Administrative
Report
H.12., File # 22-4426 Meeting Date: 7/19/2022
To: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
From: CHRISTOPHER BENSON, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR TITLE
ADOPT BY 4/5THS VOTE AND BY TITLE ONLY RESOLUTION NO. CC-2207-055, A RESOLUTION
OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF REDONDO BEACH, CALIFORNIA, AUTHORIZING
CARRY OVER OF THE UNEXPENDED BALANCE OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INTERNAL SERVICE FUND FROM FISCAL YEAR 2021-2022 TO FISCAL YEAR 2022-2023 APPROVE AN AGREEMENT WITH RINGCENTRAL, INC. AND AVAYA, INC. FOR THE AVAYA
CLOUD OFFICE UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS CLOUD HOSTED PHONE SYSTEM PER REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL #2021-003 FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $250,045.53 AND A PROJECT CONTINGENCY AMOUNT OF $13,773.77 FOR THE TERM JULY 19, 2022 - JULY 18, 2025
APPROVE AN AGREEMENT WITH VOX NETWORK SOLUTIONS FOR AVAYA CLOUD OFFICE
IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT SERVICES AND PERIPHERAL TELEPHONY HARDWARE PURCHASE PER REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL #2021-003 FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $94,298.67 AND A PROJECT CONTINGENCY AMOUNT OF $20,660.65 FOR THE TERM JULY 19, 2022 - JULY 18, 2023
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City’s phone system is a critical hardware and software infrastructure which City staff utilize to perform their daily work and reliably communicate with other City staff, outside agencies, vendors, and residents of the City of Redondo Beach. Over the past 20 years since the current phone system was installed, the technology and capabilities of communication systems have evolved greatly. The addition of new and innovative capabilities such as software-based phones (softphones), mobile applications that can extend City direct dial numbers to any mobile device, collaboration tools, cloud hosted options for telecommunication systems and many other new capabilities have changed the way we communicate. The biggest fundamental shift in technologies has been that most of the telecommunication providers are moving to the cloud as software as a service. This has allowed organizations to pay for these services as an operating expense as opposed to a capital expense and has enabled users to be able to connect to the phone systems securely from anywhere there is an internet connection.
Recognizing that the phone system is mission critical, staff has defined a phone system replacement project that will 1) move all phone system functionality to the Cloud, 2) add new capabilities that will enable staff to communicate more efficiently, 3) provide access to the phone system from anywhere
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enable staff to communicate more efficiently, 3) provide access to the phone system from anywhere an internet connection is available, 4) eliminate on premise hardware phone system requirements and 5) relieve City staff of managing a proprietary telephone system.
Request for Proposal #2021-003 (RFP) for a new Unified Communications System (UC) was released on June 10, 2021, with a response due date of July 7, 2021. The RFP design, assessment process and scoring methodology were provided by Communication Strategies (Com-Strat), an independent technology consulting firm who was engaged for discovery, project management of the RFP process, to conduct vendor and technology evaluations, and to manage and support the UC implementation.
The City received thirteen qualified responses from nine viable vendors. A short list was created based on the proposed solutions fit for the City, vendor’s ability to deliver and total cost of ownership.
Technology demonstrations were scheduled for the top five vendors. An overall score against the RFP requirements, a total project cost and a projected 3-year cost were calculated for each submission. Each vendor’s ability to execute was assessed through an analysis of their submittal, the effectiveness of their demonstration, follow-up discussions and reference checks. Com-Strat also worked extensively with each vendor to clarify responses in order to achieve an apples-to-apples comparison.
After lengthy analysis, staff is recommending the RingCentral Avaya Cloud Office (RingCentral ACO) platform submitted by VOX Network Solutions (VOX) which has the highest RFP score for meeting requested functionality and pricing. Reference checks were conducted on both VOX and the RingCentral ACO solution.
BACKGROUND
The City's use of a central phone switch goes back to the 1970's. Over that period, there have been several significant upgrades to the City's communications systems:
· 1989 Replaced an IBM Rolm analog phone switch with a Nortel SL1 NT digital phone switch
§ Major upgrade for City; required installation of phone cable to every office and replacement of all phone instruments
· 1991 Replaced “Cindy” voice mail system with Nortel Meridian Mail. · 1994 Upgraded Nortel SL1 NT to a Nortel Option 61C
§ Modular based system; processor and memory upgrades. Allowed City to move to new releases of PBX operating system software.
