Agenda packet — City Council and Concurrent Authorities, June 4, 2024 (part 3 of 7)

Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Executive Summary
Lead Agency: Region 4 ESC Solicitation: 22-08
RFP Issued: March 9, 2022 Pre-Proposal Date: March 22, 2022 Response Due Date: January 19, 2021 Proposals Received: 9 Awarded to: Contract # R220804
The Board of Directors of Region 4 Education Service Center (ESC) issued RFP 22-08 on March 9, 2022, to establish a national cooperative contract for Total Cloud Solutions and Services.

The solicitation included cooperative purchasing language in Section I. Scope of Work:

NATIONAL CONTRACT
Region 4 ESC, as the Principal Procurement Agency, defined in Appendix D, has partnered with OMNIA Partners to make the resultant contract (also known as the “Master Agreement” in materials distributed by OMNIA Partners) from this solicitation available to other public agencies nationally, including state and local governmental entities, public and private primary, secondary and higher education entities, non-profit entities, and agencies for the public benefit (“Public Agencies”), through OMNIA Partners’ cooperative purchasing program. The Region 4 is acting as the contracting agency for any other Public Agency that elects to utilize the resulting Master Agreement. Use of the Master Agreement by any Public Agency is preceded by their registration with OMNIA Partners (a “Participating Public Agency”). Appendix D contains additional information about OMNIA Partners and the cooperative purchasing agreement.

Notice of the solicitation was sent to potential offerors, as well as advertised in the following:
• Region 4 ESC website
• OMNIA Partners, Public Sector website
• USA Today, nationwide
• Arizona Business Gazette, AZ
• San Bernardino Sun, CA
• Honolulu Star-Advertiser, HI
• The Advocate – New Orleans, LA
• New Jersey Herald, IL
• Times Union, NY
• Daily Journal of Commerce, OR, 2020
• The State, SC
• Houston Community Newspapers, Cy Creek
Mirror, TX
• Deseret News, UT
• Richmond Times, VA
• Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, WA
• Helena Independent Record, MT
• Las Vegas Review Journal, NV
• The Herald-News, IL
ATTACHMENT A 406

Page 2 of 2 ends

On May 3, 2022, proposals were received from the following offerors:
• CDW Government LLC
• Crayon Software Experts LLC
• DLT Solutions, LLC
• DLZP Group LLC
• Ingram Micro Public Sector LLC
• Mythics Emergent Group, Inc.
• Presidio Networked Solutions LLC
• SHI Government Solutions
• Strategic Communications LLC
The proposals were evaluated by an evaluation committee. Using the evaluation criteria established in the RFP, the committee determined that Ingram SHI Government Solutions demonstrated the ability to provide the products and services outlined in the solicitation while offering competitive pricing to members.

Region 4 ESC executed agreements with a contract effective date of October 1, 2022.

Contract Highlights:

Full catalog of cloud products, selling cloud-based products for more than 400 vendors. Supports Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Chrome Platform (GCP) and Azure.

Contract includes:
• Public Cloud Service Providers
• Private Cloud Infrastructure
• Cloud Application
• Managed Cloud Services
Term:

Initial three-year agreement from October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2025 with the option to renew for two (2) additional one-year periods through September 30, 2027 Pricing/Discount:

Discount from current MSRP
OMNIA Partners, Public Sector Web Landing Page:

ATTACHMENT A 407
To: Board of Directors
From: Robert Zingelmann
Date: June 28, 2022
Subject: Recommendation of Contract Award
Region 4 ESC held a RFP opening on May 3, 2022 for RFP # 22-08 for Total Cloud Solutions and Services. There were (9) proposals submitted:
• CDW Government LLC
• Crayon Software Experts LLC
• DLT Solutions, LLC
• DLZP Group LLC
• Ingram Micro Public Sector LLC
• Mythics Emergent Group, Inc.
• Presidio Networked Solutions LLC
• SHI Government Solutions
• Strategic Communications LLC
After careful review of all proposals, the Evaluation Team has determined that (4) companies demonstrated the ability to provide the products and services outlined in the solicitation while offering competitive pricing to the members.

CONSIDERATION
Award of annual contract in compliance with the bid laws of the State of Texas is recommended.

RECOMMENDATION
The Evaluation Team recommends the following companies for award based on their response:

Contract Vendor Term of Contract
Total Cloud Solutions
and Services
CDW Government LLC
Ingram Micro Public Sector LLC
Mythics Emergent Group, Inc.

SHI Government Solutions
(3) years with option of (2) oneyear renewals
Support documentation has been attached for your reference.

Enclosure: Bid Tab Summary
ATTACHMENT A 408
Bid Tab Summary
RFP # 22-08 Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Description Total Weighted
Value CDW Government LLC
Crayon Software
Experts LLC
DLT Solutions, LLC DLZP Group LLC
Products/Pricing 40 38 31 32 32
Performance Capability 30 28 23 23 22
Qualification & Experience 20 19 15 15 15
Value Add 10 10 5 6 5
Total 100 95 74 76 74
It is recommended that the following contract award be made:

Contract
Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Award
CDW Government LLC
Ingram Micro Public Sector LLC
Mythics Emergent Group, Inc.

SHI Government Solutions
ATTACHMENT A 409
Bid Tab Summary
RFP # 22-08 Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Description Total Weighted
Value
Products/Pricing 40
Performance Capability 30
Qualification & Experience 20
Value Add 10
Total 100
It is recommended that the following contract award be made:

Contract
Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Award
CDW Government LLC
Ingram Micro Public Sector LLC
Mythics Emergent Group, Inc.

SHI Government Solutions
Ingram Micro Public
Sector LLC
Mythics Emergent
Group, Inc.

Presidio Networked
Solutions LLC
SHI Government
Solutions
36 37 30 35
25 25 24 26
16 18 17 16
7 7 5 6
84 87 76 83
ATTACHMENT A 410
Bid Tab Summary
RFP # 22-08 Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Description Total Weighted
Value
Products/Pricing 40
Performance Capability 30
Qualification & Experience 20
Value Add 10
Total 100
It is recommended that the following contract award be made:

Contract
Total Cloud Solutions and Services
Award
CDW Government LLC
Ingram Micro Public Sector LLC
Mythics Emergent Group, Inc.

SHI Government Solutions
Strategic
Communications
LLC
33 22
14 6
75 ATTACHMENT A 411
SHI Response to
Region 4 Education
Service Center
Total Cloud Solutions
and Services RFP# 22-08
May 03, 2022
ATTACHMENT A 412
May 03, 2022
Crystal Wallace
7145 West Tidwell Road
Houston, Texas 77092
Dear Crystal Wallace:

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in Region 4 Education Service Center’s request for proposal for Total Cloud Solutions and Services RFP# 22-08. SHI Government Solutions (SHI) was incorporated in Texas in 1999 and is certified as an AS/F HUB with Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ VID# 1223695478500. The intent of our proposal is to illustrate why we are best qualified to meet the needs of Region 4 ESC, providing evidence of our ability to deliver the highest quality solutions at the lowest possible cost.

We pride ourselves on our long-standing relationship with Region 4 Education Service Center (ESC), our technical expertise and dedicated staff. With steady and consistent growth over the past two decades, including more than $380M of technology products and related services sold to Texas government and education customers in 2021, SHI is a reliable and experienced IT Solutions vendor to customers throughout Texas.

We believe our growth stems from several key factors:
• Our commitment to the Public Sector, with 11 dedicated Education sales representatives and 14 Government sales representatives with geographically aligned territories throughout Texas. • Our ability to help our customers streamline and improve the management of their technology procurement, deployment, and recovery.
• Our extensive catalog and the ease with which we can expand our offerings to include new and emerging technology or partners that have a traditional direct to customer sales model. • Our commitment to putting our customers’ needs first, with a specific focus on cost savings for every eligible contract user and every purchase.

We are confident that we are uniquely positioned to help Region 4 ESC continue to focus on meeting their IT needs. Should you have any questions regarding our response, please contact Amelia Jakubczyk at [email protected] or 303-882-8012.

Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to working with Region 4 ESC on this contract! Respectfully,
Dan Calabrese on behalf of
Stacie Becker, Proposal Manager
ATTACHMENT A 413
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 3
Table of Contents
Executive summary .................................................................... 4 Tab 1 – Draft Contract and Offer and Contract Form .............. 6 Appendix A - Draft Contract and Offer........................................................................ 7 Appendix B - Terms and Conditions Acceptance Form .......................................... 14 Tab 2 – Products / Pricing........................................................ 25 Partner – Terms and Conditions................................................................................ 37 Partner - Letters of Authorization .............................................................................. 38 Tab 3 – Performance Capability............................................... 44 Appendix D, Exhibit A – Response for National Cooperative Contract.................. 52 Appendix D, Exhibit B – Administration Agreement Example ................................ 94 Appendix D, Exhibit F – Federal Funds Certifications........................................... 118 FEMA.......................................................................................................................... 127 Appendix D, Exhibit G – New Jersey Business Compliance................................. 142 Tab 4 – Qualification and Experience ................................... 157 References................................................................................................................. 167 Tab 5 – Value Add ................................................................... 169 Tab 6 – Appendix C - Additional Required Documents....... 174 Supporting Documents .......................................................... 179 Addendum Acknowledgements............................................................................... 179 AWS Partner Package............................................................................................... 180 ATTACHMENT A 414
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
SHI is pleased to submit our response to the proposal for Total Cloud Solutions and Services, and we are eager for the opportunity to expand our longstanding partnership with Region 4 ESC. Not only do our capabilities align ideally with Region 4 ESC’s objectives but our values align as well: like Region 4 ESC, we pledge to deliver “collaboration, excellence, innovation, integrity, reliability, and service mindset” in all areas of our organization, and to support Region 4 ESC in its vision of partnering to achieve educational excellence for all children through innovative service. SHI is registered to do business in the State of Texas, and as our proposal demonstrates, we have successfully enabled multiple customers on their cloud journeys across the United States.

As such, we understand your need to migrate business applications to the cloud and have the resources to partner successfully with you to do so. IT is the lifeline of Region 4 ESC’s operations, and we will ensure that Region 4 ESC is proactive in securing its information on every level. Simply put, we are confident that we are the ideal partner to facilitate the procurement, management, training, and protection of products, services, and information that powers Region 4 ESC’s strategy – and we articulate our qualifications in the attached proposal.

We recognize that our role as Region 4 ESC ’s partner is to support your organization’s goals – improve student performance, provide efficient fiscal management and effective stewardship, build collaborative relationships and partnerships, promote a supportive and productive work environment – while meeting state and federal mandates and ultimately serving both student and faculty end-users. We will accomplish this by providing expert best practices to keep your IT resources safe, secure, and operational, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And we are committed to providing the most advantageous pricing models and the most exceptional values to help you achieve your goals.

Our Advanced Solutions Group (ASG) practice combines technical consulting, solution architecture, project management, and professional support expertise to deliver both business and IT benefits attained through public, private, and hybrid cloud technologies. Our ASG team is staffed with senior-level consultants focused on imperatives for improving business innovation and competitive advantage via IT transformation.

Because we maintain Premier Consulting Partner status with our partner Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), we have been able to facilitate over $1 billion of cloud-based services and technology acquisition for our customers. And, because our support teams are vendor-neutral, they are able to use their breadth of experience to help tailor solutions that will be optimal for your specific ecosystem. We engage proactively in the strategy and design phases of a project and assist with strategic planning, assessments, white boarding, proof of concepts, and more.

Our Basic support package is the foundation of our Cloud service offering, and purchasing your Amazon Web Service (AWS) infrastructure through SHI has many benefits, including:
• Access to our SHI One Cloud Management Platform for supported services • Net payment terms provided (upon credit approval) through SHI so you’re not running your entire business on a credit card (or keep it on a credit card through SHI) • Access to AWS Partner funding programs
• Pricing agreements and volume discounts
ATTACHMENT A 415
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 5
• Cloud adoption support including access to self-service support, webinars, events and references to industry general best practice reference architectures • Simplified billing, including monthly invoicing with custom bill splitting and chargeback processing • Access to a wide array of fee-based public cloud professional and managed services • Flexible support options (direct support from AWS or direct support from SHI available at upper tiers)
• Flexible deployment options, such as VMC (VMware Cloud) on AWS, which would allow Region 4 ESC to leverage its existing VMware investment, knowledge, and expertise.

We have thrived in our collaboration with OMNIA Partners and take pride in our ability to administer the agreement to the maximum benefit of the contract users.

We are poised to expand our relationship with Region 4 ESC on our future, long-term vision, and we are confident our implementation will be seamless. Once we determine the best solution for Region 4 ESC, SHI Architects will facilitate implementation using best practices. Throughout the project, our Architects will share knowledge and documentation with Region 4 ESC so that, at the time of handover, Region 4 ESC users will know how to run their new environment efficiently and effectively. We also offer a wide range of customized managed services to monitor or manage your environment that are appropriate to your needs.

SHI’s Project Management Services provide experienced Project Managers (PMs) to successfully execute and manage your technology initiatives, regardless of scope or complexity. Our PMs cover all aspects of formal Project Management Institute Methodology and Principles – from “initiating” through “closing” – and our services are tailored to your unique needs.

Additionally, we recently established our Customer Innovation Center (CIC) as a vehicle for emerging technologies, advancing industry standards, and – as the name denotes – customer innovations. As part of the CIC, representatives from Region 4 ESC can see, touch, and observe software in both our Showcase Lab, where we house equipment and technology from a wide range of OEMs, and within our Software and Sandbox Lab, where customers can engage with hardware and software specifically designed for use in particular settings like a classroom, administrative office, or data center. We provide more explicit detail on the benefits and opportunities regarding the CIC within this proposal.

SHI has demonstrated our dedication and successes in our longstanding collaboration with Region 4 ESC. Our proposal clearly articulates our methodologies, strategies, service and support management, and pricing information, in addition to case studies of similar scope and other requested elements. Please know that we are eager to sustain our strong partnership with you.

As the largest privately-owned, MBE/WBE organization in the country, we are proud of our spirit of community and partnership and in our ability to facilitate IT solutions, services, and hardware and software products for our national and global clients. Loyalty, trustworthiness, and reliability are paramount qualities of SHI, and we offer those qualities with eagerness to help Region 4 ESC work more efficiently and effectively. We appreciate your consideration and welcome any questions or conversations we can address based on this proposal.

ATTACHMENT A 416
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 6
TAB 1 – DRAFT CONTRACT AND OFFER AND

CONTRACT FORM
Please see the following pages for the completed required forms.

ATTACHMENT A 417
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 7

APPENDIX A - DRAFT CONTRACT AND OFFER
ATTACHMENT A 418
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 8
ATTACHMENT A 419
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 9
ATTACHMENT A 420
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 10
ATTACHMENT A 421
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 11
ATTACHMENT A 422
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 12
ATTACHMENT A 423
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 13
ATTACHMENT A 424
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 14

APPENDIX B - TERMS AND CONDITIONS ACCEPTANCE
FORM
Please see the following pages for our exceptions to Terms and Conditions.

ATTACHMENT A 425
Section/Page Term, Condition, or
Specification
Exception/Proposed
Modification
Accepted
(For
Region 4
III.

INSTRUCTIONS
TO OFFERORS;
Section 22,
“Samples”; Page 10
Upon request, samples shall be
furnished, free of cost, within
seven (7) days after receiving
notice of such request. By
submitting the proposal Offeror
certifies that all materials
conform to all applicable
requirements of this solicitation
and of those required by law.

Offeror agrees to bear the costs
for laboratory testing, if results
show the sample does not
comply with solicitation
requirements. Submissions may
no longer be considered for
failing to submit samples as
requested.

RESERVED
[SHI Note: SHI requests this section
be marked “reserved”. Samples
would not be applicable to cloud
services.]
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT;
Opening; Page 1
This Contract (“Contract”) is
made as of , 2022 by and
between
(“Contractor”) and
Region 4 Education Service
Center (“Region 4 ESC”) for
the purchase of Total Cloud
Solutions and Services (“the
products and services”).

This Contract (“Contract”) is made
as of , 2022 by and between
(“Contractor”) and
Region 4 Education Service
Center (“Region 4 ESC”) for the
purchase of Total Cloud Solutions
and Services (“the products and
services”).

APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT;
RECITALS; Page 1
WHEREAS, Region 4 ESC
selected Contractor’s Proposal
and wishes to engage Contractor
in providing the
services/materials described in
the RFP and Proposal;
WHEREAS, Region 4 ESC selected
Contractor’s Proposal and wishes to
engage Contractor in providing the
services, labor, materials,
equipment, and supplies provided
by Contractor under an SOW
(“Sservices”)/materials and third
party software, computer
peripherals, computer hardware,
and associated IT services provided
by third parties (“Product”)
described in the RFP and Proposal;
[SHI Note: SHI requests these terms
be defined to further clarify our role
under this Contract.]
ATTACHMENT A 426
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 9)
Contract Alterations;

Page 2 ends

No alterations to the terms of
this Contract shall be valid or
binding unless authorized and
signed by Region 4 ESC.

No alterations to the terms of this
Contract shall be valid or binding
unless authorized and signed by
Region 4 ESC and Contractor.
[SHI Note: SHI requires any
changes to the terms be mutually
agreed upon in writing by both
parties.]
ATTACHMENT A 427
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 11)

TERMINATION OF
CONTRACT; a)
Cancellation for
Non-Performance or
Contractor
Deficiency; Page 2
Region 4 ESC may terminate
the Contract if purchase volume
is determined to be low volume
in any 12-month period. Region
4 ESC reserves the right to
cancel the whole or any part of
this Contract due to failure by
Contractor to carry out any
obligation, term or condition of
the contract. Region 4 ESC may
issue a written deficiency notice
to Contractor for acting or
failing to act in any of the
following:
i. Providing material that does
not meet the specifications of
the Contract;
ii. Providing work or material
was not awarded under the
Contract;
iii. Failing to adequately
perform the services set forth in
the scope of work and
specifications;
iv. Failing to complete required
work or furnish required
materials within a reasonable
amount of time;
v. Failing to make progress in
performance of the Contract or
giving Region 4 ESC reason to
believe Contractor will not or
cannot perform the
requirements of the Contract; or
vi. Performing work or
providing services under the
Contract prior to receiving an
authorized purchase order.

Region 4 ESC may terminate the
Contract if purchase volume is
determined to be low volume in any
12-month period, upon ten (10)
days’ written notice. Region 4 ESC
reserves the right to cancel the
whole or any part of this Contract
due to failure by Contractor to carry
out any obligation, term or
condition of the Ccontract, upon ten
(10) days’ written notice. Region 4
ESC may issue a written deficiency
notice to Contractor for acting or
failing to act in any of the
following:
i. Providing material that does not
meet the specifications of the
Contract;
ii. Providing work or
materialProduct or Services was not
awarded under the Contract;
iii. Failing to adequately perform
the Sservices set forth in the scope
of work and specifications;
iiiv. Failing to complete required
Serviceswork or furnish required
materials within a reasonable
amount of time;
iv. Failing to make progress in
performance of the Contract or
giving Region 4 ESC reason to
believe Contractor will not or
cannot perform the requirements of
the Contract; or
vi. Performing work Services or
providing services Product under
the Contract prior to receiving an
authorized purchase order.

Upon receipt of a written deficiency
notice, Contractor shall have ten
(10) days to provide a satisfactory
response to Region 4 ESC. Failure
to adequately address all issues of
concern may result in Contract
cancellation. Upon cancellation
under this paragraph, all goods,
materials, work, documents, data
and reports prepared by Contractor
for Region 4 ESC (“Deliverables”)
under the Contract shall
immediately become the property of
Region 4 ESC.
[SHI Note: SHI requests 10 days’ notice
prior to termination of default, so we may
have the opportunity to cure.]
ATTACHMENT A 428
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 11)

TERMINATION OF
CONTRACT; b)
Termination for
Cause; Page 3
If, for any reason, Contractor
fails to fulfill its obligation in a
timely manner, or Contractor
violates any of the covenants,
agreements, or stipulations of
this Contract Region 4 ESC
reserves the right to terminate
the Contract immediately and
pursue all other applicable
remedies afforded by law. Such
termination shall be effective by
delivery of notice, to the
Contractor, specifying the
effective date of termination. In
such event, all documents, data,
studies, surveys, drawings,
maps, models and reports
prepared by Contractor will
become the property of the
Region 4 ESC. If such event
does occur, Contractor will be
entitled to receive just and
equitable compensation for the
satisfactory work completed on
such documents.

If, for any reason, Contractor fails
to fulfill its obligation in a timely
manner, or Contractor violates any
of the covenants, agreements, or
stipulations of this Contract Region
4 ESC reserves the right to
terminate the Contract, immediately
upon ten (10) days’ written notice,
and pursue all other applicable
remedies afforded by law. Such
termination shall be effective by
delivery of notice, to the Contractor,
specifying the effective date of
termination. In such event, all
documents, data, studies, surveys,
drawings, maps, models and reports
prepared by Contractor for Region 4
ESC will become the property of
the Region 4 ESC. If such event
does occur, Contractor will be
entitled to receive just and equitable
compensation for the satisfactory
work completed on such
documents.
[SHI Note: SHI requests 10 days’
notice prior to termination of
default, so we may have the
opportunity to cure.]
ATTACHMENT A 429
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 11)

TERMINATION OF
CONTRACT; c)
Delivery/Service
Failures; Page 3
Failure to deliver goods or
services within the time
specified, or within a reasonable
time period as interpreted by the
purchasing agent or failure to
make replacements or
corrections of rejected
articles/services when so
requested shall constitute
grounds for the Contract to be
terminated. In the event Region
4 ESC must purchase in an open
market, Contractor agrees to
reimburse Region 4 ESC, within
a reasonable time period, for all
expenses incurred.

Failure to deliver goods Product or
Sservices within the time specified,
or within a reasonable time period
as interpreted by the purchasing
agent or failure to make
replacements or corrections of
rejected articlesProducts in
accordance with Contractor’s return
policy which is found at
www.shi.com/returnpolicy
(“Contractor’s Return Policy”),/ or
re-perform rejected Sservices when
so requested shall constitute
grounds for the Contract to be
terminated. In the event Region 4
ESC must purchase in an open
market, Contractor agrees to
reimburse Region 4 ESC, within a
reasonable time period, for all
expenses incurred.
[SHI Note: Product returns are
subject to SHI’s return policy.

SHI’s remedy for non-conforming
Services is re-performance. SHI is
not liable for cost to cover.]
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 14)
Delivery; Page 4
Conforming product shall be
shipped within 7 days of receipt
of Purchase Order. If delivery is
not or cannot be made within
this time period, the Contractor
must receive authorization for
the delayed delivery. The order
may be canceled if the
estimated shipping time is not
acceptable. All deliveries shall
be freight prepaid, F.O.B.

