Colorado Mountain College’s Central Services located at 802 Grand Avenue, CO is requesting quotes from qualified firms to provide and implement a new data storage environment. The objective of this project is to replace the existing storage area network (SAN) environment with competitive and new generation infrastructure.
Background:
Colorado Mountain College currently has 13 data serving locations that span over 12,000 square miles across the state of Colorado. Our data environment includes support for over 20,000 students, as well as support for over 125 educational programs.
CMC currently utilizes two Dell Compellent SC8000 SAN Arrays. The primary SAN (SAN-A) resides in Glenwood Springs, at our Central Service location. It provides CMC with 127 TB of usable storage, connected to eight Cisco UCSB-B200-M4 blade servers. All Cisco UCS servers are contained within a UCS 5108 AC2 Chassis. This environment collectively supports 260 virtual machines, all running on ESXi 6.5, with VMware vCenter 6.5 for administrative task delivery.
Our DR SAN (SAN-B), also a Dell Compellent SC8000 SAN array, is both a replication target as well as resource serving. It resides in our DR Datacenter in Rifle, Colorado. This DR data center will be moving to Denver, Colorado. Currently, it provides CMC with 124 TB of usable storage. While the majority of this storage is utilized as a replication target, it is connected to three Cisco UCSB-B200-M4 blade servers. All Cisco UCS servers are contained within a UCS 5108 AC2 Chassis. This array supports 13 virtual machines, running on ESXi 6.5, with VMware vCenter 6.5 for administrative task delivery. However, as it is a DR SAN, the capacity exists to be able to deliver fail-over services and production work-loads should the need present itself.
Within both Central Services, and our Rifle location, the SAN environments are networked through Cisco UCS 6248UP Fabric Interconnects, as well as Cisco Nexus 5548UP switches. All network paths are comprised of either OM3 multimode fiber, or where applicable, DAC Twinaxial cables. CMC’s network supports 10GB within the data center. All SAN traffic is isolated, and not accessible to client devices. Both Compellent SC8000 SAN arrays utilize fiber channel within the data centers.
CMC utilizes storage replication within our SAN environment. It is currently asynchronous, and it is bi-directional. CMC replicates from our Primary SAN in Central Services, to Rifle. We also replicate from the Rifle SAN back to Central Services. We utilize iSCSI as a transport for this replication.
Physically, these components are installed in data centers in both Glenwood Springs (Central Services), and Rifle, Colorado. These data centers provide enclosed 4-post, 42ru racks with additional capacity, appropriate HVAC systems, and both 110v and 208v AC power.
Colorado Mountain College deploys services with a virtual approach. The production environment that this storage supports is 100% virtualized. That data includes SQL, Exchange, Active Directory, Sharepoint, and other workloads.
It is the intention of CMC to replace both Compellent SC8000 SAN arrays with new equipment and maintenance contracts for a planned lifecycle of five to seven years.
Scope of Project
1.0 General Requirements:
1.1 All provided equipment shall be in a new factory condition, complete with a full warranty
1.2 All equipment is to be rack mounted within a 42ru, 4-post rack, with square mount holes.
1.3 All equipment is required to have power connections that support our current data center electrical requirements (110v/208v AC).
1.4 All proposed solutions will include 24/7 manufacturer support on all hardware and software for three years. If additional discounts are available for a 5-year contract, please include both options
1.5 All storage network connections are to be 10 Gb Ethernet
1.6 Management network connections should have the ability to be logically separated from the storage network.
1.7 All equipment, hardware, and software should be fully manageable by the staff at CMC.
1.8 Proposals shall include any storage network cabling definitions. Network cabling, unless proprietary, shall be provided by Colorado Mountain College
1.9 Any and all proposed solutions must contain the ability to operate in a supported configuration by VMWare.
1.10 Proposed solutions will be installed in two locations:
1.10.1 Primary Location: Colorado Mountain College, 802 Grand Ave., Glenwood Springs, CO, 81601
1.10.2 Secondary Location: 910 Telecom, 910 15th Street, Denver, CO, 80202
1.11 Multiple solutions from vendors will be accepted. We understand there are a few ways to configure this.
2.0 SAN/ Storage Requirements
2.1 Solution shall include an initial configuration that would allow for two locations, a primary site, and a DR location.
