In a request for quotes (RFQ) released Thursday, First 5 California (F5CA) seeks IT technical and support services. The contract’s estimated value is $149,999.99.
Established in 1998 with voters’ approval of Prop. 10 and the set-aside of tobacco tax monies, F5CA aims to improve the lives of young children and families. Among the takeaways:
- F5CA is seeking services from a certified small business to help it meet the mandates and objectives of the act that established it, including serving as “an integrated and comprehensive statewide program of promoting, supporting and improving early childhood development that enhances the intellectual, social, emotional and physical development of children in California,” while balancing policy goals, available resources and the plans and objectives of 58 county-level commissions.
- Work to be performed centers on daily system/network/desktop administration, communication and reporting, quality assurance and health and safety. Administration includes planning, analysis, troubleshooting, equipment assessment, data storage support services, backup and disaster recovery system and process maintenance, as well as maintaining and administering user identifications. Also needed is network-based virus and unauthorized software detection, end-user support on hardware, software and application issues and distribution of electronic software. Communication and reporting includes thorough testing and validation of the hybrid environment and weekly progress updates to F5CA.
- The contractor ultimately selected must have at least five years’ experience in systems/network administration on Microsoft Windows-based servers in an enterprise environment, with three of those years on Windows 2016 or above and at least three years’ hands-on experience administering a VMware-hosted environment. Staff must be able to administer and manage hardware and software including Dell PS4100 Equallogic and EMC SCv3022, Microsoft SQL Server 2016, Dell Managed Switches, Hybrid Azure Active Directory, Barracuda Backup Device, Palo Alto Firewall PA-820, HP enterprise printers and Okta two-factor authentication. Staff must also be able to do preventative system maintenance including server BIOS and firmware updates, installing and applying patches and fixes to server operating systems, installing servers, tape drivers/libraries as needed, monitoring capacity and allocating system storage and configuring and managing enterprise server operating systems.