Destination and shall be
included in all pricing offered
unless otherwise clearly stated

RESERVED
[SHI Note: SHI requests this section
be marked “reserved”. SHI will not
be physically shipping any Product
under this Contract.]
ATTACHMENT A 430
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 15)
Inspection &
Acceptance; Page 4
If defective or incorrect material
is delivered, Region 4 ESC may
make the determination to
return the material to the
Contractor at no cost to Region
4 ESC. The Contractor agrees to
pay all shipping costs for the
return shipment. Contractor
shall be responsible for
arranging the return of the
defective or incorrect material.

If defective or incorrect nonconforming material Product is delivered, Region 4 ESC may make
the determination to return the
material Product to the Contractor
at no cost to Region 4 ESCin
accordance with Contractor’s
Return Policy. The Contractor
agrees to pay all shipping costs for
the return shipment. Contractor
shall be responsible for arranging
the return of the defective or
incorrect material.
[SHI Note: All Product returns are
subject to SHI’s return policy.]
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 16)
Payments; Page 4
Payment shall be made after
satisfactory performance, in
accordance with all provisions
thereof, and upon receipt of a
properly completed invoice.

Payment shall be made after
satisfactory performance, in
accordance with all provisions
thereof, and upon within thirty (30)
days of receipt of a properly
completed invoice.
[SHI Note: SHI requires payment
within 30 days of receipt of an
invoice.]
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 19)
Discontinued
Products; Page 5
If a product or model is
discontinued by the
manufacturer, Contractor may
substitute a new product or
model if the replacement
product meets or exceeds the
specifications and performance
of the discontinued model and if
the discount is the same or
greater than the discontinued
model.

RESERVED
[SHI Note: SHI requests this section
be marked “reserved”, as this would
not be applicable to cloud services.]
ATTACHMENT A 431
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT;
22)Warranty
Conditions; Page 5
All supplies, equipment and
services shall include
manufacturer's minimum
standard warranty and one (1)
year labor warranty unless
otherwise agreed to in writing
All supplies, equipment and
sServices and Deliverables shall
include manufacturer's minimum
standard warranty and one (1) year
labor warranty unless otherwise
agreed to in writing be free of
material defects for ninety days
commencing with Final Acceptance
of the Services.

EXCEPT AS OTHERWISE

EXPRESSLY PROVIDED IN

THIS CONTRACT,

CONTRACTOR HEREBY

EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL

WARRANTIES EITHER

EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,

RELATED TO SERVICES OR

DELIVERABLES TO BE

PROVIDED BY CONTRACTOR

HEREUNDER, INCLUDING,

BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY

WARRANTY OF

MERCHANTABILITY OR

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR

PURPOSE, WARRANTY OF

NONINFRINGEMENT, OR ANY

WARRANTY RELATING TO
THIRD PARTY PRODUCTS.
[SHI Note: SHI warrants its
Services and Deliverables will be
free from defect for ninety days
after acceptance of Services. SHI
cannot warrant on behalf of third
party product it resells.]
ATTACHMENT A 432
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 28)
Stored materials;

Page 6 ends

Upon prior written agreement
between the Contractor and
Region 4 ESC, payment may be
made for materials not
incorporated in the work but
delivered and suitably stored at
the site or some other location,
for installation at a later date.

An inventory of the stored
materials must be provided to
Region 4 ESC prior to payment.

Such materials must be stored
and protected in a secure
location and be insured for their
full value by the Contractor
against loss and damage.

Contractor agrees to provide
proof of coverage and
additionally insured upon
request. Additionally, if stored
offsite, the materials must also
be clearly identified as property
of Region 4 ESC and be
separated from other materials.

Region 4 ESC must be allowed
reasonable opportunity to
inspect and take inventory of
stored materials, on or offsite,
as necessary. Until final
acceptance by Region 4 ESC, it
shall be the Contractor's
responsibility to protect all
materials and equipment.

Contractor warrants and
guarantees that title for all work,
materials and equipment shall
pass to Region 4 ESC upon final
acceptance.

RESERVED
[SHI Note: SHI requests this section
be marked “reserved”, as SHI will
not be storing inventory for Region
4 ESC under this Contract.]
ATTACHMENT A 433
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 30)
Indemnity; Page 6
Contractor shall protect,
indemnify, and hold harmless
both Region 4 ESC and its
administrators, employees and
agents against all claims,
damages, losses and expenses
arising out of or resulting from
the actions of the Contractor,
Contractor employees or
subcontractors in the
preparation of the solicitation
and the later execution of the
Contract. Any litigation
involving either Region 4 ESC,
its administrators and
employees and agents will be in
Harris County, Texas.

Contractor shall protect, indemnify,
and hold harmless both Region 4
ESC and its administrators,
employees and agents against all
third party claims, damages, losses
and reasonable expenses arising out
of or resulting from the actions
gross negligence, willful
misconduct, or violation of law of
the Contractor, Contractor
employees or subcontractors in the
preparation of the solicitation and
the later execution of under the
Contract. Any litigation involving
either Region 4 ESC, its
administrators and employees and
agents will be in Harris County,
Texas.
[SHI Note: SHI will indemnify
Region 4 ESC for any third party
claim caused by its gross
negligence, willful misconduct, or
violation of law under this
Contract.]
ATTACHMENT A 434
ADD Limitation of Liability:

NEITHER PARTY WILL BE

LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL,

PUNITIVE, INDIRECT,

INCIDENTAL OR

CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES

INCLUDING, BUT NOT

LIMITED TO, LOSS OF OR

DAMAGE TO DATA, LOSS OF

ANTICIPATED REVENUE OR

PROFITS, WORK STOPPAGE OR

IMPAIRMENT OF OTHER

ASSETS, WHETHER OR NOT

FORESEEABLE AND WHETHER

OR NOT A PARTY HAS BEEN

ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGES.

EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF A
PARTY’S OBLIGATION TO

INDEMNIFY FOR THIRD

PARTY CLAIMS, EITHER
PARTY’S TOTAL CUMULATIVE

LIABILITY TO THE OTHER IN

CONNECTION WITH THIS

CONTRACT, WHETHER IN

CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHER

THEORY, WILL NOT EXCEED

THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF FEES

ACTUALLY PAID OR PAYABLE
BY REGION 4 ESC TO

CONTRACTOR UNDER THIS

CONTRACT FOR THE YEAR

PREVIOUS TO THE INCIDENT

WHICH GAVE CAUSE FOR
SUCH LIABILITY. REGION 4

ESC ACKNOWLEDGES THAT

SUCH AMOUNT REFLECTS

THE ALLOCATION OF RISK

SET FORTH IN THIS

CONTRACT AND THAT

CONTRACTOR WOULD NOT

ENTER INTO THIS CONTRACT

WITHOUT THESE

LIMITATIONS ON ITS
LIABILITY.
[SHI Note: SHI requests this clause
be added to the final contract, if
awarded.]
ATTACHMENT A 435
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 25
TAB 2 – PRODUCTS / PRICING

2.a) Products and Services /Pricing
i. Offerors shall provide pricing based on a discount or discount range from a manufacturer’s price list or catalog, or fixed price, or a combination of both with indefinite quantities. Prices listed will be used to establish the extent of a manufacturer’s product lines, services, warranties, etc. that are available from Offeror and the pricing per item. Multiple percentage discounts are acceptable if, where different percentage discounts apply, they different percentages are specified. Additional pricing and/or discounts may be included. Products and services proposed are to be priced separately with all ineligible items identified. For services, Offerors shall describe how professional services and technical solutions are priced, i.e., hourly, by project, etc. Offerors may elect to limit their proposals to any category or categories.

SHI Response:

SHI is pleased to offer Region 4 ESC our full catalog of cloud products. We have more than 400 vendors we are selling cloud-based products for today and this category is rapidly growing. We have included below a sampling list of those vendors.

In addition to the cloud-based products, SHI is offering our entire catalog of solutions to ensure Region 4 ESC members have access to purchase solutions based on the current and evolving needs of the IT environment.

Manufacturer
1Path Cygilant Intresys ProCloud
365 Labs Cylance iOffice ProofPoint
Accelera Databank ITI Propeller Aero
Agile Access Control
Inc
DemTech Voting
Solutions Kuder RDE Systems
AgileBits DH Wireless Labyrinth Solutions Inc Ready Education Airnet DigiStamp LawVu
ReadyOp
Communications
AKA Enterprise
Solutions
Digital Construction
Works Inc Legal Suite Redapt
Asorb Envoc MediSked, LLC SecureDynamics
Asset Panda Eplexity MedProctor LLC SecurityScorecard
Astadia Esi Acquisitions Merit International Securly
Bonfire Interactive Ltd. Futurity IT, Inc. NBEnvironmental Streetlight Data ATTACHMENT A 436
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BrightBytes G2lytics NCCER Submittable
CASK LLC Gold Systems On Point Tech ThreadFin
Catch Intelligence Google OnCell Systems Inc. ThreatAdvice Change and
Innovation Agency GovInvest Inc. OnCorps Report Thycotic Cherwell GovQA OneLogin Trace First
Circuit Tree LLC Grant Thornton OneVision Transformyx
Citrix GrantVantage Online Web Services US
Transvault
Software Ltd
CityBase Inc GreenRope Opencounter Trifacta Inc
Civitas Learning
GrenCourt Legal
Technologies, LLC OpenDataSoft TriTech
Clairvoyant Grow Tix OpenGov Trust First
Clckwrk Inc. GTY
OpportunitySpace Inc.
(D.B.A. Tolemi) Tumbleweed Press
Clearwater Solutons Helix Innovations LLC OtisEd
Turnkey Cyber
Solutions
Cloud Cyber Range HireRising Pacify Health LLC UiPath
Cloudmersive, LLCs HireVue Page Scholar Unite USA
CloudNimble HoB Paladin Data Urban Logiq
CloudPWR Hoonuit Panther International US eDirect Inc
Cludo Inc. Hyland Panzura USEReady
ATTACHMENT A 437
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Pricing:

CATEGORY TYPES OF PRODUCTS

DISCOUNT FROM

ADVERTISED
LIST
Software
SW: SW-GEN-14-3
All Cloud Products*
*Note: AWS Direct Customers wishing to move to SHI minimum .50% discount off SHI Advertised List Price

1.00%
SW: SW-GEN-14-3
All Software Categories, Operating Systems, Security,
Administrative, Backup and recovery, Development
Products,Database Software

1.00%
Services
Professional
Services
All services will be handled and created custom per SOW provided
Hardware
HW: A
Cables (Network, Signal, Fiber Optic, Power), Cameras,
Surveillance video, Security Cameras and Access Control Systems, Videoconferencing Systems

4.50%
HW: B
Computer Accessories (Keyboards, Mice, docks, Flash Memory, speakers), Telephones Sets, Headsets, Headphones, Network Routers, Channel Converters, Equipment and phone cases.

4.50%
HW: D Racks and Rack Hardware 4.50%
HW: E Batteries, Uninterruptable Power Systems, Battery Chargers 4.50% HW: F Memory Modules, RAM, DRAM, SDRAM, Pen or Flash Drives 4.50% HW: H
Hard Drives, Disk Arrays and Array Controllers, Power adapters and Inverters, Network Interface Cards & Network Switch Products, Multimedia Storage Products,

4.50%
HW: HW6-1 Notebook computers, Tablets, Servers, Point of Sale, Desktops, Thin Clients, Workstations, All in One Desktops 1.00%
HW: J Maintenance, Warrantees, etc. 4.50%
HW: Q Flat Panel Display monitors, Large screen Monitors, TVs 2.00% HW: R Printers (Ink Jet, Laser, Matrix, Line Matrix, Label), Scanners, Multifunction Machines 4.50%
ATTACHMENT A 438
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HW: T Power Products, PDUs, Power Supplies, Power Monitors 4.50% All Other
Other All other undefined categories that SHI is able to offer to Vizient Members Per SOW
Sample Professional Services Rate* Card for SHI:
*Pricing is a sample and can vary on location, minimum billing requirements and other relevant variables. These rates do not include travel expenses. SHI reserves the right to review and update rates on an annual basis.
ii. Include an electronic copy of the catalog from which discount, or fixed price, is calculated. Electronic price lists must contain the following: (if applicable) • Manufacturer part #
• Offeror’s Part # (if different from manufacturer part #) • Description
• Manufacturers Suggested List Price and Net Price
• Net price to Region 4 ESC
Media submitted for price list must include the Offerors’ company name, name of the solicitation, and date on a Flash Drive (i.e., Pin or Jump Drives).

SHI Response:

SHI is providing our full catalog of cloud publishers found at https://texas.gs.shi.com/. This catalog provides ESC Region 4 access to advertised pricing along with associated discounted price to ESC members.

ATTACHMENT A 439
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iii. Public Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) – For each CSP your company is authorized to resell please:
a) Specify the Service Model(s) and Deployment Model(s) supported as defined by SP 800, The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing.

SHI Response:

SHI’s Cloud Practice
SHI’s cloud practice gives customers more visibility and control over their cloud environment without limiting functionality or hindering the user experience of what a cloud platform has to offer. SHI supports these major Cloud Service Providers (CSPs):
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Microsoft Azure (Azure)
We do the heavy lifting where the customer needs it: aggregation of products and services, financial chargeback, management, performance rightsizing, and analysis. SHI collaborates with engineers and partners credentialed in top cloud platforms and compatible products such as AWS, Box, CommVault, One Login, Veeam, Symantec, VMWare, Cisco, Microsoft, and others, providing the customer a one-stop shop. We specialize in cost optimization, billing management, and governance, as well as infrastructure management and professional services. Today, SHI is AWS’ largest reseller spanning many different industries such as financial services, pharma, and SaaS.

Overview
• We manage over $20M per month in IaaS assets for our clients. • We provide tools and resources that help clients track their cloud assets and where their costs are going.
• We help align cloud usage and spend with clients’ business processes while they take advantage of the benefits underlying platforms have to offer. • We bring forward the best resources, partners, and technologies for getting the most out of your cloud and hybrid environment.

Transformation to Cloud Solutions
Cloud-Based Solutions have changed the dynamics of pre-sales, acquisition, and on-going IT management. To keep up with new demands, SHI has developed processes and support to address Cloud consumption-based models, and we have resources dedicated to emerging partners to support our customers’ growing needs.

New licensing models
As licensing standards change to meet the demands of a mobile-first and cloud-first world, there is an emphasis on the “dual-user." A dual-user is someone who uses technology for school or work, as well as privately. As new licensing models arrive, SHI helps users make sense of the varied cloud-based solutions in order to efficiently license, adopt, and consume these technologies. Always sensitive to price-point, SHI simplifies asset management through selfprovisioning and self-service agreement/account management.

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SHI Support Services
SHI’s Cloud Support Services provide insight into your cloud environment, allowing us to make tangible recommendations that benefit your organization. We can help identify overprovisioned or dormant resources, analyze historical usage to determine more favorable pricing models, and provide ongoing monitoring to ensure you’re staying on track with a secure, cost-efficient, and optimized cloud environment. SHI delivers industry standard and custom offerings through our Assess, Design, Build, and Manage methodology to integrate leading cloud technologies to your environment. Our certified solutions architects and technical consultants combine their technical expertise to deliver services that optimize the business and IT benefits of public, private, and hybrid cloud technologies.

Our support services include:
• Cloud Platform(s) Service Onboarding: Cloud Adoption starts with onboarding into one or more cloud platforms. We have standardized our approach to determine available cloud functionality and overcome billing and security challenges, all while providing guidance on best practices. • Net Terms Billing: Organizations need flexible payment terms to consider CAPEX vs. OPEX, extended net term billing options, financing, account consolidation, financial chargebacks, and pricing program assistance. SHI collaborates with you to understand your billing requirements and provide a variety of billing options to fit your specific needs.
• Reporting & Analytics: Capturing your organization’s cloud costs and usage allows us to facilitate meaningful business decisions that are crucial for productivity. We will assess your metadata for multiple cloud platforms into a consolidated view as well as provide a guided analysis based on years of consulting experience with enterprise clients.
• Always Available Support: When you have a critical issue, you need to count on superior support. Our Cloud support team of certified cloud account managers, cloud solution architects, and our 24x7 Cloud Service Desk is available to provide technical support throughout your cloud journey. • Cloud Spend Optimization: Cloud costs don’t have to be unpredictable and difficult to manage. We provide proactive guidance based on your cloud usage and growth plans to help you reduce costs and optimize your cloud infrastructure. • Advisory Services: Whether you are in the process of evaluating your cloud strategy or need in-depth architectural support, we have the vision, technical expertise, and range of services to guide you.
• Volume Licensing Expertise: We can help you move your licenses to the cloud, select the right buying program(s), maintain licensing compliance, and best of all, avoid audits! Our licensing experts will identify, monitor and optimize your software assets to ensure you receive the most value in your IT investment.

ATTACHMENT A 441
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b) Provide proof of your company’s authorization to resell  For CSPs primarily engaged in delivery IaaS/PaaS, proof of authorization to resell must come for CSP
SHI Response:

Please see section Partner – Letters of Authorizations to resell the following IaaS/PaaS products:
• Amazon Web Services
• Google
• Microsoft
 For CSPs primarily engaged in delivering SaaS, proof of authorization to resell may come from either the CSP or an authorized distribution channel SHI Response:

Please see section Partner Packages at the end of our response document. c) Copy of (or link) any current CSP Service Level Agreement (SLA) SHI Response:

Please see section Partner – Terms and Conditions for SLA information on the following products:.
• Amazon Web Services
• Google
• Microsoft
d) Copy of (or link) for any other relevant terms and conditions that may be required by the CSP SHI Response:

Please see section Partner – Letters of Authorizations to resell the following IaaS/PaaS products:
• Amazon Web Services
• Google
• Microsoft
e) CSA STAR Self-Assessment
 All proposed public CSPs must achieve a LEVEL ONE: CSA STAR Self- - Assessment by completing a Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) or submitting a report documenting compliance with Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) that is current and publicly available at the CSA Star Registry.

SHI Response:

The scope and requirements of this RFP are such that it would be extensive to include all of the cloud-based offerings that SHI has in its catalog today. Instead, we commit to adding products and solutions over the course of this contract as new technologies emerge or as customer needs arise.

ATTACHMENT A 442
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SHI is responding today with offerings from AWS, Google and Microsoft, please see below for CSA Star Assessment links.
• Amazon’s response to the CSA STAR Assessment can be found here:
https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/csa/
• Google’s response to the CSA STAR Assessment can be found here:
https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/csa
• Microsoft Azure’s response to the CSA STAR Assessment can be found here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-csa-star-selfassessment Private Cloud Infrastructure - Describe your capability and approach to providing private cloud environments to your Customers. For each CIP your company is authorized to sell, please:
a) Specify how its solutions are relevant to private cloud infrastructure SHI Response:

SHI provides a full range of capabilities across the Private Cloud Infrastructure spectrum. We partner with industry leaders such as VMware, Nutanix, and all tier 1 infrastructure and software manufactures to help support our customers on premises and off premises Private Cloud Infrastructure requirements. SHI provides a full catalog of options which will include a broad range of vendors. We are happy to provide proof of authorization as requested at time of quoting. b) Provide proof of your company’s authorization to resell  Proof of authorization to resell may come from either the CIP or an authorized distribution channel
SHI Response:

SHI is providing a full catalog option which will include hundreds of various vendors. We are happy to provide proof of authorization as requested at time of quoting.

Cloud Application – Describe your capability and approach to:
a) Modernizing and migrating legacy applications to run on Customer clouds SHI Response:

Fully realizing the possibilities of the cloud requires rethinking how organizations manage their workloads. Whether your migration or modernization effort is focused on public or private infrastructures or building a hybrid environment, SHI will support your journey. With experience supporting multi-cloud environments, SHI has expertise helping organizations evaluate migrating complex workloads, consider different approaches for different clouds, reduce migration time with automation, and help organizations realize an improved business time-to-value.

Because migrating and modernizing legacy systems is a major undertaking with many possible paths, SHI provides paid Cloud services which begins by evaluating your requirements and advising on the appropriate course of action. Through our assessments and evaluations, SHI’s application and cloud experts can provide insights into your current database and application architecture, usage, resources, and dependencies.

Additionally, SHI can analyze the optimal method for migration and modernization with a “Six-Rs” analysis. This analysis considers the possible ways an application could and should be moved to ATTACHMENT A 443
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a cloud. These possibilities include Retaining on premises, Retiring the application, Replacing with another service or SaaS, Rehosting the application in its current form, Replatforming the application, or Refactoring the application with native cloud services. By thoroughly reviewing these applications, SHI can guide you through the options, risks, and benefits for migrating these applications to the cloud in their current form or with modern cloud techniques that utilize native services.

In addition to our own internal capabilities, SHI has a highly vetted subcontractor network that can provide paid assistance Cloud services around the following:
• Migrations
• Virtualization
• Containerization
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• DevOps
• Cloud Hosted Databases
• DRaaS
b) Developing and deploying new applications to run on Customer clouds SHI Response:

Evolving business requirements sometimes exceed the capabilities of existing applications. In some of these cases, it may become necessary to develop and deploy new applications in public clouds. Frequently this also means leveraging the latest in native cloud technologies. Based on the scope of the project, SHI can assist with this by ensuring that best practices are followed throughout the cloud adoption journey. SHI provides paid Cloud services which begins by understanding the purpose and requirements of the initiative in order to advise on the appropriate course of action. Based on the requirements, SHI’s services and solutions organization of internal and 3rd party partners and subcontractors can offer various types of support.

In most cases, SHI follows a multi-step process of assessing, designing, building, and implementing a solution. Whether upgrading or a replacing, SHI helps you take your legacy applications to the next level. We create a future-state roadmap for your legacy applications for cloud and retool your infrastructure bringing enhanced capabilities to business long term.

Beyond applications, a common challenge for many organizations deploying cloud applications is governance and security. As a partner of AWS, Azure, and GCP, SHI frequently advises customers about best practices for cloud environment health and governance. This includes solutions such as landing zone designs, cost optimization, and infrastructure modernization, and cloud security solutions.

Managed Cloud Services – Describe your capability and approach to managing cloud services to Customer running solutions on public and/or private clouds SHI Response:

Organizations are moving their workloads to cloud to scale, keep up with remote workforces, and improve flexibility, but often internal IT departments don’t possess the skills to effectively maintain and expand their cloud environment. As organizations accelerate innovation, take greater risks, and enjoy more ATTACHMENT A 444
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adaptable operations, SHI’s provides paid Cloud services and solutions which enable you to maximize and align cloud resources with your business and IT goals.

SHI helps our customers reimagine their possibilities by providing dependability through our Public Cloud managed services. These paid services can include assistance such as cost optimization, patching and change management, service and incident response, securing workloads, monitoring and alerting, cloud backup management, and other solutions. Depending on the service tier provided, SHI can provide 24x7 technical support.

