Operations Support for ScienceCluster and ScienceCloud on OpenStack and CephFS

Science IT is responsible for the operation of the ScienceCloud and ScienceCluster. The Team needs professional consulting support for the opensource technology OpenStack and CephFS. The University of Zurich (UZH) invites tenders for the following reasons: Expiring support contract with current consultant Science IT already had a support contract with a provider (StackHPC) for the OpenStack platform in the past. This needs to be renewed for the next 5 years. This is a suitable opportunity to redefine the desired support services, familiarise with other providers and obtain prices in line with the market. Enlarge support to also cover CephFS Science IT has experienced two major incidents last year on CephFS with a total downtime of the whole ScienceCluster service for several weeks. Therefore, Science IT is looking for a strong partner with lots of experience in CephFS to provide 3rd level support as well as consulting service to stabilize the platform. Two long-serving employees have left the team Two experienced employees with in-depth knowledge of CephFS and OpenStack have left the Science IT team. Over the next two years, the knowledge in the team will be built up again. This will require a targeted transfer of expertise from an experienced partner to the employees of Science IT. Therefore, with this tender, Science IT is looking for experienced partners for the support of OpenStack and CephFS. The cooperation with an experienced provider should achieve the following goals: * In the event of a disaster, Science IT receives professional support for OpenStack and CephFS on the next business day at the latest. * Employees will be able to benefit from the provider's expertise in the coming years. The provider also employs staff who are actively involved in CephFS and OpenStack as contributors. Using the provider's documentation on the UZH platform, the team will be enabled to solve problems independently. * Updates or upgrades can be planned and implemented together so that the platform is always operated at the second latest technical level. * Conceptual adjustments to the platform can be discussed with an experienced partner. They challenge internal employees so that the right solution is implemented for UZH.