City Council
Report
City Council Meeting: June 11, 2024
Agenda Item: 5.H
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To: Mayor and City Council
From: Sarkis Metspakyan, Acting Chief Information Officer, Information Services Department
Subject: Approval of Agreement with Nth Generation Computing, Inc. for Cohesity Data Protection
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1. Authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute an agreement with Nth Generation Computing, Inc. for data protection hardware, software, and services for the Information Services Department. This recommended award is made as an exception to the competitive bidding process pursuant to Section 2.24.250 (c) and is for a total amount not to exceed $1,140,041.00, with future year funding contingent on Council budget approval.
2. Adopt a finding of no possibility of significant effect pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) (Common Sense Exemption) of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines.
Summary
Cohesity Data Protection (Cohesity) has played a critical role in safeguarding the City of Santa Monica’s digital data and systems. It ensures the backup, security, and recoverability of the City’s technology data and services, including, but not limited to, the Permitting System, Computer Aided Dispatch, and Citywide email. To continue essential data protection for the City, staff recommends entering into an agreement for Cohesity hardware, software, and service license and maintenance with Nth Generation Computing, Inc. (Nth Generation), an authorized distributor and Cohesity reseller. The City is seeking City Council approval to enter into a new one-year agreement, with four (4) one-year options to renew, resulting in a five-year agreement in a total amount not to exceed $1,140,041.00, which includes, a 10% contingency. 2 of 4
Discussion
Since July 2020, the City has relied on Cohesity to perform vital functions such as data backup, protection, and restoration. The Cohesity solution ensures that the City’s Information Services Department can meet its data recovery needs for over three hundred and fifty (350) terabytes of data, for over three hundred (300) servers, and to support over two thousand (2,000) users. In today’s cyber threat landscape, where ransomware attacks target municipalities nationwide, Cohesity’s backup technology is critical in securing they City’s backups from both malicious and accidental deletion, ensuring the integrity of critical data and its recovery.
A one-year agreement will provide the City with continued operation of the backup hardware, software, cloud backups, software updates for security and bug fixes, hardware replacements in the event of a failure, as well as provide 24/7 technical support. The additional four (4) one-year options to renew give City staff future flexibility to maintain uninterrupted data protection services, as needed.
Vendor Selection
In May 2020, the City released a Request for Bids (RFB) for Cohesity data protection system, installation and configuration services, software subscription and maintenance.
As a result of that competitive process, the City issued a three-year purchase order with Nth Generation, an authorized Cohesity reseller. In July 2023, a new purchase order was issued to Nth Generation as an exception to the competitive bidding process, piggybacking on NASPO and the participating State of California Agreement Number 7- 17-70-40-05, for the purchase of new cloud backup services, and maintenance for existing hardware. To continue with uninterrupted data protection for the City’s critical systems, staff recommends the City now enter into a one-year agreement with Nth Generation, with four (4) additional one-year options to renew, to purchase Cohesity hybrid data protection solution, maintenance, and licensing for both on-premises and cloud backup systems, as well as necessary software and hardware updates, at the competitive price secured by Cooperative Agreement Number 7-17-70-40-05. 3 of 4
Exception to Competitive Bidding
Staff recommends Nth Generation to provide Cohesity data protection hardware, software, and related services as an exception to competitive bidding per Muni Code 2.24.250 (c). The State of Utah conducted a competitive bidding process resulting in designating Nth Generation as an authorized reseller under Cooperative Agreement No. 7-17-70-40-05. The City of Santa Monica intends to utilize this agreement, which not only ensures competitive pricing but also aligns closely with the City’s requirements for Data Protection solutions. c. competitive procedures were followed by a governmental agency, federal, state, county, city, joint powers agency, special district, or cooperative purchasing agency and the goods or services are supplied to the City at the same or better price; Environmental Review
The proposed agreement is exempt from the provision of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) of the CEQA Guidelines (common sense exemption). The proposal is covered by the common sense exemption which states that CEQA does not apply, “where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment.” The agreement would not result in any adverse physical environmental effects as it encompasses software systems and services. Therefore, the agreement is exempt from CEQA and no further environmental review under CEQA is required.
Financial Impacts and Budget Actions
Staff seeks authority to approve funding from the Information Technology Replacement & Services Fund to award an agreement with Nth Generation for data protection hardware, software, and services.
Agreement Request
FY 2024-25
Request Amount
Future Year(s)
Amount CIP Account #
Total Agreement
Amount
$283,904.00 $856,137.00 C7100030.689000 $1,140,041.00
Future year funding is contingent on Council budget approval. 4 of 4
Prepared By: Sarkis Metspakyan, Acting Chief Information Officer Approved Forwarded to Council
Attachments:
A. OAKS INITIATIVE FORM 2024 Nth signed 05 13 24
B. Levine Act Disclosure Form Nth Signed 05 13 24