SHI has multiple capabilities working with partners as shown in the Letters of Authorization following this section. In addition to our own internal capabilities, SHI has a highly vetted subcontractor network that can provide paid assistance for certain Cloud services as well.

Services – Describe any additional cloud services
SHI Response:

Cloud Optimization is crucial, especially for organizations in the midst of transforming workloads and modernizing applications to leverage the public cloud. SHI has developed a one-of-a-kind paid Multi-Point Cloud Optimization Assessment structure designed for customers who are trying to get the most from their cloud investment.

Our exclusive Cloud Optimization methodology does not solely focus on cost; it also addresses architecture and governance tuning to leverage the dynamic pricing and scalability models of the cloud.

For qualifying customers, SHI will address the Compute, storage and network optimization. SHI can check governance policies currently in place, gain improved visibility and insight to stay ahead of future optimization efforts, including tagging, account structure, alerts, reports, policies and licensing which are all essential for budgetary forecasting.

SHI O365 Optimization
In addition to the details above, another example of SHI’s cloud service optimization capabilities are SHI helps customers gain insight into user-based consumption in order to help remediate the sprawl we see that lead to overspending. Our ITAM experts will help you achieve centralized visibility across any number of tenants and agreements. We can automatically perform subscription provisioning, de-provisioning and re-tiering in the O365 portal. SHI offers three subscriptions: Standard (Value Add), Professional and Premier (Fee-Based), that ranges from providing insight (Standard) to an ongoing managed service where SHI implements optimization recommendations for you (Premier). iv. Is pricing available for all products and services? SHI Response:

Yes, SHI is uniquely positioned to provide best pricing for all of your IT needs and has established longtenured relationships with all major OEM’s and emerging partners. We accomplish this by working with your team to understand your requirements and addressing your technology needs early and often. v. Describe your unique offerings or attributes of your company and/or cloud solutions offering as compared to your competition and how its differentiators provide additional value to Region 4 and OMNIA Partners members
SHI Response:

As cloud technologies have progressed, SHI has worked to keep up with these ever-growing changes.

Our cloud portfolio has grown exponentially over the past five years, and we have developed our cloud ATTACHMENT A 445
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solutions team and services to meet the evolving needs of our customers. SHI takes pride in delivering the best technology with the top leaders in the industry, and it is our goal to help our customers understand every aspect of cloud technology – from implementing, managing, and troubleshooting their cloud solution. We recognize with our customers, especially our education customers, that every dollar counts; we will work to provide the best pricing that our customers are eligible for and continue to assist in evaluating cloud costs with support from our cloud services team. vi.

SHI Response:

Not Applicable, no question here.
vii. Provide pricing for warranties on all products and services.

SHI Response:

SHI will apply any appliable publisher warranty.
viii. Describe any additional discounts or rebates available. Additional discounts or rebates may be offered for large quantity orders, single ship to location, growth, annual spend, guaranteed quantity, etc.

SHI Response:

SHI is not offering incremental sales volume growth rebates at this time. SHI is however offering Region 4 ESC our most competitive pricing upfront.
ix. Describe how customers verify they are receiving Contract pricing.

SHI Response:

SHI facilitates several Public Sector contracts across the State of Texas to ensure customers procure the best technology at the most competitive prices possible.

The proposed pricing model discount is based off of SHI's Advertised List Price, which is a verifiable source, referenceable 24/7/365 at https://texas.gs.shi.com/. SHI Advertised List Price is based on current market conditions and in many cases, already reflects a substantial discount off Manufacturer Published List prices, where a list price exists. SHI's internal support regularly analyzes the current market to verify that SHI Advertised List Price is competitive.

We offer best pricing to our customers at the time of purchase. Given the breadth of manufacturers and products that SHI offers, opportunities for SHI to secure additional discounts for eligible contract users are plentiful. We work to provide your contract users with the most advantageous pricing available, and we go above and beyond the minimum discounts offered, whenever possible and as often as possible. x. Describe payment methods offered.

SHI Response:

SHI offers several billing options. Your dedicated SHI Account Team will work closely with Region 4 ESC to understand your billing needs and will work in coordination with your assigned SHI Accounts Receivable representative to establish a billing method that works for you.

Transactional Invoices
At the time of shipment, SHI will provide an invoice for each shipment under each customer purchase order number. Our standard payment terms are Net 30 Days.

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Monthly Summary
The SHI consolidated billing option can offer tremendous savings; at the end of each month a single invoice will provide a detailed account of all transactions processed for that month. SHI’s standard payment terms for monthly invoicing are Net 30 days.

Corporate Procurement Card
Many of our larger customers have implemented a Corporate Procurement Card Program, which SHI supports through our acceptance of MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. SHI provides Level II reporting data for credit card transactions, which means we are able to provide order header information on your credit card statements.

Financing
SHI Capital offers flexible payment solutions for our customers to finance 100% of their equipment, software, and services with 0% down payment, allowing them to preserve cash and accelerate their ROI while hedging against inflation and keeping updated with the latest technology. Let us suggest a customized, flexible payment solution to match the budget requirements that offer several different outcomes at the end of your finance agreement.
xi. Propose the frequency of updates to the Offeror’s pricing structure. Describe any proposed indices to guide price adjustments. If offering a catalog contract with discounts by category, while changes in individual pricing may change, the category discounts should not change over the term of the Contract.

SHI Response:

SHI is proposing a discount off SHI Advertised List Price. therefore Region 4 ESC will be presented with most up to date discounted pricing.
xii. Describe how future product introductions will be priced and align with Contract pricing proposed.

SHI Response:

SHI is committed to providing you with a pricing model that will stand the test of time throughout the contract term, based upon two primary values: customer-centric approach and honest pricing. xiii. Provide any additional information relevant to this section.

SHI Response:

Not Applicable.

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PARTNER – TERMS AND CONDITIONS
• AWS Terms and Conditions
o Please see section Partner Packages at the end of our response document. • Google, through Carahsoft as Google’s single-source distributor for Public Sectors Terms and Conditions:
o Workspace (Public Sector)
o Workspace for Education
o GCP
o PSO
• Microsoft Azure Terms and Conditions with Instructions:
o Azure Terms
Then choose “General Service Terms”
ATTACHMENT A 448
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PARTNER - LETTERS OF AUTHORIZATION
Please see the following pages for authorization to resell the following products:
• AWS
• Google
• Microsoft
ATTACHMENT A 449
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AWS – Letter of Authorization
ATTACHMENT A 450
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Google / Carahsoft – Letter of Authorization
ATTACHMENT A 451
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Microsoft – Letter of Authorization
ATTACHMENT A 452
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ATTACHMENT A 453
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ATTACHMENT A 454
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TAB 3 – PERFORMANCE CAPABILITY

2.b) Performance Capability
i. Include a detailed response to Appendix D, Exhibit A, OMNIA Partners Response for National Cooperative Contract. Responses should highlight experience, demonstrate a strong national presence, describe how Offeror will educate its national sales force about the Contract, describe how products and services will be distributed nationwide, include a plan for marketing the products and services nationwide, and describe how volume will be tracked and reported to OMNIA Partners.

SHI Response:

Please see Appendix D, Exhibit A tab below.
ii. The successful Offeror will be required to sign Appendix D, Exhibit B, OMNIA Partners Administration Agreement prior to Contract award. Offerors should have any reviews required to sign the document prior to submitting a response. Offeror’s response should include any proposed exceptions to OMNIA Partners Administration Agreement on Appendix B, Terms and Conditions Acceptance Form.

SHI Response:

Please see Appendix D, Exhibit B tab below.
iii. Include completed Appendix D, Exhibits F. Federal Funds Certifications and G. New Jersey Business Compliance.

SHI Response:

Please see Appendix D, Exhibits F and G tabs below.
iv. Describe how Offeror responds to emergency orders.

SHI Response:

In general, nearly all cloud-based software offered through this response will be delivered through a download or another electronic method. In situations where physical product is required SHI can offer expedited delivery if the order is placed before the cutoff time and the product is in stock. Fees may apply.
v. What is Offeror’s average Fill Rate?
SHI Response:

Per Q&A - Not applicable to this RFP.
vi. What is Offeror’s average on time delivery rate? Describe Offeror’s history of meeting the shipping and delivery timelines.

SHI Response:

Per Q&A - Standard language; if applicable to your offering please provide shipping & delivery timelines. vii. Describe Offeror’s return and restocking policy.

SHI Response:

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SHI’s return policy is customer-centered – we will always do our best to accommodate returns for any unopened box up to 30 days after receipt. Rarely, a customer might receive an incorrect, damaged, or non-working (DOA) product; if a product issue occurs, SHI accepts return of that product within 30 days, with no restocking fees, regardless of the package being opened. After 30 days of receipt, SHI will still make a best-faith effort to accommodate a return.

Occasionally, the product manufacturer has a “no returns” policy; in these cases, we notify customers at the time of quote to ensure transparency and confidence in purchase. In these specific instances, SHI is unable to accommodate returns.

Our return process is simple:

To request a return, first contact your dedicated sales team, via email, phone, or through the “Request Return Authorization Number” section on the SHI.com website.

Your Inside Account Manager will then provide you with a return authorization (RMA) number, along with a shipping label. With the RMA number clearly included on the shipping label, the customer then ships their return to SHI, and we process the return. In some cases, to expedite a return, SHI will arrange to have the return-product picked up directly. Once the return has been fully processed, SHI will credit the customer’s invoice. In addition, we send out replacement orders prior to receiving returns in order to expedite the process for the customer.

Occasionally, Software Publishers may require a customer to fill out a Letter of Destruction. In these cases, SHI provides a letter to customer, who signs and returns it to us. To help simplify and expedite the process, SHI takes care of the rest – processing the Letter of Destruction directly with the Software Publisher. At any point, if customers encounter issues with their products, the SHI Account Team is accessible and eager to help!
More information and details are available at SHI’s GS Return policy link:
https://texas.gs.shi.com/CustomerServices/SHIInfo.aspx?ContentId=768. viii. Describe Offeror’s ability to meet service and warranty needs.

SHI Response:

SHI can offer 3rd party, non-manufacturer warranties that will allow customers to extend the life of mission critical devices with world-class service and support. These upgraded warranties are offered for an additional fee.

SHI Complete Care warranty programs allow customers to maximize their warranty benefits at minimal costs. Leveraging our partner network, SHI has managed to secure standard product manufacturer warranties for most customers at no charge for the first year. With the addition of SHI Complete Care, the same level of warranty services is provided for subsequent years – generally at a cost far lower than an equivalent manufacturer’s warranty. Additionally, SHI Complete care customers pay no deductibles for claims.

Your SHI Complete Coverage can begin on the date of purchase or after the manufacturer’s warranty expires, and coverage is not affected by what the limited manufacturer warranty offers. Our Warranty Services alleviate multi-year budgeting constraints and deliver service when and where you need it! Included in Product Protection Services in basic triage and remote diagnosis; 24-hour advanced exchange, depot service, and three-way shipping. As an additional benefit, our warranties protect against accidental damage, including drops, spills, and cracked screens.

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Finally, SHI offers post-warranty and maintenance agreements for products that are still viable and in use.

If you maintain equipment under a warranty that is about to expire – or already has expired – SHI’s postwarranty and maintenance agreements keep you covered. Our field engineers serve as an extension of your IT organization and deliver reliable, efficient, and customizable hardware maintenance support. Our program can consolidate multiple vendor agreements, and equipment can be added or removed from coverage at any time.

We provide affordability and reliable alternatives to manufacturer maintenance agreements, and flexible contracting provides 40-60% cost-savings from OEMs to your organization. Our Level III engineering teams—hired directly from OEMs and averaging over 15 years of experience—have helped us earn extraordinary trust with our customers and are available in every major metropolitan area throughout North America.

In collaboration with our partner network, SHI can access over 50 service locations and 110 global stocking locations to support your needs, no matter where the equipment is located. ix. Describe Offeror’s customer service/problem resolution process. Include hours of operation, number of services, etc.

SHI Response:

In general, SHI manages issues through the prioritization of your requests. Your dedicated SHI Account Team will escalate requests both internally and through our OEM partners, as required. SHI is committed to prioritizing customers interests and will be an advocate for your organization to resolve any issues. SHI is committed to providing Region 4 ESC with the resources you need to ensure high quality customer service in the support of your agreements. The team is committed to dedicating as much time as required to meet the required service levels. SHI's escalation process is simple and straightforward. You may escalate a question to the next level at any time that you feel is appropriate. Also, you can rest assured that, if necessary, your SHI representative will escalate an issue internally for resolution.

SHI is committed to your total satisfaction and has been and will continue to be willing to make the changes necessary to the account/support team and any levels of service, as required, to resume business continuity and restore harmony.

A key aspect of SHI's Quality Management System is our attention to performance by reviewing metric data. All departments must work together to meet SHI's Quality Objective. A breakdown in one area may ATTACHMENT A 457
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result in a delay in other areas. When all departments meet their objectives, SHI can meet or exceed our customers' expectations.

SHI encourages our customers to send emails to our Director of Quality at [email protected]. The Director of Quality reports customer feedback to Top Management and Department Leaders at SHI. As necessary, they will respond to the customer's comment, assign a corrective action, and follow up with the customer to ensure that the issue has been resolved.

SHI is prepared to report on and take corrective action related to service incidents on a company-wide basis through our ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System. SHI is committed to acting quickly and effectively to resolve any issues that may arise.

Our public sector field territories are structured by vertical and geography. With Account Executives (AEs) who live and work in their territories, our emphasis is on frequent, consistent, face-to-face communication with customers. Each AE is supported by a team of Inside Account Managers (IAMs) who are responsible for day-to-day customer service and questions surrounding quotations, order placement, and general concerns. Our inside sales teams coordinate an extensive network of additional support and resources behind the scenes and will work to get any question you have answered quickly and accurately.

SHI provides support to our customers between the hours of 8:00 am – 8:00 pm in every time zone.

Individual team hours depend on the location of customers and contractual requirements. We are only completely closed on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Support is available every other business day of the year. Furthermore, SHI.com, SHI's e-commerce platform, is available to our customers 24/7/365. x. Describe Offeror’s invoicing process. Include payment terms and acceptable methods of payments.

Offerors shall describe any associated fees pertaining to credit cards/p-cards.

SHI Response:

Transactional Invoices
At the time of shipment, SHI will provide an invoice for each shipment under each customer purchase order number. Our standard payment terms are Net 30 Days.

Monthly Summary
The SHI consolidated billing option can offer tremendous savings; at the end of each month a single invoice will provide a detailed account of all transactions processed for that month. SHI’s standard payment terms for monthly invoicing are Net 15 days.

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Financing
SHI Capital offers flexible payment solutions for our customers to finance 100% of their equipment, software, and services with 0% down payment, allowing them to preserve cash and accelerate their ROI while hedging against inflation and keeping updated with the latest technology. Let us suggest a customized, flexible payment solution to match the budget requirements that offer several different outcomes at the end of your finance agreement.
xi. Describe Offeror’s contract implementation/customer transition plan.

SHI Response:

SHI understands the issues for our customers to transition their OEM agreements and procurement from one SHI to another. With the hurdles that our customers face in mind, SHI will create and execute a seamless implementation plan with as little disruption to customer as possible. Please find below an overview of SHI’s implementation plan. More details can be added, as we work together to understand all of the requirements.

Transition Schedule
Please see the details below pertaining to SHI's transition schedule activities:
• The Account Executive would handle all contract negotiations, ensuring closure to support implementation of the program.
• After the contracts are completed, SHI would request a ramp up time window, to be determined by SHI and customer.
• A Program Management team would be formed to support customer; including members of the SHI Dedicated Account Team.
• A kick-off Sales/Operations meeting would take place to thoroughly review all customer requirements in detail. Parties in attendance would include members of your dedicated SHI Account Team along with additional SHI resources who will support the Contract. This review will follow the tentative schedule below:

Week One:
• Service Levels: Review of the customer requirements to ensure the implementation plan adheres to all expected and agreed to service levels for the services identified to be performed by SHI at the various levels.
• Dedicated Account Team Staffing: Begin process of naming primary and secondary IAM’s and Licensing Executives for all customer’s IT procurement activities. • Assets: Begin process of defining customer’s current assets and requirements. • Previous/Existing Service Customer Transition Plan: Discussion regarding any obligations from any previous or current service provider, identifying areas of assistance SHI can provide in transition plan.
• Week One Program Management Review
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Week Two:
• Customer to identify details and conditions.
• Customer/SHI to notify manufacturers of change in Reseller on the Agreements. • SHI to create overview documents of each agreement for access by all Account Team Members. • Customer/SHI to identify new agreement opportunities. • Order Process Flow: A complete review of required order flow processes would take place, ensuring any modifications to standard processes to meet the unique requirements of customer are documented and communicated across the entire support team. • Week Two Program Management Review
Week Three:
• Orientation: Both SHI and customer would receive orientation as to responsibilities, requirements, standard operating procedures as well as critical tasks and timelines. Important areas of review will be customer specific training on purchasing policy and procedures, ordering procedures and specifics, points of contact within customer environment to include but not limited to the Technical Staff, Operational Staff, Third Party SHIs and others as deemed appropriate. • Training on Value-Added Tools: Training to identify customer staff on how to utilize tools such as order status tracking, Report Factory, License Management System, License Allocation System, License Redeployment Management Service and SHI Direct.com comparison features. • Week Three Program Management Review
Week Four:
• Week Four Final Program Management Review: Meeting to review all pieces to ensure cohesive program planning. Implementation plan finalized with go-live date solidified. • Pilot: A selected number of orders will be run through the process identified for real-life scenarios to gain final approval for all procurement activities. Once this has been agreed as operational by all parties, the go-live date will be confirmed.
xii. Describe the financial condition of Offeror.

SHI Response:

SHI Government Solutions is a privately held company under the same ownership since 1999, and we have a financially strong and stable business model that has proven itself over time. In 2021, we transacted business with more than 600 unique public sector entities across the State of Texas, recognizing revenues at more than $380 Million. We are sufficiently capitalized and funded to support the full scope of services and full potential term of any contract resulting from this RFP without jeopardy to any other ongoing or future business endeavors. SHI-GS’s gross annual sales for the prior five years are:

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xiii. Provide a website link in order to review website ease of use, availability, and capabilities related to ordering, returns and reporting. Describe the website’s capabilities and functionality.

SHI Response:

As part of SHI's Procurement Services, SHI will provide a web-based procurement platform, https://texas.gs.shi.com/. Our platform offers the latest in functionality and the greatest in a user‐friendly interface. SHI.com also offers functionality explicitly designed for business‐to‐business. Whether used as a stand‐alone procurement system or integrated with the customer's current procurement systems, SHI.com provides the functionality and customized user experience needed to manage your I.T. procurement workflow.

The SHI E-Commerce Specialists are available to provide training to those employees authorized to access contract pricing and information at SHI.com. SHI can schedule training based on the customer's level of access to the site. Upon award, your Account Executive will work with Region 4 ESC's stakeholders to determine the program and schedule that would work best for them.

SHI's Procurement Platform includes innovative Custom Catalog capabilities, which dynamically filter product offerings to provide SHI clients with personalized product information views. SHI clients can easily find and compare SHI's products. SHI can deliver a differentiated customer experience that simplifies purchasing, encourages repeat business, and boasts key metrics like frequently viewed products and contracts or standard items. We provide tremendous customization and seamless workflow that meets your unique needs.

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Users with the appropriate permissions can run the following types of reports on SHI.com:
• Invoicing
o 12-month spend manufacturer profile
o Invoice detail report
o Invoice detail for manufacturer report
o Invoice detail with serial numbers report
o Invoice detail with serial numbers and tracking report o Invoice summary report
o Product purchase history report
• Order
o Order detail report
o Shipped order detail report
o Un-invoiced order report
• Entitlements
o Maintenance renewal report
The user will select the report type, the date range for the report, and will enter the email address for delivery, up to an unlimited number. Also, you will select the format in which you want the reports, i.e., Microsoft Excel, HTML, tab-delimited text file, or fixed-width text file. Once the form is complete, our server will run the report and send the email with an attachment in the requested format. Our web-based reporting tool delivers 95% of all reports within 5 minutes.

SHI would look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate the full capabilities of this site to the Region 4 ESC.
xiv. Describe the Offeror’s safety record.

SHI Response:

Per Q&A - Not applicable to this RFP.
xv. Provide any additional information relevant to this section.

SHI Response:

Not applicable.

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APPENDIX D, EXHIBIT A – RESPONSE FOR NATIONAL

COOPERATIVE CONTRACT
i. Include a detailed response to Appendix D, Exhibit A, OMNIA Partners Response for National Cooperative Contract. Responses should highlight experience, demonstrate a strong national presence, describe how Offeror will educate its national sales force about the Contract, describe how products and services will be distributed nationwide, include a plan for marketing the products and services nationwide, and describe how volume will be tracked and reported to OMNIA Partners.

Appendix D, Exhibit A - 3.0 SUPPLIER RESPONSE
Supplier must supply the following information for the Principal Procurement Agency to determine Supplier’s qualifications to extend the resulting Master Agreement to Participating Public Agencies through OMNIA Partners.

3.1 Company
A. Brief history and description of Supplier to include experience providing similar products and services.

SHI Response:

SHI Government Solutions (SHI) welcomes the opportunity for partnership with OMNIA Partners as we deliver the following proposal in response to your invitation to secure a provider for the Contract for Total Cloud Solutions and Services. As a total IT solutions provider and a valueadded reseller, SHI is best and specifically qualified to meet the ongoing needs of OMNIA Partners, evidenced by our dedication to procuring top holistic IT solutions and partnerships, and our commitment to understanding the specific needs and requirements of our Texas government and education customers.

In 1999, SHI International Corp. dedicated a subsidiary sales force division to government and education sales. The new company, SHI Government Solutions, is incorporated in the state of Texas with its principal place of business in Austin. All state of Texas government and education contracts were assigned to SHI Government Solutions.

SHI International Corp., and subsequently SHI Government Solutions, has been a contract vendor for the state of Texas since 1994. Over our 27-year history supporting Texas public sector customers, we have consistently transacted business with education and government organizations throughout the Lone Star State including state agencies, local government, K-12, and higher education.

SHI offers custom IT solutions for every aspect of your environment from software and hardware procurement to deployment planning, configuration, data center optimization, mobility, and IT asset management. SHI offers next-generation cloud solutions to help customers accelerate to the cloud in the fastest, most secure, reliable, and cost-effective ways possible. Our infrastructure and integration services provide top-of-the-line solutions supported by the leading manufacturers, publishers, and providers in the industry.

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SHI has sustained consistent growth in not only our business, but also the expansion of our regional sales teams. Our success has stemmed from outstanding customer support through dedicated account teams,
constant development of
service and support
enhancements, strong
partnerships with industry
leading manufacturers,
and a company-wide
determination to be the
best in the industry.

