Soft Market Testing - Retention Management and Migration of Shared Files from Windows Servers to SharePoint

The City of London Corporation (the 'City') is carrying out a Soft Market Testing ('SMT') in relation to the Retention Management and Migration of Shared Files from Windows Servers to SharePoint.

The City will consider the feedback received as part of this SMT to help inform its options and decision making. For the avoidance of doubt, this phase of the project is not part of a formal procurement process and the City is not committing, at this stage, to carrying out such a process.

The City currently stores around 15 million shared digital files, taking up 19 terabytes of space, in shared drives served by Windows file servers hosted as virtual machines in the Microsoft Azure environment. Meanwhile, the City's approximately 4,000 file users have access to Microsoft 365, and thus SharePoint Online, but are not yet making consistent use of these facilities to store and manage shared files.

The wish is to analyse the existing shared files to understand their relevance to business operations and risk management, and therefore the need to retain them and to either securely delete, archive or migrate files to appropriate structures in SharePoint Online with equivalent security/ permissions so that their users can continue to use them and for certain users to be able to review and manage retention and permissions effectively and efficiently on a regular basis for the migrated files and all subsequently created files in SharePoint Online.

In realising the above wish, the City wishes to make the most of the tools available through Microsoft 365 and/or Microsoft enterprise agreement and where additional tools are required for the successful delivery, for such tools to integrate seamlessly with the City's Microsoft 365 and Azure environments.

In order to be able to achieve the above, the City would like views from the supply market on best practices, recommended approaches and necessary tooling available on the market.

The City has an estimated budget of GBP 250 000 for implementation, including the initial file retention analysis and migration, and year one costs.

For further information and guidance on how to participate in this pre-market engagement, please see the Additional Text / Information section of this notice.

Additional information:

Please note that this soft market testing (SMT) exercise is being undertaken using the electronic tendering system 'Capital eSourcing' (url:www.capitalesourcing.com).

Participants should register as a supplier on the portal using the aforementioned URL/link (if not already), then search for the opportunity titled using the Reference number stated below.

If your organisation would like to participate in this soft market testing exercise, it can do so by downloading, completing and returning the SMT Questionnaire which can be found on the City's e-procurement portal at: www.capitalesourcing.com and use the Reference number: prj_COL_17602.

Organisations must submit their completed SMT Questionnaire via the capital eSourcing portal www.capitalesourcing.com, together with any supporting documents via the system by the return deadline of 12.00 noon on 25 September 2020 in order to participate and registration is free. SMT Questionnaire(s) cannot be uploaded after the return deadline.

The City will not be held accountable for any errors made by an organisation in submitting their applicable SMT Questionnaire(s).

Participation or non-participation in the SMT shall not prevent any supplier participating in a potential future procurement, nor is it intended that any information supplied as part of the SMT shall place any supplier at an advantage in a potential procurement process.

Participants will not be prejudiced by any response or failure to respond to the SMT or failure to attend any follow up interviews that may be arranged at the absolute discretion of the City.

Participation in this SMT will be at each organisation's own cost. No expense in responding to this SMT will be reimbursed by the City.