On March 9, 2021, the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC) published a public solicitation for Virtualization & Data Center Modernization MHEC-RFP-03092020. Public solicitation announcements were formally published in the Illinois Procurement Bulletin for Public Institutions of Higher Education, the Minnesota State Register, and MHEC’s website.
The purpose of the request for proposal was to seek innovative and cost-effective virtualization solutions to assist education institutions transition their infrastructures to the modern data center and network; where workloads may reside on-premise or across varied public and private cloud providers on a secure network.
On the May 12, 2020, due date 16 proposals were received. The selection committee scored each of the proposals based on best value according to the evaluation criteria stated in the request for proposal and proposals were short listed to four finalists. In addition to the written submission, all finalists were required to present their proposed solution with the selection committee in a virtual respondent’s conference, which took place on July 14, 15, and 29, 2020. Follow-up questions were sent to the finalists with answers received in August 2020.
Upon, meeting all of the requirements of the request for proposal the selection committee recommended awards to Dell EMC, HP Enterprise, and Presidio for information technology related network hardware, server and storage, software, and services pursuant to the proposal’s submitted for the Virtualization and Data Center Modernization MHEC-RFP-03092020 request for proposal.
The Dell EMC contract (MHEC-01312021 DELL-C000000876018) is effective February 15, 2021, through January 31, 2028.
HP Enterprise contract (MHEC-12152020) is effective December 15, 2020, through January 31, 2028.
The Presidio contract (MHEC-08012021) is effective August 1, 2021, through June 30, 2028.
All of the contracts are a framework for tiered discounts for on-premise and cloud enabled hardware, software, professional services, managed services, training, financing solutions, and as-a-service related to networks, wireless, server and storage. Eligible organizations include higher education (public and private not-for-profit), K-12 districts and schools, and state government; located in the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE), Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), and Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) compact regions.
To assist with your due diligence, the solicitation documents are provided below. If additional documentation is needed, please contact Nathan Sorensen, director of government contracts.