Achievement to us is tallied primarily by the strength and endurance of our partnerships with organizations like yours. The success of our relationship with OMNIA Partners be founded upon three key principles:
• Our proven ability as a holistic IT solution provider to supply OMNIA Partners with an unsurpassed catalog of hardware peripherals, software, and services. • Our commitment to innovation, cost-reduction, and proactive customer service for OMNIA Partners.
• Our dedication to proactive communication and building relationships with representatives of OMNIA Partners at every opportunity.

We have focused our partnership with the fundamental purpose of improving processes throughout the Contract. Our approach to continuous advancement and innovation is demonstrated in SHI’s robust web portal, which provides order processing and asset management reporting.

With more than $380 million of technology products and related services sold to Texas government and education customers in 2021, SHI is a reliable and experienced IT solutions vendor to customers throughout Texas. Boasting the largest field sales team in Texas, we are confident that we are uniquely positioned to help OMNIA Partners focus on meeting their evolving technology needs.

SHI’s proposal incorporates our values and mission to deliver a high quality and high value service and support model for this contract and those using the contract. As you will see in Tab 3 – 3.3 G Marketing and Sales, SHI supports the state of Texas using an extensive team of local account executives and technical and licensing specialists, all of whom are proficient in supporting education customers. Our dedicated field account executives live and work in geographically concentrated territories, tailoring marketing and selling strategies for their customers. Our localized presence allows us to deliver products and services employing both the benefits of SHI’s broad partnership network and our incomparable customer-centric approach.

With SHI as your partner, you can trust in more meaningful account oversight and a guarantee that we are effectively collaborating with all geographies throughout Texas and with OMNIA Partners at a local level.

Our proposal responds directly to the prompts and requirements within OMNIA Partners request for proposal and validates how SHI is uniquely qualified to receive the position as the preferred supplier for the Total Cloud Solutions and Services proposal. With an engagement plan and ATTACHMENT A 464
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customer support services designed to enhance OMNIA Partners’ current productivity and allow for better delivery of services to the staff and students of OMNIA Partners. SHI is poised to provide the OMNIA Partners and its affiliates with business continuity, improved services, and modern innovations. Our success is based on a foundation of customer centricity, accessibility, and consistency. We are pleased to present this proposal to you, and pledge to collaborate with you with integrity, transparency, and success – from products to partnership and at every step along the way.

Demonstratable Success
We thoroughly understand the business nuances, intricacies and contract management requirements articulated within the RFP, and we will ensure continued, determined success. The greatest strength we offer is the profound experience and dedication of our SHI team. We are eager to employ our vision forward to provide continued solutions for identifying and leveraging innovations that benefit all OMNIA Partners, and we’ve included concepts in our response that detail many of those modernizations. SHI is proud of the reputation we have established with our customers as an organization uniquely capable of understanding and addressing their specific needs and concerns – and OMNIA Partners will receive devoted attention from our local team members who call Texas home.

Expert Partnership
SHI is committed to providing the most advantageous pricing models and the most exceptional value; we recognize that our role as your partner is to support OMNIA Partners, providing expert best practices to keep your IT resources safe, secure, and operational: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As an OEM-neutral partner, we will take pride in helping you optimize your cloud solutions and services investment to create streamlined and efficient processes and aggregate your purchasing power to obtain the best pricing available.

SHI is recognized as a leading partner for all major Cloud Provider platforms, with the expertise and certifications to prove it. The mission of our cloud specialists has been to help organizations like yours choose the right platform strategy for their unique needs, creating highly tailored solutions that build on the individual strengths of platforms and technologies. Our success is shown through our cloud partners awarding us with recognitions and certificates that demonstrate our knowledge and ability to migrate, optimize, and modernize our customers cloud infrastructure.

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Quality and Commitment
We currently hold several state of Texas and Texas-based cooperative contracts and maintain successful partnerships with customers in every vertical: state government, local government, education (K-12 and higher ed), and healthcare. Through these often-complex contracts, we build connections to partner closely with each entity and dive deeply into the infrastructure, procurement, and regulation obstacles that they face. We provide our customers with complete, end-to-end lifecycle management by combining the abilities of our experienced field sales team, local technical resources, internal presales technical resources, and our widespread partner network.

SHI continues to adapt and grow with the ever-progressing IT industry, ensuring our customers have reliable, consistent, functional hardware and software – and technology services – regardless of circumstance. Now in our 23rd year of business, we specialize in results that are customized to our clients, including providing educational technology, grants support, and services that substantiate the expressed needs and requirements within this RFP. We are committed to providing OMNIA Partners with comprehensive and complete IT solutions.

At SHI, we measure our success not just by the bottom-line numbers on our spreadsheets, but by the quality of our relationships. We understand that our growing success stems directly from our purpose – to deliver exceptional value and experience as we help customers select, deploy, and manage their technology. And our passion, which remains focused on forging and nurturing relationships with our customers and with our colleagues and partners, will sustain us for decades to come as an industry leader.

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B. Total number and location of salespersons employed by Supplier.

SHI Response:

SHI-GS – 25 Account Executives and 22 tele-sales specialists.

SHI International – 165 Account Executives and 175 tele-sales specialists.

C. Number and location of support centers (if applicable) and location of corporate office.

SHI Response:

SHI supports clients from its Somerset, N.J. world headquarters and over 35+ global offices throughout the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, France, Hong Kong, Singapore and most recently, Australia. SHI's goal is to foster long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with its customers and partners daily. SHI’s strategic footprint grants global scale and local reach, allowing us to be both responsive and proactive when delivering a complete solution to our customers. As a privately-owned company with zero debt, we continue to reinvest in ourselves year after year to innovate new and improved client solutions for tomorrow’s IT challenges. SHI is an $12 Billion company with over 5,000+ employees. Please see the list below, which represents our global locations. In addition to the sites listed, SHI plans to expand our global footprint during 2021 to Germany and the Netherlands.

SHI partners with our major distributors to provide efficient product delivery across North America. This model reduces the overhead costs of maintaining additional warehouses, and our distribution model is also important to SHI’s own internal cost structure and subsequently allows us to offer our customers a very aggressive pricing model.

To further support our customers need for reliable stock, SHI is proud of our abundant and broad community of distributors and partners, and we work loyally to maintain relationships with both our large IT Distributors (Ingram Micro and TD Synnex) as well as smaller, local distributors and manufacturers directly. For every customer transaction, we source from the supplier with ATTACHMENT A 467
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inventory in the closest proximity and drop ship directly to our customers’ door. Most products are, therefore, delivered within 3-5 business days of order.

SHI Government Solutions' headquarters is: 3828 Pecana Trail, Austin, Texas 78749.

SHI International Corp.'s headquarters is: 290 Davidson Avenue, Somerset, New Jersey 08873.

D. Annual sales for the three previous fiscal years.

SHI Response:

SHI-GS:
• 2021: $380 million
• 2020: $435 million
• 2019: $345 million
SHI International:
• 2021: $12 billion
• 2020: 11.1 billion
• 2019: $10.7 billion
a. Submit FEIN and Dunn & Bradstreet report.

SHI Response:

SHI Government Solutions Federal ID is 22-3695478.

SHI Government Solutions DUNS number is 14-724-3096
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E. Describe any green or environmental initiatives or policies.

SHI Response:

As a reseller and not a manufacturer, SHI naturally has a low impact on the environment.

However, we are always mindful of the environment and work to reduce any damaging effects from our organization while protecting our staff's safety and well-being.

Preserving the environment and fostering a sustainable future are crucial principles of our overall business strategy. Incorporating environmentally-friendly initiatives — whether internally or alongside our partners — minimizes the amount of yearly technology waste and maximizes our impact toward a greener planet.

Our environmental initiatives focus on four areas:
• Sustainable Solutions
• Securing Green Products
• Resource Usage and Efficiency
• Employee Awareness
SHI’s Sustainability Solutions
As a solutions provider and technology advisor, we are here to help you reduce, reuse, and recycle technology assets through our various eco-friendly solutions. Sustainability is a crucial part of SHI's overall business strategy.

Driven by the issues of rising energy costs, asset disposal, Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), and government regulations to reduce carbon footprint, SHI understands that “Green IT” in the data center is as much about business necessity as it is about corporate social responsibility. SHI recognizes that moving towards a green data center requires going beyond the data center and adopting a broad approach that drives behavioral changes and technology improvements. Providing a vendor-independent approach to data center efficiency, SHI is available to help our customers with the many questions and challenges faced in today’s data centers - from asset disposal to data center design.

Incorporating environmentally friendly initiatives into our business strategy helps us protect the planet and reduce IT hardware waste each year. In support of “Green IT," SHI’s sustainable solutions include Asset Recovery, Asset Disposal, E-Waste Recycling, Hardware Redeployment, Hardware Remarketing, and leveraging Cloud and Data Center Solutions to reduce carbon emissions derived from physical IT infrastructure. We have also recently added a Carbon Neutral IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) program detailed below.

The outline below are sustainable solutions that SHI can implement for your organization:
• Asset Recovery – We pick up your old equipment, take inventory of what’s still usable, and report our findings back to you.
• E-Waste Recycling – We hold multiple recycling events so you can quickly and properly dispose of unwanted devices.
• Hardware Remarket – We put your hardware back on the market if you cannot or choose not to reuse it.

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• Asset Disposal – We work with partners to ensure your old hardware is recycled correctly.
• Hardware Redeployment – We determine if your equipment is eligible for reuse and keep stock in our warehouse that you can redeploy at any time. • Cloud and Data Center Solutions – A study commissioned by AWS and conducted by 451 Research shows that enterprises can reduce their carbon footprint by up to 88% by leveraging the cloud. SHI has the expertise and people to help our customers get to the cloud smartly and take advantage of this and other cloud computing benefits. • IT Asset Disposition Program – The CO2NeutralTM Program is a practical, cost-saving option for businesses and organizations to receive top dollar cash and carbon credits for their aging and unwanted IT assets. For more information about our Carbon Neutral program, please contact [email protected].

To learn more about SHI’s sustainable solutions, please visit our website: IT Sustainability.

Securing Green Products
SHI has access to manufacturer product lines across all key solution groups and can source products with environmental certifications such as Energy Star and EPEAT. SHI will work on the customer's behalf to identify products with these certifications from our major OEMs.

Resource Usage and Efficiency
SHI's policy is to operate its business as an excellent environmental citizen committed to managing resources and concern for our environment's well-being. While SHI is not a manufacturer of the products we sell, we are not ignorant of its impact on the environment. We have no fumes, wastewater, or electromagnetic discharge coming from our facility.

Energy Efficiency
SHI’s goal is to consume less energy and reduce our environmental impact. Our goal is to reduce our power consumption by 1% per year. We take action through:
• Monitoring power consumption
• Utilizing advanced energy-saving systems such as automatic lights and energy-saving computer monitors.
• Use of materials from renewable resources, non-toxic materials, and recyclable items • Installing timers on facility lighting to reduce electrical consumption ATTACHMENT A 470
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Waste Minimization
SHI encourages individual responsibility and supports waste minimization in the following ways:
• Striving to reduce paper consumption by 1% per year
• Monitoring the purchase of cut sheet paper
• Establishing a goal of 100% for recycling paper, plastics, glass, and cardboard • Comply with county and municipal recycling regulations by recycling paper, glass, plastic, batteries, and cardboard.
• Recycle toner, computers, and other office equipment according to EPA guidelines • Providing recycling facilities for paper, printer toners, etc. • Supporting double-sided printing and photocopying
• Using proper disposal or recycling of IT and electronic equipment per local regulations • Using appropriately licensed organizations to remove special waste (such as defective monitors or neon tubes).
• Donating IT assets to those who would not otherwise have access Carbon Neutral
SHI’s Carbon Neutral program offers customers incentive to support green initiatives because customers now have the option to trade their aging or unwanted IT assets for cash or Carbon Credits. To participate, customers will first contact SHI to identify the End-of-First-LifeTM technology requiring disposal, and SHI will provide an appraisal detailing what the assets are worth. If the customer accepts the offer, Carbon Neutral will securely pick-up and transport the IT assets to an ISO-Certified processing facility where the assets are audited, tested, de-branded, and wiped clean in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology 800-88 Guidelines for Media Sanitation. Lastly, these securely sanitized assets can be turned into cash by selling into established markets, or customers can opt to receive Carbon Credits.

Water Efficiency
SHI has installed water-efficient plumbing fixtures, which reduces water usage by 40%.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Our goal to reduce Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions is a 1% reduction per year since our power consumption goal and Scope 2 greenhouse gas goal are directly linked.

Employee Awareness
SHI maintains our employees’ awareness of SHI’s commitment to reduce our environmental impact and limit our carbon footprint.

SHI's vow to sustainability extends beyond our organization as we look to raise awareness of sustainable practices with our customers and assist in their environmental initiatives. To help our customers maintaining environmentally friendly practices, SHI offers asset disposal and recycling programs to ensure the safe disposal of computers and office equipment. These programs are customizable to complement the customer’s initiatives while upholding EPA guidelines and regulations. Equipment will be redeployed within an end customer’s organization, donated to a ATTACHMENT A 471
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recognized charitable organization, recycled to the fullest extent possible, or disposed of per EPA regulations.

Furthermore, SHI promotes sustainable practices for our staff and focuses on increasing employee awareness of environmental initiatives. SHI encourages employees to carpool and work from home offices when possible and has further reduced the travel-related environmental impact of our staff by promoting:
• Teleconferencing and other collaborative working tools to limit the number of business trips
• A Work-from-Home policy, when possible
• Flexible working hours
• Use of public transportation
F. Describe any diversity programs or partners supplier does business with and how Participating Agencies may use diverse partners through the Master Agreement. Indicate how, if at all, pricing changes when using the diversity program. If there are any diversity programs, provide a list of diversity alliances and a copy of their certifications.

SHI Response:

In 2004, SHI launched an executive initiative to increase SHI International Corp's presence in the minority business community and established a diversity business development program. An executive-level position was created to meet our customers' expectations for SHI's participation in their M/WBE development and 2nd Tier programs. SHI is the only M/WBE that maintains a fully staffed team dedicated to supplier diversity matters for our clients and vendor partners.

Why are diverse suppliers an essential part of SHI's mission statement and philosophy? The answer is simple. SHI sees diverse suppliers as the cornerstone of our organization's success, helping us in an exemplary fashion consciously source our products and services while maintaining profits, growing customers, improving the economy, and encouraging innovation.

Our team manages and distributes just over 200 diversity spend reports to our clients today. SHI continues to increase the number of diverse suppliers in SHI's Managed Partner Network, which our internal operational requirements alongside accommodating our clients to meet their specific governmental, educational and corporate diversity goals. Also, SHI annually sponsors and supports a little over 50 supplier diversity-related events annually, including corporate clientsponsored events that value diversity spends opportunities across the country. SHI is a Corporate Plus member and a sustaining annual contributor to the Business Consortium Fund of the NMSDC.

SHI’s Diversity Team
SHI’s Diversity Team seeks to enhance business opportunities with companies whose corporate objectives include supplier diversity. As a minority-owned (MBE) and woman-owned (WBE) enterprise, SHI is the country’s largest MWBE provider of information technology products and services. SHI also maintains its internal supplier diversity program and seeks to engage MBE and WBE suppliers to meet SHI product requirements and operational needs. Our Diversity Team brings broader, fresh ideas and new perspectives to the table for the good of everyone.

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MBE Partner Network and Initiatives
SHI has an active program to recruit minority, women, veterans, and disabled/small disadvantaged/HUB zone-owned businesses as "Go-To" partners for both SHI internal services and Client Services requests. This program's success is coupled with an executed Partner Teaming Agreement with minorities, women, veteran, and disabled/small disadvantaged/HUB zone-owned businesses. We actively mentor several groups seeking to promote them internally and to other SHI customers. To date, these businesses have gained entrée into several of SHI customers as a direct result of SHI's referral. Our diversity team engages our Director of Partner Network to attended supplier diversity events with the sole purpose of recruiting additional "GoTo" minority-owned businesses.

Tier II Program
The growth, development, and mentoring of minority, women, veteran, and disabled/small disadvantaged/HUB zone-owned businesses is a commitment SHI regards as crucial to our significant client's continued success. Capturing and retaining our clients' loyalty that value diversity spend is an integral part of our professional services strategy and mutual benefit. As a Large M/WBE, we continue to grow an effective Tier II program by accessing our Services Partner database utilizing qualified certified minority, women, veteran, and disabled/small disadvantaged/HUB Zone-owned businesses complements our major clients' overall supplier diversity program today.

SHI plays a key role as a Primary vendor or Tier I supplier to many of our major business segment clients today. We provide Tier I quarterly reports to 200+ clients today. By customer request, we also offer Tier II reporting where the totals reflect a direct link to our customer procuring professional services through a subcontract arrangement that is directly tied to the client's performed service.

SHI understands there is value along with a continued commitment on your organization's part to help increase your Tier II spend with minority, women, veteran, and disabled/small disadvantaged/HUB zone-owned businesses. In support of this commitment, SHI International collaborates with these diverse businesses as our sub-service providers to furnish your company when they meet your quality, service, and price standards.

Whether positioned as a prime supplier or a minority / woman-owned supplier, SHI International Corp. provides the same great level of outstanding products, services, and first-class support to our customers. SHI has successfully launched and is committed to growing its diverse business development initiative. We have paired with our Partner Network team to fully engage minority, women, veterans, and disabled/small disadvantaged/HUB zone-owned businesses.

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G. Indicate if supplier holds any of the below certifications in any classified areas and include proof of such certification in the response:
a. Minority Women Business Enterprise
☒Yes ☐No
If yes, list certifying agency: NY&NJ Minority Supplier Development Council and Women’s Business Enterprise Council
b. Small Business Enterprise (SBE) or Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE)
☐Yes ☒No
If yes, list certifying agency: ___________________________________ c. Historically Underutilized Business (HUB)
☒Yes ☐No
If yes, list certifying agency: The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts d. Historically Underutilized Business Zone Enterprise (HUBZone) ☐Yes ☐No
If yes, list certifying agency: ___________________________________ e. Other recognized diversity certificate holder
☐Yes ☒No
If yes, list certifying agency: ____________________________________ ATTACHMENT A 474
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H. List any relationships with subcontractors or affiliates intended to be used when providing services and identify if subcontractors meet minority-owned standards. If any, list which certifications subcontractors hold and certifying agency.

SHI Response:

SHI International Corp. will provide services that will augment what SHI Government Solutions provides directly in support of Region 4 ESC customers. They have been selected because they have the licenses and certifications required to perform these services and have proven their capabilities and reliability through previous engagements to be valuable partners to SHI.

SHI Government Solutions is a state certified HUB vendor. We have the resources to complete the defined scope of work within this RFP with our own sales team, equipment, supplies and materials. If sub‐contracting opportunities are identified at a future date, we will immediately contact the project manager and HUB Coordinator and commit to perform a Good Faith Effort through solicitation of HUB firms and submit an amended HUB Subcontracting Plan.

When searching for a partner for a subcontracting opportunity, we use the Centralized Master Bidders List HUB Directory to search for potential HUB partners. We also participate in local events, such as the State of the State conference and the Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications conference which offer networking opportunities to connect with local HUB vendors.

I. Describe how supplier differentiates itself from its competitors.

SHI Response:

SHI’s breadth of offerings is unparalleled in the industry. SHI is committed to providing customers with as many products as possible, from as many publishers as possible. Not all of our competitors are willing to do this, but SHI understands this is a valuable service for our customers. It would be expensive and time consuming for contract users to establish buying relationships directly with a large number of software publishers and hardware manufacturers, and it is our pleasure to fulfill this role for you.

It is important, however, to be aware that not all resellers are willing to accommodate requests for longtail software (software and hardware partners with whom a reseller does very little business and does not have an automated process established). SHI’s list of longtail partners is over 10,000 partners, and we have proven our commitment to taking care of our customers’ needs in this way over years of service to contract users. We take the time to research, quote, and procure software and hardware that is important to our customers, even when the orders are small, or it is challenging to transact business.

This is unusual in an industry where our competitors will often refuse to quote or process these orders and try to restrict the number of partners they work with. In fact, most of our competitors will not offer longtail publishers at all and restrict their offerings to just a handful of partners. We encourage you to explore this as you endeavor to compare “apples to apples” among offers.

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J. Describe any present or past litigation, bankruptcy or reorganization involving supplier.

SHI Response:

Within the last five years, SHI-GS has not been involved in any investigations or litigation, whether civil or criminal, that are material to its business or financial condition or that pertained to failures in its business relationships, and no such investigation or litigation is currently pending, and SHI-GS has received no claims pertaining to significant contractual failures, whether actual or alleged, and has not entered into any settlement agreements relating thereto.

K. Felony Conviction Notice: Indicate if the supplier
a. is a publicly held corporation and this reporting requirement is not applicable; b. is not owned or operated by anyone who has been convicted of a felony; or c. is owned or operated by and individual(s) who has been convicted of a felony and provide the names and convictions.

SHI Response:
b. is not owned or operated by anyone who has been convicted of a felony.

L. Describe any debarment or suspension actions taken against supplier SHI Response:

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3.2 Distribution, Logistics
A. Each offeror awarded an item under this solicitation may offer their complete product and service offering/a balance of line. Describe the full line of products and services offered by supplier.

SHI Response:

One of our greatest strengths is our ability to offer customers tremendous depth and breadth in choosing software, hardware, Cloud, and other products. SHI's current catalog includes tens of thousands of hardware, software, and other product partners. Generally, SHI can sell between 75%-100% of our partners' product lines. We typically offer a wide range of services directly or by leveraging our Elite Partner Network's expertise. SHI can provide our customers with full IT solutions, from commodity software and hardware to complete, end-to-end data center solutions.

SHI has a diverse partner ecosystem, supporting over 15,000+ unique Publishers and OEMs today. For OEMs that SHI does not do business with today, we can utilize a Letter of Authorization from your organization to onboard new suppliers. SHI will work in coordination with your procurement team as needed to engage these software publishers.

Top Partnerships
SHI has top-tier authorizations and certifications for every major OEM. The table below represents SHI’s top 25 partners:

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SHI Support Structure
Over the past decade, the requirements for effective IT have transformed. Although there is still a need for commodity products, attention has shifted to a “building solutions” approach to solve customers' needs. In response to this shift and working from our customer-centered foundation, we developed solution-based support teams. The common goals of our support teams are to address our customers' needs, help them acquire the right technology, and facilitate the adoption of that technology into their customers' environment. SHI has technical expertise around our entire portfolio of services and products, ensuring we are able to meet all customers IT needs.

