pricing must be on 100 TB usable minimum Raid 5 or equivalent storage capacity, 300 Mbps bandwidth capacity of the internet lines 9.4 Bid prices must be firm for a period of one hundred and eighty (180) days and must be inclusive of VAT. Once awarded the price will be firm for the duration of the contract. The Electoral Commission will pay for the services consumed on a monthly basis. 9.5 The contract is a consumption based contract with the Electoral Commission paying only for the services consumed. 9.6 The Electoral Commission reserves the right to adjust costs by excluding some cost factors. 9.7 All costs associated with the solution must be captured in the Appendix B: Detailed Pricing Schedule - no additional costs will be entertained. 9.8 The solution must be a complete solution. 10 Data Protection and Confidentiality of Information Due to the sensitive nature of the information and data which will become available to the successful bidder, it will be required that the successful bidder sign a Service Level Agreement which will, inter alia, incorporate a clause addressing the protection of same in line with paragraphs 10.1 and 10.2 below (read together with paragraph 21.7 of the Technical Bid Response Sheet). 10.1 Data Protection 10.1.1 During the course of executing on this contract, the successful bidder will have access to the data collected or provided and stored by the Electoral Commission on the service provider’s disk storage units and data backup facilities. The successful bidder shall have the responsibility for protecting information resources against accidental or intentional damage or loss of data, 13 | P a g e interruption, or the compromise of this information into the hands of third parties. The successful bidder or its members of staff, whether employed or contracted shall also not process the data without a prior written agreement with the Electoral Commission or without written instructions from the Electoral Commission beyond what is necessary to fulfil its obligations towards the Electoral Commission. 10.1.2 The successful bidder shall keep confidential all the Electoral Commission’s information that they have in their possession. The successful bidder shall ensure that each member of their staff, whether employed or contracted, having access to or being involved with the processing of the Electoral Commission’s data undertakes a duty of confidentiality and is informed of and complies with the data privacy obligations of this bid. 10.1.3 The successful bidder shall also ensure that the Electoral Commission’s data in its possession is returned to the Electoral Commission and/or deleted from its computer systems as per instruction by the Electoral Commission at the end of the contract period. 10.2 Confidentiality of Information 10.2.1 “Confidential Information” means irrespective of its format, confidential trade, commercial, financial and management information and data, or other proprietary information which is either designated as confidential or by its nature is confidential howsoever such confidential information may be disclosed or made available to the Recipient including, without limiting the afore-going, whether direct or indirect, orally, visually or in electronic format or by reason of inspection of documentation or other matter on or at the Discloser’s premises or elsewhere including, but not limited to: 10.2.2 The successful bidder shall irrevocably undertake and agree: 10.2.2.1 to protect all confidential information that they may get access to in course of executing the resulting contract. Without limiting the generality of confidential information, Confidential Information shall include any information that falls within the definition of ‘Personal 14 | P a g e Information’ as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act , as amended or substituted and/or 10.2.2.2 not to divulge or disclose to any third party in any form or manner whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, any confidential information of the Discloser without the Consent of the Discloser; 10.2.2.3 not to, directly or indirectly, detract from, expand on, amend, decompile, reverse engineer, use, exploit, permit the use of, or in any other manner whatsoever apply the confidential information for its own benefit or the benefit of any other person or for any purpose whatsoever other than for the Engagement and otherwise than in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement; 10.2.2.4 to treat all Information as confidential information where it is uncertain of the nature of the Information until written notice to the contrary is received from the Electoral Commission; 10.2.2.5 to take reasonable security (including IT security) measures in line with its own security measures to keep the confidential information confidential; 10.2.2.6 to immediately notify the Electoral Commission upon discovery of any unauthorised use or disclosure of the confidential information or any other breach of this clause; 10.2.2.7 to take all necessary steps or assist the Electoral Commission to regain possession of the confidential information or to prevent its further unauthorised use; 10.2.2.8 to immediately at the Electoral Commission’s reasonable request or in any event at the completion of an Engagement to forthwith return all originals, copies, reproductions, summaries or extracts of the confidential information, or at the Electoral Commission’s option destroy these and certify that it has done so; and 15 | P a g e 10.2.2.9 that all confidential information is and shall remain the property of the Electoral Commission and that disclosure thereof does not grant the Receiver any express or implied license to use such Confidential Information or right other than as provided for in this Agreement. 10.2.3 Notwithstanding the above, the successful bidder shall be entitled: 10.2.3.1 in compliance with the applicable laws and its professional obligations, to retain copies of all Information of the Electoral Commission which is relevant to or forms part of the Services; 10.2.3.2 to share the confidential information with its Personnel and any of the Service Provider’s parties to the extent required to render the Services; and 10.2.3.3 to share the confidential information with its Professional Advisors or insurers in the event of a claim arising from or in connection with this Agreement, provided that the provisions of this clause shall still apply to such copies. 10.3 This clause shall not apply to: 10.3.1 information in the public domain otherwise than by breach of this Agreement; 10.3.2 information that was not obtained under any obligation of confidentiality; and 10.3.3 information obtained from a third party who the receiving Party believes, after reasonable inquiry, is free to divulge the information so long as such information was not obtained by the receiving Party under any obligation of confidentiality to the third party. 11 Adjudication and Award of Contract Bidders are advised to refer to the Appendix E: Bid Evaluation Criteria to ensure that they have addressed all critical bid requirements. 11.1 The bid will be awarded to a bidder whose solution successfully conforms to specifications and is able to deliver the services, and in terms of the provisions of the 16 | P a g e Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, 2000 and specifically the Preferential Procurement Regulations, 2022. 11.2 The Electoral Commission will issue a formal purchase order before any services can be delivered It should be noted that the Electoral Commission seeks to gain the best solution technically and financially and will select from the results of the bid a solution it deems to give the best investment. 11.3 Awarding the bid to a successful bidder is subject to the bidder entering into a service level agreement (SLA) with the Electoral Commission that will formalize and regulate the final deliverables and associated processes and procedures. 12 Delivery and Implementation Timeframe 12.1 The successful bidder will be required to complete delivery within four (4) weeks from receipt of an official purchase order. 13 Duration 13.1 The SLA/contract is for a period of 12 months and may be extended at the sole discretion of the Electoral Commission as may be deemed necessary.

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