2.2 The Storage environment must provide a minimum of 240 TB per array, or a minimum total of 580 TB across two geographic locations (240 TB in each location). Total capacity will be defined as presented storage, as we understand that dedup/compression allow for less storage at the raw level.
2.3 The Storage Environment must be able to support a minimum of 260 Server Virtual Machines, as well as 300 Virtual Desktops (See compute requirements below for additional info)
2.4 Storage solution will be required to support mixed workloads within the same solution. (i.e – virtual servers and virtual desktops, etc.)
2.5 Solution must have single pane / integrated management through VMware’s vcenter
2.6 Proposed solution must be able to suffer the loss of two (2) simultaneous drives as well as the loss of one or more server nodes without impacting performance or availability.
2.7 Solution shall have the ability to utilize existing server infrastructure, new server infrastructure, or a hybrid mix of both, all within the same solution.
2.8 All proposed solutions should be monitor-capable through SNMP, Netflow, or other means.
2.9 If the proposed solution requires any specific software for management, this shall be clearly defined. Example: The proposed array requires Java 1.7.2 to operate the management console.
2.10 Proposed solution must include encryption for local data in use, data in flight, and data at reset.
2.10.1 Encryption must be a minimum of FIPS 140-2 Certified.
2.10.2 If addition infrastructure is required for this, please include it in the solution.
2.10.3 Encryption use should not impact data reduction capabilities
2.11 Solution shall have Data Compression, Data Depuplication, and Erasure Coding
2.12 System must support dual parity data protection with no performance impact with an efficiency of no less than 78%.
2.13 The solution should include the ability to replicate to the Public Cloud infrastructure in a secure and data efficient manner.
2.14 Solution must work with VMware, and be part of the VMware HCL.
3.0 Optional Compute Requirements
3.1 Colorado Mountain College has existing compute resources that still have viable life and scale in them (see appendix A for list). Solution should leverage this hardware if possible (not required)
3.2 Must be hardware approved from VMWare, and on the VMware HCL
3.3 Primary Site Minimum Compute Requirements
3.3.1 Local Storage:
3.3.1.1Minimum of two SSD per hardware server, with a minimum total capacity of 4TB.
3.3.2 CPU:
3.3.2.1Minimum total of 16 sockets across the entire solution stack
3.3.2.1.1 Example: If the solution includes hardware that has two sockets per server, you would need eight servers
3.3.2.2Minimum of 16 cores per processor
3.3.2.3Minimum Ghz of 2.3ghz
3.3.3 Memory
3.3.3.1Minimum of 2048GB across solution stack
3.3.4 Network
3.3.4.1Minimum of 2 x 10Gb SFP+ per hardware server
3.3.5 Additional Requirements
3.3.5.1 Any proposed hardware for Compute must include the ability to manage headless
3.3.5.2 Proposed hardware shall include the ability monitor via SNMP
3.3.5.3 Proposed hardware shall include ability to manage remotely (iLO, Drac, etc.) wherever possible
4.0 Optional Preferences (Desired Technology/Services, but not required):
4.1 Solution might include integrated backups at a VM Level
4.1.1 Scheduled, continuous, or ad hoc backup and restore processes for scalable cloud or on-premises data across multiple types of media
4.1.2 Instant Virtual Machine and file-level backup and restore
4.1.3 Backup set data integrity protection from malware and ransomware attacks
4.1.4 Built-In Replication for off-site protection/disaster recovery
4.1.5 Ability to easily restore individual files inside of a guest VM is desired.
4.2 Solution should include the ability to reconfigure hardware into three datacenters without additional hardware/software.
Statewide