Our support teams include:
• Core Solutions Executive—In order to provide more technical expertise, SHI employs a team of Core Solution Engineers. Our CSEs collaborate directly with Account Executives and are the first point of contact for more in-depth technical discussions.
• Advanced Solutions Group—In synchrony with other support teams, SHI’s Advanced Solutions Group (ASG) has the agility and expertise to help design, build, test, and deploy hardware, cloud, and software solutions. ASG's goal is to help customers execute their mission and educate end- users by getting the right technology to the right people at the right time.
• SHI Training—Providing on-site, online, or on-demand Technical, End-User, and Professional Development Training, our SHI Training team complements our other services seamlessly. We recognized the need to equip our customers with the skills and knowledge to increase their adoption and consumption of technology, and our SHI Training team offers full-service training to meet those growing demands – from IT professionals to end-users – we provide training that enables customers to increase their return on investment in technology. • Software and Hardware Partner Support Organizations—SHI has the largest team of Hardware, Software and Licensing Specialists in the industry. These teams are in place to support our customers and sales teams with the expertise to manage the varied features of the Publisher Licensing Programs. Our awardwinning team of Software and Licensing Specialists is available to assist customers with selecting licensing programs, executing agreements, and supporting the agreement lifecycle. Today, SHI also has dedicated teams that support over 100 Strategic and Emerging Technology Partners.

Subject Matter Experts
Specializing in IT solutions that fit precisely with our customers' needs, SHI offers robust technical advice and support through product selection and options analysis. SHI offers custom solutions and services for every aspect of an IT environment, from software and hardware procurement to deployment planning, configuration, cloud and data center optimization, networking, mobility, and IT asset management. Through our large support team of 500 pre-sales technical support that comprises SHI's Software Licensing and Hardware and Advance Solutions departments, SHI has the expertise to help our customers identify best-fit products. No other IT products reseller provides as extensive an internal support organization dedicated to providing superior customer support.

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Technical pre-sales resources support categories such as:

In addition to the partner support associated with these categories outlined above, SHI has an Emerging Partners Team. They are constantly reviewing new technologies and new OEMs to offer to our customers, including a Cloud Partners Team that concentrates on specific cloud technologies. SHI has OEM Support Teams, technical resources, and relationships with manufacturers to assist your organization with your specific needs concerning emerging technologies and new solution sets. SHI has quarterly meetings with Gartner and IDC to stay abreast of the latest and best technologies. SHI works closely with each OEM to provide new products as soon as they are available. Your organization can pre-order new products through SHI yet to be released to get them as soon as they come to market. SHI's Solutions Teams and Product Specialists will alert your Account Team of the newest and most cutting-edge technologies to make them available to your organization.

Professional Services
Whether it's streamlining the business of IT with innovative eProcurement, fulfillment and IT asset management solutions, helping you build hybrid data center and storage solutions, securing your growing diversity of data and assets or building a truly collaborative digital workplace, SHI has got your back at every stage of the technology lifecycle.

Regardless of your needs, our experts are ready to help you select, deploy and manage the very best solutions that our partners have to offer, complemented with a growing portfolio of SHI consultancy and managed services.

Our Professional Services team is vendor-neutral and uses its range of experience to help tailor conversations optimal for a customers' specific environment. We engage our customers during the strategy and solution design phases of a project and assist with deliberate planning, assessments, whiteboarding, proof of concepts, and obtaining demo units.

From product implementation through lifecycle support and asset retirement, SHI offers solutions customized to the unique needs of your environment. Whether you need a single service call or a complex roll-out, SHI will work with you every step of the way to ensure your goals are met on time and within budget. The chart below represents SHI's robust Professional Services portfolio.

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Today, we continue to fine-tune our products and services to meet our customers' needs and the ever-changing technology landscape. Our catalog of products continues to grow and change in response to technological demands and customer needs. While the following is by no means a comprehensive list of all that we offer our customers, some services and products that we commonly provide include:

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End-User Computing Partners
Barcode Scanning
Honeywell
Zebra*
Mobility Solutions
Android Enterprise Recommended*
Apple Business Manager*
Google Chrome and Workspace*
JAMF*
Microsoft Endpoint Manager*
Microsoft Surface*
Samsung*
Workspace ONE (VMware)*
Carrier Activations
AT&T
T-Mobile/Sprint
Verizon Wireless
AR/VR
HTC
Microsoft
HoloLens*
Reality Labs at Meta*
Displays
Acer*
ASUS
Clear Touch
Dell*
Elo
HP Inc.*
Lenovo*
LG
Microsoft Surface Hub*
Panasonic
Planar
Promethean
Samsung*
Sharp NEC
ViewSonic*
Mounts
Chief Manufacturing
Ergotech
Ergotron
Humanscale
Peerless
Premier Mounts
Memory
Axiom
Kingston*
Micron
Samsung
Projectors
Epson*
Hitachi
InFocus
Optoma
Sharp NEC*
ViewSonic*
Cabling and Accessories
Barco
Belkin*
Black Box
C2G
CODi
Crestron
Griffin Technology
Incipio
Jabra
Kensington
Legrand AV
Logitech
Otter Box
Poly*
StarTech.com
Targus
ATTACHMENT A 482
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Data Center Partners
Storage
Cohesity*
DataCore
Dell EMC*
ExaGrid
Hewlett Packard Enterprise* (+ Nimble)
Hitachi Vantara
IBM*
Lenovo*
NetApp*
Nexsan
Oracle*
Overland Storage
Pure Storage*
QNAP
Quantum
Qumulo
Rubrik
Seagate
Synology
Tintri
Western Digital
Networking
AddOn Networks
Arista Networks
AudioCodes
Avaya*
Cisco*
Cradlepoint
ExtraHop Networks
Extreme Networks
(+ Aerohive)
F5 Networks*
Forescout
Gigamon
Hewlett Packard Enterprise*
(+ Aruba)
Juniper Networks
(+ Mist)
Kemp
Lenovo*

NETGEAR
Opengear
Ribbon Communications
Riverbed
Ruckus Wireless
Thales Group
Ubiquiti
Verkada
Yealink
Zoom Video Communications
Converged Infrastructure
Cisco*
Cohesity*
Dell EMC*
Fujitsu
Hitachi Vantara
Hewlett Packard Enterprise*
(SimpliVity + Nimble)
IBM*
Lenovo*
NetApp*
Nutanix*
Oracle*
Supermicro
VMware*
* Dedicated Resources
Strategic Software Partners
Acronis
Adobe
Altair
Arcserve
Attachmate
Autodesk
Bitdefender
Blackberry Cylance
Check Point
Citrix
Commvault
Druva
Erwin
ESET
Forcepoint
Fortinet
IBM
Ivanti
LogRhythm
Malwarebytes
McAfee
Microfocus
Microsoft
MobileIron
Okta
Oracle
Palo Alto
Parallels
Progress Software
Proofpoint
Quest
Rapid7
Red Hat
RSA
SentinelOne
SolarWinds
SonicWall
Sophos
Stealthbits
Symantec
Tableau
Tenable
Thycotic
Trend Micro
Unitrends
Veeam
Veritas
VMware
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Cloud-Based Partners
Amazon Web Services
Actifio
Alert Logic
Bitglass
BitTitan
Box
Carbonite
Centrify
Cloudflare
Cloudera
CrowdStrike
Datadog
Dialpad
Dropbox
Dynatrace
Fuze
HashiCorp
INAP/SingleHop
Informatica
Infrascale
Lightspeed
LogMeIn
LogicMonitor
Lookout
Mimecast
Nasuni
Netskope
OneLogin
PagerDuty
Qualys
RingCentral
ServiceNow
TBI TeamViewer
Zendesk Zerto Zscaler
Emerging Technology Partners
Absolute Software
Accellion
AlgoSec
AlienVault/AT&T
Cybersecurity
Alteryx
Altova
Arctic Wolf
Atlassian
Barracuda
BeyondTrust
BitSight
Blancco
BMC
CA
Checkmarx
Chef
Cherwell
Code 42
Cofense
Contrast Security
Couchbase
CyberArk
Cybereason
Docker
DocuSign
Elasticsearch
Exabeam
Extensis
FireEye
FireMon
Globalscape
Idera
Igel
Imperva
Infoblox
Infragistics
Intel Software
Intuit
Kaspersky
KnowBe4
MongoDB
NetMotion Wireless
New Relic
Nexthink
Nitro PDF
Nuance/Kofax
OpenText
Ping Identity
PulseSecure
Puppet
Qlik
Redgate Software
SAP/Business Objects
Seagull Scientific
SecurityScorecard
Silobreaker
Skybox Security
SmartBear Software
Sparx Systems
Splunk
StorageCraft
SUSE
TechSmith
think-cell
Tibco
Tripwire
Tufin
Turbonomic
Varonis
Veracode
WatchGuard
Zoho Corporation
B. Describe how supplier proposes to distribute the products/service nationwide. Include any states where products and services will not be offered under the Master Agreement, including U.S. Territories and Outlying Areas.

SHI Response:

Our approach to warehousing consists of relying on our SHI owned and operated warehousing facilities and capabilities as well as leveraging the robust network of our distribution partners. Our ISO certified Integration Center/Warehouses located in Piscataway, NJ are capable of securely storing customers inventory. In addition to warehousing your product standards, these state-ofthe-art integration centers offer robust configuration services To further support need for reliable stock, SHI is proud of our abundant and broad community of distributors and partners, and we work loyally to maintain relationships with both our large IT Distributors (Ingram Micro, Tech Data, and Synnex) as well as smaller, local distributors and manufacturers directly. For every customer transaction, we source from the supplier with inventory in the closest proximity and drop ship directly to our customers’ door. Most products are, therefore, delivered within 3-5 business days of order.

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In order to ensure reduced time to market, we also resource from our own Customer Integration Center, located in Somerset, New Jersey, that provides warehousing and complete configuration capabilities. Regardless of where we resource products, we always find opportunity to save our customers money. In addition to leveraging our partner relationships for savings at the vision and design phases, our sales teams also request information from all of our distributors’ stock to obtain the best price for our customers when quoting and sourcing product.

In addition, we have sourcing specialists on our procurement team who monitor purchase orders with the partner and distributor community to safeguard that no savings have been missed. In many instances, our sourcing specialists have the ability to aggregate purchases for a specific partner or product across multiple transactions or even across multiple customers to realize a lower overall cost.

While SHI does maintain a warehouse/integration center in Somerset, New Jersey, it is our relationships with our major distributors that allow us to provide for efficient product delivery across North America. This model reduces the overhead costs of maintaining additional warehouses, and our distribution model is also important to SHI’s own internal cost structure and subsequently allows us to offer our customers a very aggressive pricing model.

Our major distribution centers are located strategically in:
• Atlanta, GA
• Chicago, IL
• Dallas, TX
• Fontana, CA
• Fort Worth, TX
• Jonestown, PA
• Los Angeles, CA
• Memphis, TN
• Miami, FL
• Ontario, CA
• South Bend, IN
• Suwanee, GA
• Swedesboro, NJ
SHI receives electronic feeds from these major distributors as well as the top publishers/OEMs in the industry. We include advertised list price in our catalog and have based our discounts off of this pricing.

C. Describe how Participating Agencies are ensured they will receive the Master Agreement pricing; include all distribution channels such as direct ordering, retail or in-store locations, through distributors, etc. Describe how Participating Agencies verify and audit pricing to ensure its compliance with the Master Agreement.

SHI Response:

Our Public Sector Division has been successfully supporting contracts that represent a broad portfolio of services and products for a range of public entities. Through these contracts, we build deep connections that allow us to partner closely with each organization and dive into the infrastructure, procurement, and compliance parameters they encounter.

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In partnership with our 14,000 public sector customers, SHI’s Public Sector manages over 500 current contracts, including hardware, software, services, cloud, and some that take a modern approach on technology procurement: allowing for a comprehensive catalog of both products and services. The SHI Public Sector unit made up over $3B of SHI’s overall sales last year and was recognized as the #1 business unit. While 2021 was one of the largest growth years, SHI’s Public Sector has grown consistently over the last 33 years. This overall growth stems from a laser focus on customer service, dedicated and tenured leadership, world-class Account Executives (who live and work in the communities they serve), and a broad spectrum of customers and partners. Whomever you work with at SHI, whatever location or specialty, however big or small your organization, you'll find that we all have one trait in common: our number one priority is your success.

We remain flexible in our approach to Public Sector and engage customers on an individual basis; we understand that one size does not fit all, and that philosophy is apparent in our service structure. In terms of organization, we have retained a small business feel in order to remain agile for Public Sector. We operate successfully with minimal layers of management, and we empower our sales teams to make decisions that are in the best interest of their customers.

SHI has access to top-level pricing discounts via our certifications and partner rankings with almost every major OEM. We maintain relationships with many distributors in order to ensure that our pricing is always competitive, allowing you to benefit from the combined buying power of all SHI customers.

For top tier spend with strategic suppliers, SHI leverages our decades-long experience as one of the largest, global software resellers, and calls upon the resources in our award-winning licensing and solutions teams to help customers optimize the key technologies in their IT software portfolio.

For those key technologies, including security, storage, mobility, data center and networking, SHI can present customers with a neutral view of the industry, identify the leading technology providers to assist customers with portfolio analysis. SHI shares industry best-practices and trends and will help customers understand the total value and cost of potential changes.

For non-strategic tail spend suppliers, the SHI team will review spend on a quarterly basis to identify areas of overlap among customers’ tail spend suppliers, to identify opportunities for contract co-termination, as well as supplier consolidation. For these opportunities, SHI will make recommendations for our customer’s consideration as their end-users are likely to be the best source of subject-matter expertise on the technologies for their direct needs. The end-user community can then determine which products meet their requirements, and SHI can assist in contacting the selected suppliers to leverage volume discounting and preferential usage terms as directed by you – the customer.

D. Identify all other companies that will be involved in processing, handling or shipping the products/service to the end user.

SHI Response:

We maintain relationships with large IT Distributors, as well as smaller, local distributors, and the manufacturers directly, and we leverage our unique distribution model with these distributors to drop ship orders directly to the customers' locations. Our extensive distribution network allows for reduced time to market for our customers with distribution centers located throughout the U.S.

SHI will always ship from the location with inventory closest to the customer's shipping address that has the best cost and availability for our customers. Shipments are made Monday through ATTACHMENT A 486
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Friday. Next day and Saturday delivery are available for in-stock items but are subject to a shipping fee and will require that the order be received before a certain cut off time.

Most transactional orders do not have an established on-time delivery guideline against which to measure our average on-time delivery rate. Where SHI has established a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for delivery of product to a customer, we have an average success rate of 98% or higher for meeting the established SLA. We will collaborate with our customers to ensure that we are able to meet your timeline for delivery.

With the exception of custom built or custom configured products, most products are delivered within 2-5 days of being ordered. Pre-configured systems are delivered to the customer on average 1.5 days from receipt of order. Custom PCs and Data Center hardware have longer lead times depending on the manufacturer and product ordered. At the time of quoting and again at order placement, the SHI sales team will inform the end user of the exact delivery timeframe.

On average, across our largest distributors, our fill rate is between 93%-100%. In most cases, where we are not filling orders on time, it is due to constrained items. In these cases, we notify the customer immediately and either source from a different distributor at the same cost to customer, continue to wait, or cancel the order based on what the customer wishes to do.

SHI is proud of our abundant and broad community of distributors and partners, and we work loyally to maintain relationships with both our large IT Distributors (Ingram Micro, Tech Data, and Synnex) as well as smaller, local distributors and manufacturers directly. For every customer transaction, we source from the supplier with inventory in the closest proximity and drop ship directly to our customers’ door. Most products are, therefore, delivered within 3-5 business days of order.

In order to ensure reduced time to market, we also resource from our own Customer Integration Center, located in Somerset, New Jersey, that provides warehousing and complete configuration capabilities. Regardless of where we resource products, we always find opportunity to save our customers money. In addition to leveraging our partner relationships for savings at the vision and design phases, our sales teams also request information from all of our distributors’ stock to obtain the best price for our customers when quoting and sourcing product.

Our major distribution centers are located strategically in:
• Atlanta, GA
• Chicago, IL
• Dallas, TX
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• Fontana, CA
• Fort Worth, TX
• Jonestown, PA
• Los Angeles, CA
• Memphis, TN
• Miami, FL
• Ontario, CA
• South Bend, IN
• Suwanee, GA
• Swedesboro, NJ
SHI receives electronic feeds from these major distributors as well as the top publishers/OEMs in the industry. We include advertised list price in our catalog and have based our discounts off of this pricing.

E. Provide the number, size and location of Supplier’s distribution facilities, warehouses and retail network as applicable.

SHI Response:

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To further support our customers need for reliable stock, SHI is proud of our abundant and broad community of distributors and partners, and we work loyally to maintain relationships with both our large IT Distributors (Ingram Micro and TD Synnex) as well as smaller, local distributors and manufacturers directly. For every customer transaction, we source from the supplier with inventory in the closest proximity and drop ship directly to our customers’ door. Most products are, therefore, delivered within 3-5 business days of order.

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3.3 Marketing and Sales
A. Provide a detailed ninety-day plan beginning from award date of the Master Agreement describing the strategy to immediately implement the Master Agreement as supplier’s primary go to market strategy for Public Agencies to supplier’s teams nationwide, to include, but not limited to:
i. Executive leadership endorsement and sponsorship of the award as the public sector go-to-market strategy within first 10 days
ii. Training and education of Supplier’s national sales force with participation from the Supplier’s executive leadership, along with the OMNIA Partners team within first 90 days SHI Response:

SHI was previously an awarded supplier on OMNIA Partners’ Information Technology Solutions & Services contract, so we understand how important go to market strategy is to overall success.

Our relationship has been tremendously fruitful and mutually beneficial over the last 4 years, and we intend to further grow our affiliation through the addition of this contract vehicle.

Denise Verdicchio, SHI’s Sr. Vice President of Public Sector Sales, has been an enormous ambassador for OMNIA since we first partnered two years ago. She will continue to not only sponsor this partnership but will also be an active participant in creating and supporting all marketing plans. Denise, along with the rest of our public sector leadership, is fully committed to the success of this contract. OMNIA Partners and its members will benefit from this personal touch and commitment.

OMNIA Partners will also work closely with Aimee Ballenger, SHI’s Director of Contract and Strategy dedicated to public sector contract strategy and implementation. Aimee frequently collaborates with OMNIA for matters pertaining to our existing contract. Her level of engagement has been instrumental to the success of the OMNIA-SHI relationship, and you can expect that level of attention to continue if awarded the Total Cloud Solutions & Services contract.

Ongoing training of our sales force on this contract will be critical to our success. Within one week of award, SHI will organize a call that includes public sector senior leadership, marketing, sales and contract personnel for OMNIA. We will design a plan to:
• Train and enable all SHI public sector field Account Executives and leadership • Train and enable SHI’s SM SLED Inside Account Executives and leadership • Announce contract strategies
• Facilitate current and prospective member market strategy • Create ongoing marketing plans
SHI has monthly review calls with OMNIA in relation to our current contract. We’d fully anticipate adding discussions around this new contract to the agenda, if awarded. A healthy contract review will allow us to stay focused, to analyze results for plans and strategies currently in place, to discuss new campaign and marketing ideas, and to review the overall success of the contract.

Since our Account Executives in the field are located all over the country, the most efficient way to conduct training and enablement amongst them is through regional webcasts. There are, on ATTACHMENT A 490
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average, 30 Account Executives per region, so this will allow each call to have a more collaborative feel, while also allowing for in-depth discussion and answers.

B. Provide a detailed ninety-day plan beginning from award date of the Master Agreement describing the strategy to market the Master Agreement to current Participating Public Agencies, existing Public Agency customers of Supplier, as well as to prospective Public Agencies nationwide immediately upon award, to include, but not limited to:
i. Creation and distribution of a co-branded press release to trade publications ii. Announcement, Master Agreement details and contact information published on the Supplier’s website within first 90 days
iii. Design, publication and distribution of co-branded marketing materials within first 90 days
iv. Commitment to attendance and participation with OMNIA Partners at national (i.e.

NIGP Annual Forum, NPI Conference, etc.), regional (i.e. Regional NIGP Chapter Meetings, Regional Cooperative Summits, etc.) and supplier-specific trade shows, conferences and meetings throughout the term of the Master Agreement v. Commitment to attend, exhibit and participate at the NIGP Annual Forum in an area reserved by OMNIA Partners for partner suppliers. Booth space will be purchased and staffed by Supplier. In addition, Supplier commits to provide reasonable assistance to the overall promotion and marketing efforts for the NIGP Annual Forum, as directed by OMNIA Partners.
vi. Design and publication of national and regional advertising in trade publications throughout the term of the Master Agreement
vii. Ongoing marketing and promotion of the Master Agreement throughout its term (case studies, collateral pieces, presentations, promotions, etc.) viii. Dedicated OMNIA Partners internet web-based homepage on Supplier’s website with:
• OMNIA Partners standard logo;
• Copy of original Request for Proposal;
• Copy of Master Agreement and amendments between Principal Procurement Agency and Supplier;
• Summary of Products and pricing;
• Marketing Materials
• Electronic link to OMNIA Partners’ website including the online registration page;
• A dedicated toll-free number and email address for OMNIA Partners SHI Response:

SHI intends to collaborate with OMNIA Partners to formulate an extensive marketing plan. While our sales teams will be actively promoting this contract with our base of current/prospective customers, our goal is to increase the number of public sector customers that buy through ATTACHMENT A 491
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OMNIA cooperative contracts. We have dedicated resources in place who will market and support growth around our national contracts such as OMNIA. If SHI is awarded, the OMNIA team, alongside Denise and public sector leadership, will work with the following people towards creation and execution of this marketing plan:

Aimee Ballenger, Director of Contract and Strategy
[email protected]
Amelia Jakubczyk, Senior Capture and Development Manager [email protected]
We have prepared the below marketing plan but will remain flexible and open to collaboration post award. We are agile and will work quickly to execute the agreed upon plan.

First week:
• Post announcement along with contract details and contact information to https://texas.gs.shi.com/.
• Begin design of co‐branded marketing materials including print, electronic, email, and presentations.
• Discuss publication and distribution plans, as well as a plan to distribute and follow up on leads.
• Design and implement OMNIA Partners secured website on https://texas.gs.shi.com/ including OMNIA logo, copy of original RFP, copy of contract and amendments, summary of products and pricing, marketing materials, a link to OMNIA’s website, and all relevant contact information.

First month:
• Complete design of co‐branded marketing materials
• Finalize plans to publish and distribute
• Begin distribution to current and prospective OMNIA members First 90 days:
• Complete training and enablement for SHI sales force
• Complete publishing and distribution of initial marketing materials • Analyze initial activity
• Discuss next 90-day plan for marketing
Ongoing:
• Design and publish national and regional advertising in trade publications • Market and promote the Master Agreement including case studies, presentations, campaigns, and blog posts
SHI participates in hundreds of trade shows, conferences, and meetings across the country.

