Agency TRANSPORTATION DEPT

Contractor Aeritae Consulting Group, LTD.

SWIFT Contract Number 3000000767

Project Name Data Center Co-Location

Project Number (if applicable) 99105

Summarize purpose of the contract, including why it was necessary: A directive was issued by Chief Information Officer of the State of Minnesota on November 10, 2011 that stated all Executive Level State Agencies will co-locate all state systems in Tier II and III co-location facilities. The policy and directive’s purpose is to create a safe and secure environment for the information technology that runs the primary business of the State of Minnesota government, and improve the overall technology performance of our vital systems.
This directive included several critical time lines to deliver vital information and to submit a strategic and detailed plan to the Office of Enterprise Technology (OET) the managers of the Data Center Co-location facilities. Therefore, someone with experience and expertise in data center migrations and data center projects including building, decommissioning and migrating into and out of a data center was required. Mn/DOT’s infrastructure staff resources are limited and the depth of experience to coordinate the project within Mn/DOT was not available to meet the project goals in the time allocated.

Project Duration

Start Date Tue, 08/02/2011 - 00:00

Original end date Sun, 06/30/2013 - 00:00

Actual end date Tue, 06/19/2012 - 00:00

Did project finish on time? No

Total billable hours utilized (if applicable) {Empty}

Contract Amounts

Original contract: $495300

Amendments {Empty}

Contract total $495300

Did project finish within budget? Yes

What was the funding source? Trunk Highway

Is this a sole source contract? Yes

If this was a single source contract, explain why the agency determined there was only a single source for the services (if applicable) A directive was issued by Chief Information Officer of the State of Minnesota and the Commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget on November 10, 2011. The directive stated all Executive Level State Agencies will co-locate all state systems and applications into Tier II and III state data center facilities. The policy and directive’s purpose is to create a safe and secure environment for the information technology assets that run the primary business of the State of Minnesota government, and improve the overall technology performance of our vital systems. The directive further stated all executive agencies were to submit to the Office of Enterprise Technology (OET) by November 11, 2010 a five year data center migration plan.

In order to address this directive Mn/DOT procured a contractor with thirteen years of experience with data center projects, specializing in data center migrations on November 22, 2010.
This contractor now has seven months of background with Mn/DOT’s six data centers, network architecture, configurations, and operations; network services and applications in all six Mn/DOT data centers. He has developed a working relationship with the Office of Enterprise Technology, the agency with the responsibility for managing the state data center migration and related services. He has built an understanding of Mn/DOT’s organizational structure and built a trusted working relationship with key Mn/DOT staff assigned to this project. He has completed discovering and documenting all of Mn/DOT’s servers, applications and software packages. This detail work has allowed the contractor to develop the project plan to consolidate Mn/DOT’s six data centers and migrate into the state data center. He has also determined the hardware and software needs and requirements for the new data center.

Mn/DOT’s migration plan states that it will start migrating its first servers and applications in September, 2011. Due to the knowledge gained of Mn/DOT’s data center environments, experience and work completed to date in the last seven months by the contractor, the project will have a the best opportunity of succeeding and being able to meet the major milestones and the time lines to complete this project on time and within budget by continuing this project with the same contractor. Bringing on a new contractor would require a 7 month learning curve and cause Mn/DOT to miss its deadlines and impact OET’s migration planning.

Evaluator Name Vicky Sarner

Evaluator Email Address Vicky.Sarner@state.mn.us

Evaluate the contractor's timeliness Very Good

Evaluate the contractor's quality Very Good

Evaluate the contractor's cost Very High

Evaluate the contractor's overall performance Joe Hays was very professional and experienced in his role as a System Analyst Senior. Joe successfully led the project team to a completed build out of the new data center, development and testing facilities. He successfully completed the application discovery and has the project team prepared to migrate all applications. Joe’s knowledge and experience in this area was extensive he provided valuable recommendations to the agency.

Would you engage the contractor's services again? Yes

Describe any negative action taken during the duration of this contract (i.e., termination, pursuit of suspension, etc.): {Empty}

Please rate the overall experience with the contractor 4 - satisfied