· 1999 Upgraded Nortel Option 61C for Y2K compatibility § Significant hardware upgrades/replacements to accommodate date change · 2001 Modified Nortel Option 61C phone switch to be VoIP compatible (hybrid mode)
§ Upgraded four off-site PBX switches to hybrid VoIP compatibility; cancelled many copper phone circuits as we moved off-site voice traffic off of public
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switched telephone network to new, City fiber-optic network. · 2005 Upgraded voice mail system and increased resiliency of hybrid VoIP system
§ Moved from Nortel Meridian voice mail product to Nortel Call Pilot as Meridian system (installed in 1991) reached end-of-life. Added redundancy to hybrid VoIP network.
· 2007 Replaced Nortel hybrid VoIP system with Nortel CS1000 VoIP phone switch (current 2022 phone system).
· 2013 Significant hardware and software upgrade to Nortel CS1000 VoIP phone switch and Call Pilot voice mail system in geo-redundant configuration. · 2018 Replaced Nortel Call Pilot voice mail system with AVST voice mail due to Call Pilot end-of-life.
The typical on-premise phone system refresh is 7-10 years, as such, the current CS1000 phone system, originally installed in 2007 and upgraded in 2013, has exceeded its life span. Hardware components are becoming increasingly difficult to find, management tools are proprietary and cumbersome, there is no cloud management capability and manufacturer support/development has reached end of life. However, the system continues to be very stable with little downtime and thirdparty support is still available and will likely be available for the next several years.
The project to replace the current phone system was part of the FY 2019-20 IT equipment replacement program and was well under way, however, due to COVID budget uncertainty, the replacement process was halted and delayed to FY 2020-21. Given the rapidly changing telephony landscape, the City redefined system requirements and restarted the RFP process in June, 2021.
Information Technology (IT) Staff, assisted by Com-Strat, identified the following objectives prior to embarking on the project:
· Replace the current system, which has reached manufacturer end of support. · Simplify conferencing and improve collaboration.
· Provide easy to use telephones and voice mail.
· Simplify system administration.
· Enable mobility applications for staff.
· Provide a flexible work from home solution for City staff. · Improve Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) architecture The methodology for implementing a new Unified Communication system entailed the following steps: Discovery, Documentation, Evaluation, Negotiation, and Implementation.
In-depth interviews were conducted by the Com-Strat consultant with key departmental employees.
Once a thorough understanding of the City’s requirements and desired outcomes were attained, the resulting documentation was integrated into the RFP as requirements and assigned scoring criteria.
Scoring categories include Vendor and Manufacturer Capability to Deliver (25%), Quoted Solution
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(50%) and Price (25%) with each requirement line item scored between 1 and 10, 10 being best.
RFP submissions were received from thirteen different vendors representing 9 different systems that were premises based, hybrid (mix of premises hardware and cloud services), and pure cloud solutions, including:
· Mitel
· Spectrum
· UniVoIP
· 8x8
· RingCentral Avaya
· MiCloud Connect (Mitel Cloud)
· Intermedia
· Cisco
· Microsoft Teams
The responses were a good representation of current market leaders as represented in the below Gartner Magic Quadrant diagram:
The top five respondents were scheduled for virtual vendor presentations and demonstrations to City staff. The participating vendors shipped working phones to the City so staff could physically see the phones and test functionality. Staff were given an opportunity to score each vendor and that scoring
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phones and test functionality. Staff were given an opportunity to score each vendor and that scoring was considered to assist in determining the selected vendor.
Each vendor was required to demonstrate their proposed technology per the following agenda. Each session lasted at least two and a half hours.