OMNIA has our commitment to participate at specified shows, as well as to look for additional ATTACHMENT A 492
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opportunities to broadcast and promote our partnership. Specifically, SHI will attend, exhibit and participate at the NIGP Annual Forum alongside OMNIA suppliers. We are happy to assist OMNIA in promoting and marketing this event and look forward to collaborating on a plan that will drive attendance.

SHI currently provides seminars and workshops to our public‐sector customers across the country. We would be pleased to do the same for National IPA members. In all cases, we would work with you to determine the right topics, venue, timing, and participants. Some examples include:

Manufacturer Table Show – held annually, SHI will bring in manufacturers that currently do business with OMNIA as well as emerging partners for a day of education and demonstration.

Technology Roundtables – this event brings together public sector IT professionals and leading manufacturers to discuss current and future technology and how it can be used to solve problems or innovate solutions for the future.

Webinars – SHI frequently holds webinars for our customers. Topics range from software volume licensing (Microsoft EA, VMWare ELA) and specific product features, to more broad solution areas.

Workshops – typically done in a half day, a workshop is meant to educate customers on all the aspects of a particular solution.

Summits ‐ SHI holds technology summits at our corporate headquarters in Somerset, NJ.

Custom Events ‐ SHI will help OMNIA coordinate any event that they believe will be beneficial to the participating entities.

C. Describe how Supplier will transition any existing Public Agency customers’ accounts to the Master Agreement available nationally through OMNIA Partners. Include a list of current cooperative contracts (regional and national) Supplier holds and describe how the Master Agreement will be positioned among the other cooperative agreements.

SHI Response:

SHI realizes that the transition process is essential to OMNIA Partners’ success. In order to make the transition smooth, efficient, and effective, the process described may be customized to best meet the each member’s specific needs. For now, the SHI team recognizes 6 areas of focus to help ensure that OMNIA’s transition is successful:
• Manufacturer Supply and Pricing Agreements
• Product Standards
• Dedicated Account Team and Team Tools
• Custom/Customer Specific Reports
• Order Acknowledgement Customization
• Non e‐Procurement Site Implementation: SHI.com
Current cooperative contracts that SHI holds include NASPO ValuePoint, Sourcewell, PACE, TIPS, BuyBoard and NCPA. The relationship we’ve forged with OMNIA over the past 2 years has ATTACHMENT A 493
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far exceeded anything we’ve done with these other cooperatives, and OMNIA contracts have become a “go-to” for our public sector sales teams.

D. Acknowledge Supplier agrees to provide its logo(s) to OMNIA Partners and agrees to provide permission for reproduction of such logo in marketing communications and promotions.

Acknowledge that use of OMNIA Partners logo will require permission for reproduction, as well.

SHI Response:

SHI acknowledges and will comply.

E. Confirm Supplier will be proactive in direct sales of Supplier’s goods and services to Public Agencies nationwide and the timely follow up to leads established by OMNIA Partners. All sales materials are to use the OMNIA Partners logo. At a minimum, the Supplier’s sales initiatives should communicate:
i. Master Agreement was competitively solicited and publicly awarded by a Principal Procurement Agency
ii. Best government pricing
iii. No cost to participate
iv. Non-exclusive
SHI Response:

OMNIA Partners will benefit from SHI’s laser focus on being the best at delivering the products and services your members need. A dedicated approach to our public sector business for the last 20+ years has helped us to create solutions that are specific to the unique needs of state/local government and education customers across the country.

SHI’s public sector sales force actively promotes the availability of OMNIA contracts to customers and prospects across the country and will continue to do so under this new contract. With the assistance of our public sector marketing team, all leads that are generated will be followed up on immediately. Any leads that come in, regardless of the source, are uploaded to our CRM database and assigned to an Account Executive. In addition, the lead is attached to a specific lead source so we have the ability to track ROI on various marketing strategies. The AE is then emailed to make them aware that a new lead has been published to them. The AE will document any activity with that customer in CRM. When appropriate, the lead can be transitioned to an opportunity and tracked through close.

SHI agrees that all joint sales materials for this contract will include the OMNIA logo and reference the required information as required by this RFP.

F. Confirm Supplier will train its national sales force on the Master Agreement. At a minimum, sales training should include:
i. Key features of Master Agreement
ii. Working knowledge of the solicitation process
iii. Awareness of the range of Public Agencies that can utilize the Master Agreement through OMNIA Partners
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SHI Response:

SHI understands and agrees to train our national sales force on the Master Agreement. As discussed previously, our sales leadership will be actively involved in ongoing training over the life of the contract. Training will include key features of the agreement, working knowledge of the solicitation process, awareness of the public agencies that can utilize the agreement and specific information on the benefits of this Master Agreement as opposed to other cooperative contracts available.

G. Provide the name, title, email and phone number for the person(s), who will be responsible for:
i. Executive Support
ii. Marketing
iii. Sales
iv. Sales Support
v. Financial Reporting
vi. Accounts Payable
vii. Contracts
SHI Response:

OMNIA’s primary point of contact with SHI will be:

Amelia Jakubczyk, Senior Capture and Development Manager [email protected]
If other people are needed to address a situation, Amelia will make connections with the appropriate people and stay involved until resolution.

H. Describe in detail how Supplier’s national sales force is structured, including contact information for the highest-level executive in charge of the sales team.

SHI Response:

Public Sector Team (Nation/Statewide)
Our ethos at SHI stems from our team members, and those team members remain our greatest asset. Everyone on the SHI Account Team is dedicated to providing high quality customer service and support to our customers. Our success begins with our outstanding customer support and has grown with constant development of procurement and Internet solutions, strong partnerships with top manufacturers, and a company-wide determination to be the best for our customers.

Due to our customers’ expanding needs, and our desire to fulfill their needs, SHI has experienced tremendous growth in size and scope. Our organic growth, in combination with over two decades of organizational stability, is a direct result of backing a highly-skilled and tenured sales force with software volume licensing experts, hardware procurement specialists, and certified IT services professionals.

In addition to our global Headquarters, located in Somerset, NJ, we have a second large office in Austin, Texas and smaller regional offices located around the country. The majority of our Public Sector Account Executives live and work from their homes, within their territories.

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In terms of organization, we have retained a small business feel in order to remain agile for our customers. We have few layers of management and empower our sales teams to make decisions that are in the best interest of their customers.

To ensure that we are meeting the needs of all Public entities, we have split our Public Sector business unit into three divisions:
1) Public Sector Field
2) Public Sector Inside
3) Federal
Public Sector Field
Below is an overview of our public sector regional structure:

The highest-level executive in charge of our sales team is Denise Verdicchio, whose contact information can be seen in the graphic above.

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The
Public Sector Field division supports State Government, Local Government, K-12, Higher Ed, and Public Healthcare entities across the country. Customers in the Public Sector Field are supported by an Account Executive and a dedicated Inside Sales Team.

SHI provides a comprehensive customer support plan to ensure we are meeting each customer’s needs. SHI’s Account Executives are empowered to make decisions around the support of their customers, and they have the autonomy to resolve issues as they arise. Because our Account Executives are accountable for ensuring customer satisfaction, SHI is able to provide high quality customer service and ensure efficient and effective response to questions and issues. In addition, the SHI Regional Directors are engaged with the account teams to provide executive-level support and to meet with customers as needed.

In addition, SHI believes in regular and transparent communication with our customers. Our Account Executives meet with the participating entities and individual contract users to review their business with SHI. During these review meetings, we discuss purchase history and the customer’s future plans. With open discussions, SHI can provide tremendous value in supporting future initiatives and will engage the support teams as needed to meet the customer’s goals and objectives. If awarded, SHI will provide this level of service for all entities that use this contract to procure IT products
Public Sector Inside
Our Public Sector Inside division focuses on supporting the needs of the smaller K-12, local government, and higher education institutions across the country to ensure personalized attention regardless of organizational size. In this case, we have defined small as a K-12 district with 7,500 students or less, a higher education institution with 1,500 students or less, or a city/town with a population of 50,000 or less. These customers often are overlooked by large resellers, though they have the same needs as their larger counterparts. Our SM SLED division, based at our global headquarters in Somerset, New Jersey, consists of 185 (IAEs) who support customers’ needs from start to finish. Each IAE is a single point of contact for their customers.

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Federal
For our Federal customers, SHI manages each cabinet-level agency (or large System Integrator) with an SHI Account Executive. The Account Executive serves as the primary point of contact and is empowered to negotiate on behalf of the company.

Each Federal Account Executive is supported by a well-qualified and trained inside sales team.

Our customers can feel confident that they will receive fast accurate quoting, along with industry distinguished product sourcing, and order processing expertise. The sales team will interact with customers responsible for procuring under this contract and develop a personal understanding of their specific needs. The team is well educated on the methodology, requirements, and SLAs of the contract and provide consistent and efficient support tour customers. Together, this team will be the point of contact for any and all questions and problem resolution. Similar to our other GWAC offerings of similar size and scope, including GSA IT Schedule 70 and SEWP V, our seasoned account management team stands ready to support the mission, spirit, and goals of this contract.

Commitment to all Public Sector Customers
SHI remains nimble in our approach to supporting our customers’ IT needs, allowing us to address each customer on an individual basis. We understand that “one size does not fit all” and that philosophy is apparent in our service structure.

We believe our commitment to meeting our customers’ needs is demonstrated in our level of success under our public sector contracts nationwide.

I. Explain in detail how the sales teams will work with the OMNIA Partners team to implement, grow and service the national program.

SHI Response:

SHI has extensive experience administering contracts of this nature and has already worked with OMNIA Partners toward implementation of a major national contract. We take great pride in our ability to administer agreements of this nature to the maximum benefit of the contract users.

SHI’s sales team will work in conjunction with the OMNIA sales team to promote the Master Agreement to both existing and prospective participating public agencies. As detailed previously in this response, the SHI sales teams will receive in‐depth and ongoing training on the Master Agreement. Public sector leadership will be actively involved in implementing and servicing this agreement. The entire team is committed to growth and success of this contract.

SHI Account Executives will promote this agreement actively within their account base during regular face-to-face meetings and calls with customers and prospects. In addition, we hope to add discussion of this contract to our ongoing joint sales calls with the OMNIA team.

We understand the intricacies of implementing and maintaining a contract of this nature, supporting multiple state agencies and municipalities. When we enter into an agreement of this magnitude, we take great care to implement support and service plans to meet the needs of each individual customer.

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I. Explain in detail how Supplier will manage the overall national program throughout the term of the Master Agreement, including ongoing coordination of marketing and sales efforts, timely new Participating Public Agency account set-up, timely contract administration, etc.

SHI Response:

In addition to our extensive sales force promoting this contract actively and on a daily basis with our current customer base and prospective customers, SHI intends to collaborate with OMNIA on an extensive marketing plan. We understand the goal is to increase the number of entities that buy via OMNIA contracts in all public sector verticals. We have a dedicated Public Sector Programs team with resources specifically identified to market and support growth for our national contracts. If SHI is awarded, the following team members will collaborate with the OMNIA team to create and implement the marketing plan:

Aimee Ballenger, Director of Contract and Strategy
[email protected]
Amelia Jakubczyk, Senior Capture and Development Manager [email protected]
SHI has already teamed with OMNIA Partners in previous instances where our joint implementation of the national program was a resounding success. We fully expect to continue that trend if awarded on this new contract.

J. State the amount of Supplier’s Public Agency sales for the previous fiscal year. Provide a list of Supplier’s top 10 Public Agency customers, the total purchases for each for the previous fiscal year along with a key contact for each.

SHI Response:

In 2021, SHI's Public Sector accounted for $3B of SHI's $12 Billion total company revenue and was recognized as the #1 business unit for 2021. The table below is a breakdown of SHI's Public Sector sales by vertical.
2021 Public Sector Verticals
Vertical Revenue
Federal Government $82,000,000
Healthcare $42,000,000
Higher Ed $475,000,000
K-12 Ed $386,000,000
Local Government $983,000,000
State Agencies $1,154,000,000
Customer revenue and contact information associated with these customers is confidential. SHI would be happy to have a discussion and provide additional details if required.

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K. Describe Supplier’s information systems capabilities and limitations regarding order management through receipt of payment, including description of multiple platforms that may be used for any of these functions.

SHI Response:

When an order is placed through SHI’s website, an automatic order confirmation will be generated and sent to the end user listed on the purchase order, as well as any other contacts the customer has designated. We can customize the information on the order acknowledgement email and can include any and all information required by the customer.

Once an order is entered, it is then directed to SHI’s Purchasing department for processing.

This team is responsible for placing the order with the appropriate distributor or manufacturer.

All orders are placed within 24 hours of being received. Should there be a change in product delivery time, the sales team will be notified immediately. At that point we will reach out to the end user to discuss options.

If a product is not be available at the time of order placement, the Inside Account Manager will reach out to the contact who placed the PO and advise that contact on all options available. No substitutions will be ordered unless we have express, written authorization to do so by the end user. Assuming there are no delays, the tracking number will be uploaded to the website upon shipping if/when provided by our vendors. In addition, the customer can opt to receive an ATTACHMENT A 500
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advanced shipping notification, which will be emailed automatically upon shipment of the product.

See an example of the ASN below:

SHI is able to customize our invoices to meet the needs of individual customers. If awarded, we will work with each customer to add necessary fields to our order entry system so that information will be captured on the invoice as well. A sample invoice is included for you below. Again, this can be customized tomeet any requirements necessary.

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We have the flexibility to bill upfront, in arrears, or on a payment plan depending on the requirements of each purchase. We will have these discussions before the quote process takes place and confirm again before we enter the purchase order. In this way, we will alleviate incorrect billings. In the rare case that something is incorrectly billed, the customer can simply reach out to their sales team and they will work with our Accounting department to correct.

SHI is able to accommodate sending hard copy invoices, electronic invoices or both. Summary billing is also available. We can accommodate changes to a customer’s preference at any time.

Invoices will be sent only after the products have been delivered. If chosen for award, we would like to sit down with each OMNIA customer to understand their requirements, typical acceptance procedures and time frames.

SHI’s open architecture systems allow us to integrate with virtually any eCommerce platform, whether through market leaders or a proprietary solution. Ariba, Perfect Commerce, PeopleSoft, SAP and Oracle are the most popular applications supported by SHI. In general, SHI can support systems that use cXML (commerce extensible mark‐up language), or EDI (electronic data interchange) standards. This includes a wide range of applications. In addition, SHI supports the following Punch‐out types:
• Ariba Punchout
• Coupa
• ePlus Procure+
• Hubwoo
• Oracle OAG and cXML Punchout
• Perfect Commerce Roundtrip
• PeopleSoft Direct Connect
• SAP OCI Roundtrip
• Sciquest
• Verian ProcureIT
SHI’s order entry, procurement and invoicing systems are all standardized on AX. This allows for seamless process and maximum efficiency from order placement to billing. SHI has a team of AX developers in house to accommodate our various customers’ needs.

L. Provide the Contract Sales (as defined in Section 12 of the OMNIA Partners Administration Agreement) that Supplier will guarantee each year under the Master Agreement for the initial three years of the Master Agreement (“Guaranteed Contract Sales”). $_______.00 in year one
$_______.00 in year two
$_______.00 in year three
To the extent Supplier guarantees minimum Contract Sales, the Administrative Fee shall be calculated based on the greater of the actual Contract Sales and the Guaranteed Contract Sales.

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SHI Response:

SHI would prefer not to guarantee sales at this time. As a general predicator of potential volume, SHI reported $380M 2021 under our existing OMNIA Partners contract. While the scope of the Online Marketplace contract is more limited, we have full confidence in our ability to generate sales and would be happy to discuss forecasts at further length with OMNIA if awarded.

M. Even though it is anticipated many Public Agencies will be able to utilize the Master Agreement without further formal solicitation, there may be circumstances where Public Agencies will issue their own solicitations. The following options are available when responding to a solicitation for Products covered under the Master Agreement. i. Respond with Master Agreement pricing (Contract Sales reported to OMNIA Partners). ii. If competitive conditions require pricing lower than the standard Master Agreement notto-exceed pricing, Supplier may respond with lower pricing through the Master Agreement. If Supplier is awarded the contract, the sales are reported as Contract Sales to OMNIA Partners under the Master Agreement.
iii. Respond with pricing higher than Master Agreement only in the unlikely event that the Public Agency refuses to utilize Master Agreement (Contract Sales are not reported to OMNIA Partners).
iv. If alternative or multiple proposals are permitted, respond with pricing higher than Master Agreement, and include Master Agreement as the alternate or additional proposal.

Detail Supplier’s strategies under these options when responding to a solicitation.

SHI Response:

We understand that some public agencies will choose to conduct their own formal solicitations even though this Master Agreement is in place. In these cases, SHI will evaluate each situation as it arises. We will do everything we can to ensure that the resulting sales are priced at or below the OMNIA pricing and reported to OMNIA. It is our goal to make this contract as successful and widely used as possible and will not look to steer business away from it, even if the agency chooses to do a formal solicitation. SHI has put forth our most aggressive pricing to OMNIA in this proposal. For this reason, we believe that responding with this pricing will be the most widely used strategy. If a publisher/OEM offers competitive pricing, SHI will pass that pricing along and report those sales to OMNIA. It is highly unlikely for SHI to offer pricing higher than what is in the Master Agreement unless we were using the Master Agreement pricing as a comparison to show the value of this agreement.

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APPENDIX D, EXHIBIT B – ADMINISTRATION AGREEMENT

EXAMPLE
ii. The successful Offeror will be required to sign Appendix D, Exhibit B, OMNIA Partners Administration Agreement prior to Contract award. Offerors should have any reviews required to sign the document prior to submitting a response. Offeror’s response should include any proposed exceptions to OMNIA Partners Administration Agreement on Appendix B, Terms and Conditions Acceptance Form.

SHI Response:

Please see the following pages for our exceptions and signature.

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APPENDIX D
Requirements for National Cooperative Contract To Be Administered by OMNIA Partners The following documents are used in evaluating and administering national cooperative contracts and are included for Supplier’s review and response.

Exhibit A – Response for National Cooperative Contract
Exhibit B – Administration Agreement, Example
Exhibit C – Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement, Example Exhibit D – Principal Procurement Agency Certificate, Example Exhibit E – Contract Sales Reporting Template
Exhibit F – Federal Funds Certifications
Exhibit G – New Jersey Business Compliance
Exhibit H – Advertising Compliance Requirement
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Exhibit A
Response for National Cooperative Contract

1.0 Scope of National Cooperative Contract
Capitalized terms not otherwise defined herein shall have the meanings given to them in the Master Agreement or in the Administration Agreement between Supplier and OMNIA Partners.

1.1 Requirement
The Region 4 Education Service Center (hereinafter defined and referred to as “Principal Procurement Agency”), on behalf of itself and the National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance Company, a Delaware corporation d/b/a OMNIA Partners, Public Sector (“OMNIA Partners”), is requesting proposals for Total Cloud Solutions and Services. The intent of this Request for Proposal is any contract between Principal Procurement Agency and Supplier resulting from this Request for Proposal (“Master Agreement”) be made available to other public agencies nationally, including state and local governmental entities, public and private primary, secondary and higher education entities, non-profit entities, and agenciesfor the public benefit (“Public Agencies”), through OMNIA Partners’ cooperative purchasing program. The Principal Procurement Agency has executed a Principal Procurement Agency Certificate with OMNIA Partners, an example of which is included as Exhibit D, and has agreed to pursue the Master Agreement. Use of the Master Agreement by any Public Agency is preceded by their registration with OMNIA Partners as a Participating Public Agency in OMNIA Partners’ cooperative purchasing program. Registration with OMNIA Partners as a Participating Public Agency is accomplished by Public Agencies entering into a Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement, an example of which is attached as Exhibit C, and by using the Master Agreement, any such Participating Public Agency agrees that it is registered with OMNIA Partners, whether pursuant to the terms of the Master Intergovernmental Purchasing Cooperative Agreement or as otherwise agreed to. The terms and pricing established in the resulting Master Agreement between the Supplier and the Principal Procurement Agency will be the same as that available to Participating Public Agencies through OMNIA Partners.

All transactions, purchase orders, invoices, payments etc., will occur directly between the Supplier and each Participating Public Agency individually, and neither OMNIA Partners, any Principal Procurement Agency nor any Participating Public Agency, including their respective agents, directors, employees or representatives, shall be liable to Supplier for any acts, liabilities, damages, etc., incurred by any other Participating Public Agency. Supplier is responsible for knowing the tax laws in each state.

This Exhibit A defines the expectations for qualifying Suppliers based on OMNIA Partners’ requirements to market the resulting Master Agreement nationally to Public Agencies. Each section in this Exhibit A refers to the capabilities, requirements, obligations, and prohibitions of competing Suppliers on a national level in order to serve Participating Public Agencies through OMNIA Partners.

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These requirements are incorporated into and are considered an integral part of this RFP. OMNIA Partners reserves the right to determine whether to make the Master Agreement awarded by the Principal Procurement Agency available to Participating Public Agencies, in its sole and absolute discretion, and any party submitting a response to this RFP acknowledges that any award by the Principal Procurement Agency does not obligate OMNIA Partners to make the Master Agreement available to Participating Procurement Agencies.

1.2 Marketing, Sales and Administrative Support
During the term of the Master Agreement OMNIA Partners intends to provide marketing, sales, partnership development and administrative support for Supplier pursuant to this section that directly promotes the Supplier’s products and services to Participating Public Agencies through multiple channels, each designed to promote specific products and services to Public Agencies on a national basis.

OMNIA Partners will assign the Supplier a Director of Partner Development who will serve asthe main point of contact for the Supplier and will be responsible for managing the overall relationship between the Supplier and OMNIA Partners. The Director of Partner Development will work with the Supplier to develop a comprehensive strategy to promote the Master Agreement and will connect the Supplier with appropriate stakeholders within OMNIA Partners including, Sales, Marketing, Contracting, Training, and Operations & Support.

The OMNIA Partners marketing team will work in conjunction with Supplier to promote the Master Agreement to both existing Participating Public Agencies and prospective Public Agencies through channels that may include:

A. Marketing collateral (print, electronic, email, presentations) B. Website
C. Trade shows/conferences/meetings
D. Advertising
E. Social Media
The OMNIA Partners sales teams will work in conjunction with Supplier to promote the Master Agreement to both existing Participating Public Agencies and prospective Public Agencies through initiatives that may include:

A. Individual sales calls
B. Joint sales calls
C. Communications/customer service
D. Training sessions for Public Agency teams
E. Training sessions for Supplier teams
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The OMNIA Partners contracting teams will work in conjunction with Supplier to promote the Master Agreement to both existing Participating Public Agencies and prospective Public Agencies through:

A. Serving as the subject matter expert for questions regarding joint powers authority and state statutes and regulations for cooperative purchasing B. Training sessions for Public Agency teams
C. Training sessions for Supplier teams
D. Regular business reviews to monitor program success
E. General contract administration
Suppliers are required to pay an Administrative Fee of three one and one half percent (1.53%) of the greater of the Contract Sales under the Master Agreement and Guaranteed Contract Sales under this Request for Proposal. Supplier will be required to execute the OMNIA Partners Administration Agreement (Exhibit B).

