UOT202417178 - Data Science Training Hub – Operations as a Service (OAAS)

Notice of Intended Procurement

NAME OF PROCURING ENTITY
The Governing Council of the University of Toronto (the “University”)

CONTACT PERSON AND CONTRACT PERSON COORDINATES

Harneer Batra
215 Huron Street, 3rd Floor
Toronto, ON  M5S 1A2
harneer.batra@utoronto.ca


PROCUREMENT DOCUMENTS
The procurement documents are available at www.merx.com.  
Note that obtaining access to the procurement documents will require prospective suppliers to register and pay a registration fee.  Pricing and Payment Terms are available on the MERX website.

DESCRIPTION OF PROCUREMENT
The University of Toronto is seeking a Proponent, also referred to as  “Operations as a Service (OaaS) Partner” in this RFP, to operate cloud-based JupyterHub instances for use by the University. These instances will be the exclusive property of the University, running on cloud infrastructure licensed directly to the University independent of this agreement. The OaaS Partner will not have any claim to these instances, nor will it have any claim to the cloud infrastructure on which they run. The OaaS Partner’s role will be strictly as an operator of the instances, as further described below.
Specifically, under the terms of a future agreement, the OaaS Partner will deploy, operate and monitor an interactive computing cluster for the University of Toronto with JupyterHub as the core product offering running on cloud infrastructure, accessible to members of the University community via Single Sign On or similar access system of the University’s choosing. Other applications, such as RStudio, may be added to the core environment, upon mutual agreement between the University and the OaaS Partner.
Jupyter is an open-source project, that supports interactive data science and scientific computing across all programming languages. Jupyter will always be 100% open-source software, free for all to use and released under the liberal terms of the modified BSD license. JupyterHub brings the power of notebooks to groups of users. It gives users access to computational environments and resources without burdening the users with installation and maintenance tasks. Users - including students, researchers, and data scientists - can get their work done in their own workspaces on shared resources which can be managed efficiently by system administrators. JupyterHub runs in the cloud or on user’s own hardware and makes it possible to serve a pre-configured data science environment to any user in the world. It is customizable and scalable, and is suitable for small and large teams, academic courses, and large-scale infrastructure. As Jupyter and JupyterHub are open-source applications, there are no licensing fees applicable. As the cluster will be run on cloud infrastructure, costs for resource usage will be governed by relationship agreements between the University and the cloud provider independent of this agreement.
The OaaS Partner may perform its activities through its staff or through use of third-party contractors, who will work with the University directly. The OaaS Partner will follow screening protocols as appropriate to the Agreement.
The OaaS Partner’s infrastructure configuration and documentation will be as transparent & accessible as possible, so the University can replicate the configuration independently. If the University chooses to, it can also inspect, audit & modify the infrastructure configuration they are using through the future agreement. To ensure the Right to Replicate for its partners, the OaaS Partner must make a written commitment regarding the infrastructure it builds and operates, specifically that it will only use only open-source software to run its infrastructure. By only using software that is available to everyone on the same terms, the OaaS Partner will ensure that the University can replicate the infrastructure without having to negotiate licensing terms with proprietary software vendors. In addition, any changes the OaaS Partner makes to open-source software will be made in public and/or contributed upstream, so that the University can continue to have access to them regardless of where their infrastructure is. The OaaS Partner MUST NOT directly depend on proprietary cloud vendor specific products or APIs. Instead, the OaaS Partner will use cloud-managed open-source software, or hide the dependency behind a layer of abstraction. This ensures that the University can port their infrastructure to any cloud provider of their choice, or run it on their own hardware with purely open-source software.
The OaaS Partner will implement and will require that any third-party service provider used by the OaaS Partner implement, physical, organizational, and technical strategies that are consistent best practices to protect all Content, Personal Information, Confidential Information of the University and all other University data from unauthorized access, disclosure, modification, and deletion.  Such measures shall include measures that mitigate the effects of any Content that is in any way detrimental or that could damage, disable or overburden the instances, or that is detrimental to the access or use of the instances, including any use that interferes or attempts to interfere with the normal operations of the instances; and implementing technical protections against unwanted hacking, deleting, augmenting or altering the instances or any content.
The University will be responsible for creating and updating all user accounts.  The OaaS Partner confirms that the instances covered by this Agreement can be integrated with the University’s Learning Management System at the discretion of the University. At any time, the University may request that any Personal Information provided as part of registering for an account or use of an instance be corrected or removed from account information and this information will be corrected or removed, acknowledging that removal may prevent access to the instance by the applicable User(s) associated with such account(s). Should the OaaS Partner become aware that a User has lost access to the Service, the OaaS Partner will direct that User to an agreed upon support portal.
Under the terms of a future agreement, the instances will be accessed through standard web browsers. The OaaS Partner cannot, without prior written consent of the University, change or supply other access software provided by the OaaS Partner or a third-party supplier (for example a desktop client versus a web browser). Such consent will occur only as part of an information risk and risk management assessment carried out between the OaaS Partner and the University on the access software. Should the University agree to the use of other software provided by the OaaS Partner to access the instance, the OaaS Partner grants the University a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to use the access software for the purpose specified in this Agreement and to install the access software on University systems to support such use.

The procurement is anticipated to involve negotiation.  An electronic auction is not anticipated.  

ADDRESS AND FINAL DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS
Submissions must be submitted electronically at https://utoronto.bonfirehub.ca/ on or before Friday, January 27, 2025 (2:00 PM local time). The submissions will not be opened publicly.

CONDITIONS FOR PARTICIPATION
The procurement is subject to the following conditions for participation:
N/A

APPLICABLE TRADE AGREEMENTS
This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s):

• The Canadian Free Trade Agreement, Chapter Five
• The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, Chapter 19
• The Ontario-Quebec Trade and Cooperation Agreement, Chapter 9