Column1 Minutes
Welcome and Introductions 10
Total 10 Minutes
End User Experience (55 Minutes)
Actual Demonstration with live telephones and desktop clients (provided to the City), not a PowerPoint Presentation
Telephone demonstration showing features and capabilities, layout of phone and how buttons work, make/receive a call, Conference and transfer 15
Voice Mail and Unified Messaging Demonstration - callers and users experience, how to change a greeting 20 Unified Communication demonstration, including soft clients, Instant Messaging & Presence, mobility, conferencing and collaboration applications, integration with Teams (if available) or other applications to support conferencing and collaboration. 20
Total 55 Minutes
Break 10 Minutes
Solution Overview (35 Minutes)
Manufacture and Vendor Overview 10
City of Redondo Beach Solution Overview, including: Design, Architecture Diagram Review, Resiliency, capabilities and fit for the City 15
Roadmap for the future 10
Total 35 Minutes
Administration and Maintenance Overview (25 Minutes)
Demonstration of Administration capabilities - Phone Systems, Voice Mail, add - delete a user 15 Support and Maintenance Overview 10
Total 25 Minutes
Implementation Overview (20 Minutes)
Installation Plan 10
Best practices for deployment 10
Total 20 Minutes
Question and Answers 5
Total 5 Minutes
Presentation Total Time 160 Minutes
Total Demonstration Time 2.5 Hours
RFP evaluations were performed by the Com-Strat consultant and City IT staff. In addition, both the original RFP and RFP responses were peer reviewed by a Com-Strat senior consultant. The vendor proposals were assigned scores based on the level at which the technology met the RFP requirements. The higher the score, the better adherence. Ample time was spent clarifying responses with each vendor to ensure the proposals were viable and to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison. Proposers were also given the opportunity to provide a best and final offer.
Final results from high to low were (proposer - solution): VOX - Avaya Cloud Office, Black Box - Cisco Webex Calling, Intelesys - Mitel MiCloud Connect (withdrew post demonstration), Vertical - 8x8, and Frontier - Mitel.
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Summary scoring results are as follows:
25% CAPABILITY TO DELIVER37 5 13.1% 5 13.1% 8 20.0% 8 20.0% 7 18.2% 8 19.1% 45% QUOTED SOLUTION 25 6 26.0% 6 26.0% 7 31.0% 7 31.5% 7 30.3% 6 29.2% 25% PRICE 14 8 19.3% 9 23.0% 6 13.8% 7 18.3% 7 17.8% 7 16.5% 100% 56.3%
74.6%
$ 170,801 $ 346,344
74.6%
VOX
RingCentral
Cloud
Avaya Cloud Office
53.1%
69.6%
$ 241,262
$ 357,311
69.6%
Black Box
Cisco
Cloud
Webex Calling
55.2%
69.0%
$ 458,802
69.0%
$ 225,685
8x8 V8 from Vertical
Final Rating 63.0% 66.6%
$ 95,736
MiVoice Business
PREMISE OR CLOUD Premise Cloud
Mitel
Vertical
8x8 V8 from Vertical
Cloud
Frontier Cloud
Managed
PHONE QUOTED PICTURE
Frontier Mitel
Flex Mitel
SCORING SHEET
MiVoice Business
MANUFACTURER / SERVICE PROVIDER
SYSTEM
COMPLIANCE
$ 224,513 $ 95,736
$ 298,425
Year 1 Price Quoted by Vendor
5 Year Total Cost of Ownership of Solution Weighted Score 66.6% Year 1 - Actual Project Cost
63.0%
$ 306,380
Rating before Price (Out of 75%) 43.7% 43.6%
Intelesys
Mitel
Cloud
Mitel MiCloud Connect
$ 148,888
$ 375,498
71.0%
53.2%
71.0%
The VOX - Avaya Cloud Office proposal is the highest rated per RFP scoring and by consensus the #1 choice after the technology demonstration. The RingCentral ACO offering is the most mature and feature laden of the submissions. VOX and RingCentral professional services will Implement RingCentral ACO as outlined in the attached agreement.
Final negotiation with VOX resulted in the following:
• The determination that applications such as E911 notification and call accounting are included in the base platform
• Refined the design to provide the City with the best value • Physical Avaya J179s phones are included in the proposed solution at no cost • 3-year subscription with an option to renew for 2 additional years • Addition of an Add/Delete schedule which allows the City to purchase more equipment at quoted price or return equipment not needed.
The RingCentral ACO solution will provide the City with a set of advanced communication capabilities that will facilitate easier communication between staff, residents of Redondo Beach and other agencies. Feature highlights:
· Direct Dial number for every staff member (new extensions city wide). § SMS texting, electronic fax, simultaneous functionality on physical phone, desktop app and mobile app
§ Current, published Departmental numbers will not change · Feature rich desktop application
§ instant messaging, visual voicemail, calling from contacts, multiparty conference calling, powerful collaboration tools.