1.3 Estimated Volume
The dollar volume purchased under the Master Agreement is estimated to be approximately $100 million annually. While no minimum volume is guaranteed to Supplier, the estimated annual volume is projected based on the current annual volumes among the Principal Procurement Agency, other Participating Public Agencies that are anticipated to utilize the resulting Master Agreement to be made available to them through OMNIA Partners, and volume growth into other Public Agencies through a coordinated marketing approach between Supplier and OMNIA Partners.

1.4 Award Basis
The basis of any contract award resulting from this RFP made by Principal Procurement Agency will, at OMNIA Partners’ option, be the basis of award on a national level through OMNIA Partners. If multiple Suppliers are awarded by Principal Procurement Agency under the Master Agreement, those same Suppliers will be required to extend the Master Agreement to Participating Public Agencies through OMNIA Partners. Utilization of the Master Agreement by Participating Public Agencies will be at the discretion of the individual Participating Public Agency.

Certain terms of the Master Agreement specifically applicable to the Principal Procurement Agency (e.g., governing law) are subject to modification for each Participating Public Agency as Supplier and such Participating Public Agency may agree without being in conflict with the Master Agreement as a condition of the Participating Agency’s purchase and not a modification of the Master Agreement applicable to all Participating Agencies. Participating Agencies may request to enter into a separate supplemental agreement to further define the level of service requirements over and above the minimum defined in the Master Agreement (e.g., governing law, invoice requirements, order requirements, specialized delivery, diversity requirements such as minority and woman owned businesses, historically underutilized business, etc.) (“Supplemental Agreement”). It shall be the Commented [CT1]: SHI requests an administrative fee of

1.5%, as previously agreed to under OMNIA 2018011-02.

We are concerned that a fee of 3.0% will render this contract less competitive and that therefore it will not be as widely used as other purchasing options available to this customer set.

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responsibility of the Supplier to comply, when applicable, with the prevailing wage legislation in effect in the jurisdiction of the Participating Agency. It shall further be the responsibility of the Supplier to monitor the prevailing wage rates as established by the appropriate department of labor for any increase in rates during the term of the Master Agreement and adjust wage rates accordingly. In instances where supplemental terms and conditions create additional risk and cost for Supplier, Supplier and Participating Public Agency may negotiate additional pricing above and beyond the stated contract not-to-exceed pricing so long as the added price is commensurate with the additional cost incurred by the Supplier. Any supplemental agreement developed as a result of the Master Agreement is exclusively between the Participating Agency and the Supplier (Contract Sales are reported to OMNIA Partners).

All signed Supplemental Agreements and purchase orders issued and accepted by the Supplier may survive expiration or termination of the Master Agreement. Participating Agencies’ purchase orders may exceed the term of the Master Agreement if the purchase order is issued prior to the expiration of the Master Agreement. Supplier is responsible for reporting all sales and paying the applicable Administrative Fee for sales that use the Master Agreement as the basis for the purchase order, even though Master Agreement may have expired.

1.5 Objectives of Cooperative Program
This RFP isintended to achieve the following objectives regarding availability through OMNIA Partners’ cooperative program:

A. Provide a comprehensive competitively solicited and awarded national agreement offering the Products covered by this solicitation to Participating Public Agencies; B. Establish the Master Agreement as the Supplier’s primary go to market strategy to Public Agencies nationwide;
C. Achieve cost savingsfor Supplier and Public Agencies through a single solicitation process that will reduce the Supplier’s need to respond to multiple solicitations and Public Agencies need to conduct their own solicitation process; D. Combine the aggregate purchasing volumes of Participating Public Agencies to achieve cost effective pricing.

2.0 REPRESENTATIONS AND COVENANTS
As a condition to Supplier entering into the Master Agreement, which would be available to all Public Agencies, Supplier must make certain representations, warranties and covenants to both the Principal Procurement Agency and OMNIA Partners designed to ensure the success of the Master Agreement for all Participating Public Agencies as well as the Supplier.

2.1 Corporate Commitment
Supplier commits that (1) the Master Agreement has received all necessary corporate authorizations and support of the Supplier’s executive management, (2) the Master Agreement is Supplier's primary “go to market” strategy for Public Agencies, (3) the DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 510
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will be purchased and staffed by Supplier. In addition, Supplier commits to provide reasonable assistance to the overall promotion and marketing efforts for the NIGP Annual Forum, as directed by OMNIA Partners. vi. Design and publication of national and regional advertising in trade publications throughout the term of the Master Agreement vii. Ongoing marketing and promotion of the Master Agreement throughout its term (case studies, collateral pieces, presentations, promotions, etc.) viii. Dedicated OMNIA Partners internet web-based homepage on Supplier’s website with:
• OMNIA Partners standard logo;
• Copy of original Request for Proposal;
• Copy of Master Agreement and amendments between Principal Procurement Agency and Supplier;
• Summary of Products and pricing;
• Marketing Materials
• Electronic link to OMNIA Partners’ website including the online registration page;
• A dedicated toll-free number and email address for OMNIA Partners
C. Describe how Supplier will transition any existing Public Agency customers’ accounts to the Master Agreement available nationally through OMNIA Partners.

Include a list of current cooperative contracts (regional and national) Supplier holds and describe how the Master Agreement will be positioned among theother cooperative agreements.

D. Acknowledge Supplier agrees to provide its logo(s) to OMNIA Partners and agrees to provide permission for reproduction of such logo in marketing communications and promotions. Acknowledge that use of OMNIA Partners logo will require permission for reproduction, as well.

E. Confirm Supplier will be proactive in direct sales of Supplier’s goods and services to Public Agencies nationwide and the timely follow up to leads established by OMNIA Partners. All sales materials are to use the OMNIA Partners logo. At a minimum, the Supplier’s sales initiatives should communicate:
i. Master Agreement was competitively solicited and publicly awarded by a Principal Procurement Agency
ii. Best Advantageous government pricing
iii. No cost to participate
iv. Non-exclusive
F. Confirm Supplier will train its national sales force on the Master Agreement. At a minimum, sales training should include:

Commented [CT2]: Please clarify.

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i. Key features of Master Agreement
ii. Working knowledge of the solicitation process
iii. Awareness of the range of Public Agencies that can utilize the Master Agreement through OMNIA Partners
iv. Knowledge of benefits of the use of cooperative contracts G. Provide the name, title, email and phone number for the person(s), who will be responsible for:
i. Executive Support
ii. Marketing
iii. Sales
iv. Sales Support
v. Financial Reporting
vi. Accounts Payable
vii. Contracts
H. Describe in detail how Supplier’s national sales force is structured, including contact information for the highest-level executive in charge of the salesteam.

I. Explain in detail how the sales teams will work with the OMNIA Partners team to implement, grow and service the national program.

I. Explain in detail how Supplier will manage the overall national program throughout the term of the Master Agreement, including ongoing coordination of marketing and sales efforts, timely new Participating Public Agency account setup, timely contract administration, etc.

J. State the amount of Supplier’s Public Agency sales for the previous fiscal year.

Provide a list of Supplier’s top 10 Public Agency customers, the total purchases for each for the previous fiscal year along with a key contact for each.

K. Describe Supplier’s information systems capabilities and limitations regarding order management through receipt of payment, including description of multiple platforms that may be used for any of these functions.

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$ .00 in year one
$ .00 in year two
$ .00 in year three
To the extent Supplier guarantees minimum Contract Sales, the Administrative Fee shall be calculated based on the greater of the actual Contract Sales and the Guaranteed Contract Sales.

M. Even though it is anticipated many Public Agencies will be able to utilize the Master Agreement without further formal solicitation, there may be circumstances where Public Agencies will issue their own solicitations. The following options are available when responding to a solicitation for Products covered under the Master Agreement.
i. Respond with Master Agreement pricing (Contract Sales reported to OMNIA Partners).
ii. If competitive conditions require pricing lower than the standard Master Agreement not-to-exceed pricing, Supplier may respond with lower pricing through the Master Agreement. If Supplier is awarded the contract, the sales are reported as Contract Sales to OMNIA Partners under the Master Agreement.
iii. Respond with pricing higher than Master Agreement only in the unlikely event that the Public Agency refuses to utilize Master Agreement (Contract Sales are not reported to OMNIA Partners). iv. If alternative or multiple proposals are permitted, respond with pricing higher than Master Agreement, and include Master Agreement as the alternate or additional proposal.

Detail Supplier’s strategies under these options when responding to a solicitation.

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Exhibit B
Administration Agreement, Example

ADMINISTRATION AGREEMENT
THIS ADMINISTRATION AGREEMENT (this “Agreement”) is made this day of 20 , between National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance Company, a Delaware corporation d/b/a OMNIA Partners, Public Sector (“OMNIA Partners”), and (“Supplier”).

RECITALS
WHEREAS, the (the “Principal Procurement Agency”) has
entered into a Master Agreement effective , Agreement No , by and between the Principal Procurement Agency and Supplier, (as may be amended from time to time in accordance with the terms thereof, the “Master Agreement”), as attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated herein by reference as though fully set forth herein, for the purchase of (the “Product”);
WHEREAS, said Master Agreement provides that any or all public agencies, including state and local governmental entities, public and private primary, secondary and higher education entities, non-profit entities, and agencies for the public benefit (collectively, “Public Agencies”), that register (either via registration on the OMNIA Partners website or execution of a Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement, attached hereto as Exhibit B) (each, hereinafter referred to as a “Participating Public Agency”) may purchase Product at prices stated in the Master Agreement; WHEREAS, Participating Public Agencies may access the Master Agreement which is offered through OMNIA Partners to Public Agencies;
WHEREAS, OMNIA Partners serves as the cooperative contract administrator of the Master Agreement on behalf of Principal Procurement Agency;
WHEREAS, Principal Procurement Agency desires OMNIA Partners to proceed with administration of the Master Agreement; and
WHEREAS, OMNIA Partners and Supplier desire to enter into this Agreement to make available the Master Agreement to Participating Public Agencies and to set forth certain terms and conditions governing the relationship between OMNIA Partners and Supplier.

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the payments to be made hereunder and the mutual covenants contained in this Agreement, OMNIA Partners and Supplier hereby agree asfollows:

DEFINITIONS

1. Capitalized terms used in this Agreement and not otherwise defined herein shall have the meanings given to them in the Master Agreement.

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TERMS AND CONDITIONS

2. The Master Agreement and the terms and conditions contained therein shall apply to this Agreement except as expressly changed or modified by this Agreement. Supplier acknowledges and agrees that the covenants and agreements of Supplier set forth in the solicitation and Supplier’s response thereto resulting in the Master Agreement are incorporated herein and are an integral part hereof.

3. OMNIA Partners shall be afforded all of the rights, privileges and indemnifications afforded to Principal Procurement Agency by or from Supplier under the Master Agreement, and such rights, privileges and indemnifications shall accrue and apply with equal effect to OMNIA Partners, its agents, employees, directors, and representatives under this Agreement including, but not limited to, Supplier’s obligation to obtain appropriate insurance.

4. OMNIA Partners shall perform all of its duties, responsibilities and obligations as the cooperative contract administrator of the Master Agreement on behalf of Principal Procurement Agency as set forth herein, and Supplier hereby acknowledges and agrees that all duties, responsibilities and obligations will be undertaken by OMNIA Partners solely in its capacity as the cooperative contract administrator under the Master Agreement.

5. With respect to any purchases by Principal Procurement Agency or any Participating Public Agency pursuant to the Master Agreement, OMNIA Partners shall not be: (i) construed as a dealer, re-marketer, representative, partner or agent of any type of the Supplier, Principal Procurement Agency or any Participating Public Agency; (ii) obligated, liable or responsible for any order for Product made by Principal Procurement Agency or any Participating Public Agency or any employee thereof under the Master Agreement or for any payment required to be made with respect to such order for Product; and (iii) obligated, liable or responsible for any failure by Principal Procurement Agency or any Participating Public Agency to comply with procedures or requirements of applicable law or the Master Agreement or to obtain the due authorization and approval necessary to purchase under the Master Agreement. OMNIA Partners makes no representation or guaranty with respect to any minimum purchases by Principal Procurement Agency or any Participating Public Agency or any employee thereof under this Agreement or the Master Agreement.

6. OMNIA Partners shall not be responsible for Supplier’s performance under the Master Agreement, and Supplier shall hold OMNIA Partners harmless from any liability that may arise from the negligent acts or omissions of Supplier in connection with the course of its performance under the Master Agreement.

7. Supplier acknowledges that, in connection with its access to OMNIA Partners confidential information and/or supply of data to OMNIA Partners, it has complied with and shall continue to comply with all laws, regulations and standards that may apply to Supplier, including, without limitation: (a) United States federal and state information security and privacy statutes, regulations and/or best practices, including, without limitation, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Massachusetts Data Security Regulations (201 C.M.R. 17.00 et. seq.), the Nevada encryption statute (N.R.S. § 603A), the California data security law (Cal. Civil Code § 1798.80 et. seq.) and California Consumer Privacy Act (Cal. Civil Code § 1798.100 et. seq.); and (b) applicable industry and regulatory standards and best practices (collectively, “Data Regulations”).

With regard to Personal Information that Supplier collects, receives, or otherwise processes under the Agreement or otherwise in connection with performance of the Agreement, Supplier agrees that it will not: (i) sell, rent, release, disclose, disseminate, make available, transfer, or otherwise DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 515
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communicate orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, such Personal Information to another business or third party for monetary or other valuable consideration; or (ii) retain, use, or disclose such Personal Information outside of the direct business relationship between Supplier and OMNIA Partners or for any purpose other than for the specific purpose of performance of the Agreement, including retaining, using, or disclosing such Personal Information for a commercial purpose other than for performance of the Agreement. By entering into the Agreement, Supplier certifies that it understands the specific restrictions contained in this Section 7 and will comply with them. For purposes hereof, “Personal Information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household, and includes the specific elements of “personal information” as defined under Data Regulations, as defined herein. Supplier will reasonably assist OMNIA Partners in timely responding to any third party “request to know” or “request to delete” (as defined pursuant to Data Regulations) and will promptly provide OMNIA Partners with information reasonably necessary for OMNIA Partners to respond to such requests. Where Supplier collects Personal Information directly from Public Agencies or others on OMNIA Partners’ behalf, Supplier will maintain records and the means necessary to enable OMNIA Partners to respond to such requests to know and requests to delete.

8. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, OMNIA

PARTNERS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES REGARDING OMNIA PARTNERS’ PERFORMANCE AS A CONTRACT ADMINISTRATOR OF THE MASTER AGREEMENT. OMNIA PARTNERSNEITHER PARTY

SHALL NOT BE LIABLE IN ANY WAY FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT,

CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR RELIANCE DAMAGES, INCLUDING,

BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF OR DAMAGE TO DATA, LOSS OF ANTICIPATED

REVENUE OR PROFITS, WORK STOPPAGE OR IMPAIRMENT OF OTHER ASSETS,

WHETHER OR NOT FORESEEABLE, EVEN IF OMNIA PARTNERSA PARTY IS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

8.9. EXCEPT AS OTHERWISE PROVIDED IN THIS AGREEMENT AND/OR ANY

ORDER ISSUED HEREUNDER, SUPPLIER HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL OTHER

WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,

ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE,

WARRANTY OF NONINFRINGEMENT, OR ANY WARRANTY RELATING TO THIRD PARTY SERVICES OR PRODUCTS. THE DISCLAIMER CONTAINED IN THIS

PARAGRAPH DOES NOT AFFECT THE TERMS OF ANY WARRANTY PROVIDED BY AN OEM.

TERM OF AGREEMENT; TERMINATION

9.10. This Agreement shall be in effect so long as the Master Agreement remains in effect, provided, however, that the provisions of Sections 3 – 98 and 121 – 232, hereof and the indemnifications and limitations of liability afforded by the Supplier to OMNIA Partners in the Master Agreement, to the extent such provisions survive any expiration or termination of the Master Agreement, shall survive the expiration or termination of this Agreement.

NATIONAL PROMOTION

10.11. OMNIA Partners and Supplier shall publicize and promote the availability of the Master Agreement’s products and services to Public Agencies and such agencies’ employees.

Supplier shall require each Public Agency to register its participation in the OMNIA Partners program DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 516
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by either registering on the OMNIA Partners website (www.omniapartners.com/publicsector) or executing a Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement prior to processing the Participating Public Agency’s first sales order. Upon request, Supplier shall make available to interested Public Agencies a copy of the Master Agreement and such price lists or quotes as may be necessary for such Public Agencies to evaluate potential purchases.

11.12. Supplier shall provide such marketing and administrative support as set forth in the solicitation resulting in the Master Agreement, including assisting in development of marketing materials as reasonably requested by Principal Procurement Agency and OMNIA Partners. Supplier shall be responsible for obtaining permission or license of use and payment of any license fees for all content and images Supplier provides to OMNIA Partners or posts on the OMNIA Partners website.

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Supplier shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless OMNIA Partners for use of all such content and images including copyright infringement claims. Supplier and OMNIA Partners each hereby grant to the other party a limited, revocable, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use such party’s logo (each, the “Logo”) solely for use in marketing the Master Agreement. Each party shall provide the other party with the standard terms of use of such party’s Logo, and such party shall comply with such terms in all material respects. Both parties shall obtain approval from the other party prior to use of such party’s Logo. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the parties understand and agree that except as provided herein neither party shall have any right, title or interest in the other party’s Logo. Upon termination of this Agreement, each party shall immediately cease use of the other party’s Logo.

ADMINISTRATIVE FEE, REPORTING & PAYMENT

12.13. An “Administrative Fee” shall be defined and due to OMNIA Partners from Supplier in the amount of one and one half percent ( 1.5 %) (“Administrative Fee Percentage”) multiplied by the total
purchase amount paid to Supplier, less refunds, credits on returns, rebates and discounts, for the sale of products and/or services to Principal Procurement Agency and Participating Public Agencies pursuant to the Master Agreement (as amended from time to time and including any renewal thereof) (“Contract Sales”). From time to time the parties may mutually agree in writing to a lower Administrative Fee Percentage for a specifically identified Participating Public Agency’s Contract Sales.

13.14. Supplier shall provide OMNIA Partners with an electronic accounting report monthly, in the format prescribed by OMNIA Partners, summarizing all Contract Sales for each calendar month. The Contract Sales reporting format is provided as Exhibit C (“Contract Sales Report”), attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference. Contract Sales Reports for each calendar month shall be provided by Supplier to OMNIA Partners by the 10th day of the following month. Failure to provide a Contract Sales Report within the time and mannerspecified herein shall constitute a material breach of this Agreement and if not cured within thirty (30) days of written notice to Supplier shall be deemed a cause for termination of the Master Agreement, at Principal Procurement Agency’s sole discretion, and/or this Agreement, at OMNIA Partners’ sole discretion.

14.15. Administrative Fee payments are to be paid by Supplier to OMNIA Partners at the frequency and on the due date stated in Section 143, above, for Supplier’s submission of corresponding Contract Sales Reports. Administrative Fee payments are to be made via Automated Clearing House (ACH) to the OMNIA Partners designated financial institution identified in Exhibit D. Failure to provide a payment of the Administrative Fee within the time and manner specified herein shall constitute a material breach of this Agreement and if not cured within thirty (30) days of written notice to Supplier shall be deemed a cause for termination of the Master Agreement, at Principal Procurement Agency’s sole discretion, and/or this Agreement, at OMNIA Partners’ sole discretion. All Administrative Fees not paid when due shall bear interest at a rate equal to the lesser of one and one-half percent (1 1/2%) per month or the maximum rate permitted by law until paid in full.

15.16. Supplier shall maintain an accounting of all purchases made by Participating Public Agencies under the Master Agreement. OMNIA Partners, or its designee, in OMNIA Partners’ sole discretion, reserves the right to compare Participating Public Agency records with Contract Sales Reports submitted by Supplier for a period of four (4) years from the date OMNIA Partners receives such report. In addition, OMNIA Partners may engage a third party to conduct an independent audit of Supplier’s monthly reports. OMNIA Partners will request to audit Supplier by providing at least thirty (30) days’ notice to Supplier and shall be permitted to conduct such audits once per calendar DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 518
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year. In the event of such an audit, Supplier shall provide all materials reasonably requested relating to such audit by OMNIA Partners at the location designated by OMNIA Partners. In the event an underreporting of Contract Sales and a resulting underpayment of DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 519
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Administrative Fees is revealed, OMNIA Partners will notify the Supplier in writing. Supplier will have thirty (30) days from the date of such notice to resolve the discrepancy to OMNIA Partners’ reasonable satisfaction, including payment of any Administrative Fees due and owing, together with interest thereon in accordance with Section 143, and reimbursement of OMNIA Partners’ costs and expenses related to such audit.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

16.17. This Agreement, the Master Agreement and the exhibits referenced herein supersede any and all other agreements, either oral or in writing, between the parties hereto with respect to the subject matter hereto and no other agreement, statement, or promise relating to the subject matter of this Agreement which is not contained or incorporated herein shall be valid or binding. In the event of any conflict between the provisions of this Agreement and the Master Agreement, as between OMNIA Partners and Supplier, the provisions of this Agreement shall prevail.

17.18. If any action at law or in equity is brought to enforce or interpret the provisions of this Agreement or to recover any Administrative Fee and accrued interest, the prevailing party shall be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees and costs in addition to any other relief to which it may be entitled.

18.19. This Agreement and OMNIA Partners’ rights and obligations hereunder may be assigned at OMNIA Partners’ sole discretion to an affiliate of OMNIA Partners, any purchaser of any or all or substantially all of the assets of OMNIA Partners, or the successor entity as a result of a merger, reorganization, consolidation, conversion or change of control, whether by operation of law or otherwise, with Supplier’s written consent, which shall not be unreasonably withheld. Supplier may not assign its obligations hereunder without the prior written consent of OMNIA Partners, which shall not be unreasonably withheld. Notwithstanding the foregoing, either party may assign this Agreement to a successor pursuant to a merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all its assets.

19.20. All written communications given hereunder shall be delivered by first-class mail, postage prepaid, or overnight delivery on receipt to the addresses as set forth below.

A. OMNIA Partners:

OMNIA Partners
Attn: President
840 Crescent Centre Drive
Suite 600
Franklin, TN 37067
B. Supplier:

SHI Government Solutions
Attn: Amelia Jakubczyk
3828 Pecana Trail
Austin, TX 78749
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20.21. If any provision of this Agreement shall be deemed to be, or shall in fact be, illegal, inoperative or unenforceable, the same shall not affect any other provision or provisions herein contained or render the same invalid, inoperative or unenforceable to any extent whatever, and this Agreement will be construed by limiting or invalidating such provision to the minimum extent necessary to make such provision valid, legal and enforceable.

