Provision of on-site, 24/7/365 Network Control Centre (NCC) services at the United Nations Information and Communication Technology Facility (UNICTF), Valencia (Spain).

The United Nations Global Service Centre (UNGSC), through its Service for Geospatial, Information and Telecommunications Technologies (SGITT), intends to establish a long-term contract for the provision of on-site round-the-clock 24/7/365 Network Control Centre (NCC) services at the United Nations Information and Communication Technology Facility (UNICTF) in Valencia, Spain. The UNGSC operates from two strategically positioned bases: one located in Brindisi (Italy) and the United Nations Information and Communication Technology Facility (UNICTF) in Valencia (Spain). The services provided by SGITT to the UN Missions, Agencies, Funds, and Programmes are certified by an accredited certification body in accordance with the ISO/IEC 20000 IT Service Management System and ISO 27001 Information Security Management System. The primary function of the NCC is the provision of Bridge Support and Event Management services for SGITT Telecommunications and Data Centre infrastructure and associated active equipment in both sites as well as cloud-hosted services. NCC alsoprovides Event Monitoring service for ICT devices from entities with a signed Service Level Agrement with SGITT, in coordination with the NCC located on-site in Brindisi (Italy). NCCs, i.e., the NCC Valencia and the NCC Brindisi, work closely and act as one NCC. NCC Brindisi and NCC Valencia operate 24/7, 365 days per year. The primary aim of the NCC is to monitor and restore all services to the users as quickly as possible. Therefore, the Bridge Support offered by NCC includes handling all the alarms triggered by the monitoring tools set in place as defined by the subject matter expert engineers. The NCC performs troubleshooting actions to identify the root cause of these alarms and follows the established steps to resolve the incidents. It also executes low-level and properly documented activities, e.g., regularly scheduled server reboots to prevent incidents from occurring, reports to assess if specific tasks have been successfully executed (e.g., replication), firewall rules verification and implementation, etc. The company shall be capable of providing Bridge Support and Event Management to the UNICTF’s Valencia Telecommunications and Data Centre infrastructure and associated active equipment, including cloud-hosted services, and have a minimum of five (5) years of experience in providing similar services and be ISO 20000 and ISO 27001 certified. It must provide the services following the integrated Service and Information Security Management System certified against ISO 20000:2018 and ISO 27001:2022. The ability to monitor ICT devices from remote clients is also expected. The company's personnel shall have significant telecommunications and computing expertise, service management experience, and qualifications and be exclusively dedicated to this service. In addition, the UN shall also provide them with technical on-site training, which the UN will validate upon successful completion. All staff assigned to this project must be fluent in English at working level. The proposed operators shall be certified by CISCO CCNA and ITIL Foundations. Furthermore the NCC manager shall possess an ITIL v3 Expert or ITIL 4 Managing Professional Certification and the NCC Supervisors shall posses advanced ITIL certifications. A mandatory pre-proposal conference and site visit will be held at the UNICTF premises in Valencia to allow prospective companies to acquaint themselves with the facilities. The contract will be for an initial period of two (2) years, with the UNGSC's sole option to extend the term for three (3) additional periods of one (1) year each (2+1+1+1 years) for a maximum of five (5) years, subject to the UN's operational requirements and the satisfactory performance of the contractor.      Specific Requirements/Information To express interest, vendors must be registered with the UN Secretariat via the United Nations Global Marketplace (UNGM) at a minimum of the Basic Level. Vendors not registered with the UN Secretariat via UNGM will be ineligible to participate in the subsequent Request for Proposal (RFP) stage. In order to be eligible for the award, the Vendor must be registered with the UN Secretariat through the United Nations Global Marketplace (UNGM) for the required Level of Registration, which is "Level 2" before the award of the Contract. The UNGSC shall provide the complete technical requirements and administrative instructions with the solicitation document, which will be issued after the closing date for this EOI. Therefore, companies are requested to verify the validity of the contact email address(-es) associated with their UNGM account at www.ungm.org to ensure delivery of notifications and access to tender documents. This REOI does not constitute a solicitation. The UNGSC reserves the right to change or cancel the requirements during the REOI and solicitation process. Thus, submitting a reply to this REOI does not automatically guarantee that your company will be considered for receipt of the solicitation documents when issued. Non-EU companies participating in the tender for UNGSC requirements with services/goods delivery to Brindisi (Italy) and Valencia (Spain) shall be duly registered and possess all the requisite documentation, certificates, and permits required to do business in the European Union member countries. The UNGSC may stipulate pertinent requirements in the tender documentation. To ensure resilience and business continuity, the company currently providing the service in primary location (UNGSC in Brindisi, Italy) cannot provide the service in the alternative site of UNICTF in Valencia. Vendors with the attributes listed hereunder are strongly encouraged to participate: (a) Disability inclusive, (b) Demonstrated goal to achieve gender equality (c) Having status as a woman-owned business (d) From developing countries, countries with economies in transition and least developed countries