· Conferencing, auto attendant, call forwarding, call accounting
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· As RingCentral ACO is cloud based, it natively supports a mobile workforce, allowing staff to connect from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection. · App support for desktops, laptops and mobile devices. § Mobile application that users can install on any smart phone and extend their office communication to that device and make and receive calls from their City phone number.
§ PC, Mac, IOS, Android
The RingCentral ACO solution is engineered for “always on” performance. This is accomplished with the core infrastructure in diverse, state of the art Data Centers on both the East and West coast, in an active-active configuration to ensure highly available service. Additionally, there are multiple points of presence through North America within the RingCentral network to provide additional resiliency and availability. RingCentral ACO has a 99.999% guaranteed uptime with financial penalties should the service fall below the committed Service Level Agreement. The solution is monitored in state-of-the-art Network Operations Center which not only monitors the performance of the solution, but also monitors the quality of the voice service to ensure high quality voice communication.
With City Council approval, the next steps include:
• Contract executed (2 weeks)
• Documentation design, configuration and cutover/go live (6-8 weeks) • Project Kickoff and project resource assignment
• Detailed design sessions
• Network readiness assessment
• System build including all customized programming
• Installation of analog gateways and door entry phones • Integration to the City’s overhead loudspeaker paging • Installation of user telephones
• End user training
• System administration training
• System Integration Testing and User Acceptance Testing (SIT/UAT) • Porting current City Direct Inward Dial (DID) Numbers to RingCentral ACO system • Cutover and go live
• System acceptance by the City
COORDINATION
Information Technology staff worked directly with Com-Strat, VOX and RingCentral to structure the project and the Agreement. The City Attorney’s Office reviewed and approved the Agreement as to form.
FISCAL IMPACT
Replacement of the City’s on-premises Avaya CS1000 phone system with RingCentral ACO, including associated funding, was included in the City Council approved IT FY 2021-22 equipment replacement program in the amount of $378,778. The estimated not-to-exceed three (3) year cost for the RingCentral ACO subscription and VOX professional services including contingency is $378,778.62. In order to immediately use the FY 2021-22 funds appropriated for the project, as
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$378,778.62. In order to immediately use the FY 2021-22 funds appropriated for the project, as opposed to waiting until November as part of the City’s typical year-end budget actions, a carryover resolution modifying the FY 2022-23 budget must be approved.
RingCentral ACO subscription charges begin at contract execution. As staff anticipates ~2 months implementation time before the City actively begins using the solution, the telecom consultant was able to negotiate a subscription credit of $13,268.70 for the estimated implementation period. Also included is a 10% project contingency amount of $34,434.42 allocated to both VOX and RingCentral ACO.
Total 3-year cost of ownership (excluding project contingency):
Year 1 $168,801.38 (includes implementation credit)
Year 2 87,771.41
Year 3 87,771.41
---------------
Total $344,344.20
Funding Expenditures
RingCentral ACO
$378,778 IT Internal Service
Fund
$233,771.40 3 Year Subscription
29,542.83 3 Year Use Tax
(13,268.70) Implementation Credit
$250,045.53 RingCentral ACO 3 Year
Subscription Total
VOX
$ 81,083.30 Professional Services
9,488.83 Related Hardware
1,146.54 Sales Tax
2,580.00 Shipping
$ 94,298.67 VOX Implementation Total
$344,344.20 Project Total
$ 13,773.77 RingCentral ACO Contingency
$ 20,660.65 VOX Contingency
$ 34,434.42 Contingency Total (10% of
Project Total)
$378,778 $378,778.62 Page 8 of 9 Not to Exceed Project Total H.12., File # 22-4426 Meeting Date: 7/19/2022
$ 13,773.77 RingCentral ACO Contingency
$ 20,660.65 VOX Contingency
$ 34,434.42 Contingency Total (10% of
Project Total)
$378,778 $378,778.62 Not to Exceed Project Total
APPROVED BY:
Mike Witzansky, City Manager
ATTACHMENTS
· Resolution for IT Internal Service Fund Carryover from FY 2021-22 to FY 2022-23 · RingCentral Avaya Master Service Agreement
· RingCentral Initial Order Form
· VOX Network Solutions Agreement and Scope of Work
· RingCentral ACO phone app features
· Avaya IP Phone J179s features
· Avaya CS1000 phone switch end of sale notice
· VOX certificate of insurance
· RingCentral certificate of insurance