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21.22. This Agreement may not be amended, changed, modified, or altered without the prior written consent of the parties hereto, and no provision of this Agreement may be discharged or waived, except by a writing signed by the parties. A waiver of any particular provision will not be deemed a waiver of any other provision, nor will a waiver given on one occasion be deemed to apply to any other occasion.

22.23. This Agreement shall inure to the benefit of and shall be binding upon OMNIA Partners, the Supplier and any respective successor and assign thereto; subject, however, to the limitations contained herein.

23.24. This Agreement will be construed under and governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, excluding its conflicts of law provisions and any action arising out of or related to this Agreement shall be commenced solely and exclusively in the state or federal courts in Williamson County Tennessee.

24.25. This Agreement may be executed in counterparts, each of which is an original but all of which, together, shall constitute but one and the same instrument. The exchange of copies of this Agreement and of signature pages by facsimile, or by .pdf or similar electronic transmission, will constitute effective execution and delivery of this Agreement as to the parties and may be used in lieu of the original Agreement for all purposes. Signatures of the parties transmitted by facsimile, or by .pdf or similar electronic transmission, will be deemed to be their original signatures for any purpose whatsoever. [INSERT SUPPLIER ENTITY
NAME]SHI Government Solutions

NATIONAL

INTERGOVERNMENTAL

PURCHASING ALLIANCE

COMPANY, A DELAWARE

CORPORATION D/B/A OMNIA

PARTNERS, PUBLIC SECTOR
Signature Signature
Sarah Vavra
Name Name
Sr. Vice President, Public Sector
Contracting
Title Title
Date Date
DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A 4/28/2022
Sr. Lead Contracts Specialist
Elisabeth Arnold
ATTACHMENT A 522
Exhibit C
Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement, Example

MASTER INTERGOVERNMENTAL COOPERATIVE PURCHASING AGREEMENT This Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement (this “Agreement”) is entered into by and between those certain government agencies that execute a Principal Procurement Agency Certificate (“Principal Procurement Agencies”) with National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance Company, a Delaware corporation d/b/a OMNIA Partners, Public Sector and/or Communities Program Management, LLC, a California limited liability company d/b/a U.S.

Communities (collectively, “OMNIA Partners”), in its capacity as the cooperative administrator, to be appended and made a part hereof and such other public agencies (“Participating Public Agencies”) who register to participate in the cooperative purchasing programs administered by OMNIA Partners and its affiliates and subsidiaries (collectively, the “OMNIA Partners Parties”) by either registering on the OMNIA Partners website (www.omniapartners.com/publicsector or any successor website), or by executing a copy of this Agreement.

RECITALS
WHEREAS, after a competitive solicitation and selection process by Principal Procurement Agencies, in compliance with their own policies, procedures, rules and regulations, a number of suppliers have entered into “Master Agreements” (herein so called) to provide a variety of goods, products and services (“Products”) to the applicable Principal Procurement Agency and the Participating Public Agencies;
WHEREAS, Master Agreements are made available by Principal Procurement Agencies through the OMNIA Partners Parties and provide that Participating Public Agencies may purchase Products on the same terms, conditions and pricing as the Principal Procurement Agency, subject to any applicable federal and/or local purchasing ordinances and the laws of the State of purchase; and WHEREAS, in addition to Master Agreements, the OMNIA Partners Parties may from time to time offer Participating Public Agencies the opportunity to acquire Products through other group purchasing agreements.

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the mutual promises contained in this Agreement, and of the mutual benefits to result, the parties hereby agree asfollows:

1. Each party will facilitate the cooperative procurement of Products.

2. The Participating Public Agencies shall procure Products in accordance with and subject to the relevant federal, state and local statutes, ordinances, rules and regulations that govern Participating Public Agency’s procurement practices. The Participating Public Agencies hereby acknowledge and agree that it is the intent of the parties that all provisions of this Agreement and that Principal Procurement Agencies’ participation in the program described herein comply with all applicable laws, including but not limited to the requirements of 42 C.F.R. § 1001.952(j), as may be amended from time to time. The Participating Public Agencies further acknowledge and agree that they are solely responsible for their compliance with all applicable “safe harbor” regulations, including but not limited to any and all obligations to fully and accurately report discounts and incentives.

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3. The Participating Public Agency represents and warrants that the Participating Public Agency is not a hospital or other healthcare provider and is not purchasing Products on behalf of a hospital or healthcare provider; provided that the foregoing shall not prohibit Participating Public Agency from furnishing health care services so long as the furnishing of healthcare services is not in furtherance of a primary purpose of the Participating Public Agency.

4. The cooperative use of Master Agreements shall be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Master Agreements, except as modification of those terms and conditions is otherwise required by applicable federal, state or local law, policies or procedures.

5. The Principal Procurement Agencies will make available, upon reasonable request, Master Agreement information which may assist in improving the procurement of Products by the Participating Public Agencies.

6. The Participating Public Agency agrees the OMNIA Partners Parties may provide access to group purchasing organization (“GPO”) agreements directly or indirectly by enrolling the Participating Public Agency in another GPO’s purchasing program, provided that the purchase of Products through the OMNIA Partners Parties or any other GPO shall be at the Participating Public Agency’s sole discretion.

7. The Participating Public Agencies (each a “Procuring Party”) that procure Products through any Master Agreement or GPO Product supply agreement (each a “GPO Contract”) will make timely payments to the distributor, manufacturer or other vendorreseller (collectively, “Supplier”) for Products received in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Master Agreement or GPO Contract, as applicable. Payment for Products and inspections and acceptance of Products ordered by the Procuring Party shall be the exclusive obligation of such Procuring Party.

Disputes between Procuring Party and any Supplier shall be resolved in accordance with the law and venue rules ofthe State of purchase unless otherwise agreed to by the Procuring Party and Supplier.

8. The Procuring Party shall not use this Agreement as a method for obtaining additional concessions or reduced prices for purchase of similar products or services outside of the Master Agreement. Master Agreements may be structured with not-to-exceed pricing, in which cases the Supplier may offer the Procuring Party and the Procuring Party may accept lower pricing or additional concessions for purchase of Products through a Master Agreement.

9. The Procuring Party shall be responsible for the ordering of Products under this Agreement. A non-procuring party shall not be liable in any fashion for any violation by a Procuring Party, and, to the extent permitted by applicable law, the Procuring Party shall hold non-procuring party harmless from any liability that may arise from the acts or omissions of the Procuring Party.

10. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, THE OMNIA

PARTNERS PARTIES EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED

REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES REGARDING ANY PRODUCT, MASTER AGREEMENT AND GPO CONTRACT. NONE OF THE OMNIA PARTNERS PARTIES SHALL

NOT BE LIABLE IN ANY WAY FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT,

CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR RELIANCE DAMAGES, INCLUDING,

BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF OR DAMAGE TO DATA, LOSS OF ANTICIPATED

REVENUE OR PROFITS, WORK STOPPAGE OR IMPAIRMENT OF OTHER ASSETS,

WHETHER OR NOT FORESEEABLE, EVEN IF THE OMNIA PARTNERS PARTIES ARE ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. FURTHER, THE PROCURING DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 524
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PARTY ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT THE OMNIA PARTNERS PARTIES

SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY FOR ANY ACT OR OMISSION BY A SUPPLIER OR OTHER PARTY UNDER A MASTER AGREEMENT OR GPO CONTRACT.

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11. This Agreement shall remain in effect until termination by either party giving thirty (30) days’ written notice to the other party. The provisions of Paragraphs 6 - 10 hereof shall survive any such termination.

12. This Agreement shall take effect upon (i) execution of the Principal Procurement Agency Certificate, or (ii) registration on the OMNIA Partners website or the execution of this Agreement by a Participating Public Agency, as applicable.

Participating Public Agency:

Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State
University and Agricultural and
Mechanical College
OMNIA Partners, as the cooperative
administrator on behalf of Principal
Procurement Agencies:

NATIONAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL

PURCHASING ALLIANCE COMPANY

COMMUNITIES PROGRAM

MANAGEMENT, LLC
Authorized Signature Signature
Sarah E. Vavra
Name Name
Sr. Vice President, Public Sector Contracting
Title and Agency Name Title
Date Date
DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 526
Exhibit D
Principal Procurement Agency Certificate, Example

PRINCIPAL PROCUREMENT AGENCY CERTIFICATE
In its capacity as a Principal Procurement Agency (as defined below) for National Intergovernmental Purchasing Alliance Company, a Delaware corporation d/b/a OMNIA Partners, Public Sector (“OMNIA Partners”), Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College agrees to pursue Master Agreements for Products as specified in the attached Exhibits to this Principal Procurement Agency Certificate.

I hereby acknowledge, in my capacity as of and on behalf of Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College (“Principal Procurement Agency”), that I have read and hereby agree to the general terms and conditions set forth in the attached Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement regulating the use of the Master Agreements and purchase of Products that from time to time are made available by Principal Procurement Agencies to Participating Public Agencies nationwide through OMNIA Partners.

I understand that the purchase of one or more Products under the provisions of the Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement is at the sole and complete discretion ofthe Participating Public Agency.

Authorized Signature, Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Signature
Name
Title
Date
DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 527
Exhibit E
Contract Sales Reporting Template
Contract Sales Report submitted electronically in Microsoft Excel:

DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EDA9CD3-08C6-4339-BE73-DE3C49F9659A ATTACHMENT A 528
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 118
APPENDIX D, EXHIBIT F – FEDERAL FUNDS

CERTIFICATIONS
ATTACHMENT A 529
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 119
ATTACHMENT A 530
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 120
ATTACHMENT A 531
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 121
ATTACHMENT A 532
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 122
ATTACHMENT A 533
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 123
ATTACHMENT A 534
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 124
ATTACHMENT A 535
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 125
ATTACHMENT A 536
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 126
ATTACHMENT A 537
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 127
FEMA
ATTACHMENT A 538
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 128
ATTACHMENT A 539
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 129
ATTACHMENT A 540
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 130
ATTACHMENT A 541
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 131
ATTACHMENT A 542
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 132
ATTACHMENT A 543
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 133
ATTACHMENT A 544
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 134
ATTACHMENT A 545
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 135
ATTACHMENT A 546
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 136
ATTACHMENT A 547
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 137
ATTACHMENT A 548
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 138
SHI Government Solutions
Dan Calabrese, Proposal Specialist
May 3, 2022
ATTACHMENT A 549
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 139
ATTACHMENT A 550
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 140
ATTACHMENT A 551
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 141
ATTACHMENT A 552
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 142
APPENDIX D, EXHIBIT G – NEW JERSEY BUSINESS

COMPLIANCE
• Doc 1 - Ownership Disclosure Form
• Doc 2 - Non-Collusion Affidavit
• Doc 3 - Affirmative Action Affidavit
• Doc 4 - Political Contribution Disclosure Form
• Doc 5 - Stockholder Disclosure Certification
• Doc 6 - Certification of Non-Involvement in Prohibited Activities in Iran • Doc 7 - New Jersey Business Registration Certificate
• Doc 8 - EEOAA Evidence
• Doc 9 – McBride - Principles
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Doc 1 - Ownership Disclosure Form
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Doc 2 - Non-Collusion Affidavit
April 29 022 Dan Calabrese
Sarah St John, Notary
Washington
10/16/2024
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Doc 3 - Affirmative Action Affidavit
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SHI’s Affirmative/EEO Plan
To comply with the company’s policy to employ, retain, promote, terminate, and otherwise treat any and all employees and job applicants on the basis of merit, qualifications, and competence. • A complete up-to-date Personnel Profile of all employees classified by race, sex, and job classification will be maintained and annual reports will be submitted to the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Contract Compliance.
• All employees will be advised at the time of employment and during the HR orientation that SHI is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and that hiring, promotion, is based on an individual’s qualifications and ability to perform the work. • A company policy statement outlining SHI’s commitment to equal employment opportunity will be posted on SHI’s intranet site, MySHI as well as within the Handbook. A detailed policy outlining SHI’s commitment to affirmative action will be accessible upon request within the Human Resources department.
• The company has an appointed contact to serve as the equal employment opportunity/affirmative action officer. The EEO/AA is authorized to supply reports and represent this company in all matters regarding this affirmative action plan.
• Officer will be responsible for the following:
o Implementing all phases of the plan;
o Conducting quarterly audits of employment practices to ensure nondiscrimination; o Yearly instructing supervisor about their responsibility to ensure that minorities are not subject to any type of discriminatory practices or harassment; o Notification to all eligible employees regarding promotions or vacancies to ensure equal employment opportunity, this is done via Job posting (MySHI), SHI newsletter, recruiters. • HR reviews all applicants and the hiring/promoting records with CEO of SHI to audit the increase in the job categories that are available or promotable in the recruitment labor area. • Training is provided to the degree that the company is reasonably able to undertake as a means of making all job classes available to minorities.

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Doc 4 - Political Contribution Disclosure Form
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ATTACHMENT A 562
Version October 19, 2021
DOC #5

STOCKHOLDER DISCLOSURE CERTIFICATION
Name of Business:
 I certify that the list below contains the names and home addresses of all stockholders holding 10% or more of the issued and outstanding stock of the undersigned.

OR
 I certify that no one stockholder owns 10% or more of the issued and outstanding stock of the undersigned.

Check the box that represents the type of business organization:
Partnership Corporation Sole Proprietorship
Limited Partnership Limited Liability Corporation Limited Liability Partnership Subchapter S Corporation
Sign and notarize the form below, and, if necessary, complete the stockholder list below.

Stockholders:

Name: Name:

Home Address: Home Address:

Name: Name:

Home Address: Home Address:

Name: Name:

Home Address: Home Address:

Subscribed and sworn before me this ___ day of ___________, 2__.
(Notary Public)
My Commission expires:
_________________________________
(Affiant)
________________________________
(Print name & title of affiant)
(Corporate Seal)
Thai Lee
3828 Pecana Trail, Austin, TX 78749-3559 3828 Pecana Trail, Austin, TX 78749-3559 KoGuan Leo
29th April
022
Dan Calabrese, Proposal Specialist
10/16/2024
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Doc 6 - Certification of Non-Involvement in Prohibited Activities in Iran SHI was unable to access this form online.

SHI does not conduct business in the country of Iran.

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Doc 7 - New Jersey Business Registration Certificate
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Doc 8 – EEOAA Evidence
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Doc 9 – McBride Principles
22-08 SHI Government Solutions
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TAB 4 – QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE

2.c) Qualification and Experience
i. Provide a brief history of the Offeror, including year it was established and corporate office location.

SHI Response:

SHI Government Solutions (SHI) welcomes the opportunity for partnership with the Region 4 Education Service Center (Region 4 ESC) as we deliver the following proposal in response to your invitation to secure a provider for the Contract for Total Cloud Solutions and Services. As a total IT solutions provider and a value-added reseller, SHI is best and specifically qualified to meet the ongoing needs of Region 4 ESC, evidenced by our dedication to procuring top holistic IT solutions and partnerships, and our commitment to understanding the specific needs and requirements of our Texas government and education customers.

SHI has sustained consistent growth in not only our business, but also the expansion of our regional sales teams.

Our success has
stemmed from
outstanding customer
support through
dedicated account
teams, constant
development of service
and support
enhancements, strong partnerships with industry leading manufacturers, and a company-wide determination to be the best in the industry.

Achievement to us is tallied primarily by the strength and endurance of our partnerships with organizations like yours. The success of our relationship with Region 4 ESC will be founded upon three key principles:

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• Our proven ability as a holistic IT solution provider to supply Region 4 ESC with an unsurpassed catalog of hardware peripherals, software, and services. • Our commitment to innovation, cost-reduction, and proactive customer service for Region 4 ESC.
• Our dedication to proactive communication and building relationships with representatives of Region 4 ESC at every opportunity.

With more than $380 million of technology products and related services sold to Texas government and education customers in 2021, SHI is a reliable and experienced IT solutions vendor to customers throughout Texas. Boasting the largest field sales team in Texas, we are confident that we are uniquely positioned to help Region 4 ESC focus on meeting their evolving technology needs.

Our dedicated field account executives live and work in geographically concentrated territories, tailoring marketing and selling strategies for their customers. Our localized presence allows us to deliver products and services employing both the benefits of SHI’s broad partnership network and our incomparable customer-centric approach. With SHI as your partner, you can trust in more meaningful account oversight and a guarantee that we are effectively collaborating with all geographies throughout Texas and with Region 4 ESC at a local level.

Our proposal responds directly to the prompts and requirements within Region 4 ESC request for proposal and validates how SHI is uniquely qualified to receive the position as the preferred supplier for the Total Cloud Solutions and Services proposal. With an engagement plan and customer support services designed to enhance Region 4 ESC’s current productivity and allow for better delivery of services to the staff and students of Region 4 ESC. SHI is poised to provide the Region 4 ESC and its affiliates with business continuity, improved services, and modern innovations. Our success is based on a foundation of customer centricity, accessibility, and consistency. We are pleased to present this proposal to you, and pledge to collaborate with you with integrity, transparency, and success – from products to partnership and at every step along the way.

Demonstratable Success
We thoroughly understand the business nuances, intricacies and contract management requirements articulated within the RFP, and we will ensure continued, determined success. The greatest strength we offer is the profound experience and dedication of our SHI team. We are eager to employ our vision forward to provide continued solutions for identifying and leveraging innovations that benefit all Region 4 ESC, and we’ve included concepts in our response that detail many of those modernizations. SHI is proud of the reputation we have established with our customers as an organization uniquely capable of understanding and addressing their specific ATTACHMENT A 569
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needs and concerns – and the Region 4 Education Service Center will receive devoted attention from our local team members who call Texas home.

Expert Partnership
SHI is committed to providing the most advantageous pricing models and the most exceptional value; we recognize that our role as your partner is to support Region 4 Education Service Center, providing expert best practices to keep your IT resources safe, secure, and operational:
24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As an OEM-neutral partner, we will take pride in helping you optimize your cloud solutions and services investment to create streamlined and efficient processes and aggregate your purchasing power to obtain the best pricing available.

Quality and Commitment
We currently hold several state of Texas and Texas-based cooperative contracts and maintain successful partnerships with customers in every vertical: state government, local government, education (K-12 and higher ed), and healthcare. Through these often-complex contracts, we build connections to partner closely with each entity and dive deeply into the infrastructure, procurement, and regulation obstacles that they face. We provide our customers with complete, end-to-end lifecycle management by combining the abilities of our experienced field sales team, local technical resources, internal presales technical resources, and our widespread partner network.

SHI continues to adapt and grow with the ever-progressing IT industry, ensuring our customers have reliable, consistent, functional hardware and software – and technology services – regardless of circumstance. Now in our 23rd year of business, we specialize in results that are customized to our clients, including providing educational technology, grants support, and services that substantiate the expressed needs and requirements within this RFP. We are committed to providing the Region 4 Education Service Center with comprehensive and complete IT solutions.

At SHI, we measure our success not just by the bottom-line numbers on our spreadsheets, but by the quality of our relationships. We understand that our growing success stems directly from our purpose – to deliver exceptional value and experience as we help customers select, deploy, and ATTACHMENT A 570
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manage their technology. And our passion, which remains focused on forging and nurturing relationships with our customers and with our colleagues and partners, will sustain us for decades to come as an industry leader.
ii. Describe Offeror’s reputation in the marketplace.

SHI Response:

Privately held and under the guidance of its current ownership since 1989, SHI is uniquely qualified to support OMNIA’s goal of locating reliable service partners to support your robust business. We strive with purpose and passion to provide exceptional value and experience as we help customers select, deploy, and manage technology.

We are unique in both our stability and in the tenure of our executive leaders and team members (many of whom have been dedicated to SHI since its inception). SHI Account Executives support their clients locally from over 30 offices throughout the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and Hong Kong; and our AEs work and live in the communities they serve, fostering long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with customers and partners every single day.

SHI is proud of the reputation we have established, particularly in the Public Sector, as an organization uniquely capable of understanding and addressing the specific needs and concerns of the IT community.

And customers benefit from our high-value solutions that are focused on meeting the distinctive requirements of each customer, while always incorporating opportunities for partnership and innovation.

We provide custom technology solutions for every aspect of customers’ IT environment: from software and hardware procurement to deployment planning, configuration, data center optimization, mobility services, IT asset management, and training. We also offer next-generation cloud solutions to help customers accelerate to the cloud in the fastest, most secure, reliable and cost-effective ways possible.

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Our infrastructure and integration services provide top-of-the-line solutions supported by leading manufacturers, publishers, and providers in the industry. iii. Describe Offeror’s reputation of products and services in the marketplace.

SHI Response:

The SHI program management team will be gathering information on the overall services engagement to ensure customer satisfaction, including all necessary statistics on services and customer feedback. We collect and use this information for project status/SLA tracking, lessons learned, and customer satisfaction and experience - all with the intent of continuous improvement. We will collaborate with Apple to develop formal survey questionnaires as well as periodic sampling of the overall customer experience with deployments and all other managed services.

SHI is proud of the reputation we have established with our customers as an organization uniquely capable of understanding and addressing their specific needs and concerns. We accomplish this through a single-minded focus on customer satisfaction: every SHI employee understands that we are here because of our clients and will remain here only as long as we continue to provide extraordinary customer satisfaction.

In addition, we monitor customer satisfaction through two primary vehicles:
• Customer Feedback—SHI encourages our customers to send emails to our Director of Quality, whose email address is included in most customer communications, including the order acknowledgment. The Director of Quality reports all customer feedback to the Top Managers and Department Managers at SHI. As necessary, she will respond to the customer’s comment, will assign a corrective action, and will follow-up with the customer to ensure that the issue has been resolved.
• Customer-specific Satisfaction Surveys—Some SHI customers require that we provide customer satisfaction surveys to their employees. In these instances, SHI creates a customized survey that specific reflects the products and services we provide to that organization.

The Dedicated Account Team is responsible for submitting the surveys and the results are sent directly to the Director of Quality.
iv. Describe the experience and qualification of key employees.

SHI Response:

SHI is proud to present the account team who will be dedicated to Region 4 ESC and OMNIA Partners.

Our primary goal of our field and inside sales teams is to bring value to our customers at every opportunity. Through consistent, transparent communication and providing information on the everevolving facets of the IT industry, our experienced account executives and leadership will be there to support Region 4 ESC every step of the way. Our sales force is divided into two teams:
• Our Field Team comprised of account executives who understand the needs of their communities and who collaborate to streamline and improve IT procurement.

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• Our Inside Team comprised of experts who are dedicated to supporting customers with their daily needs. SHI commits to a collaborative process that is customer centric. We maintain robust, award-winning partnerships with top manufacturers and, in doing so, we can ensure customers get the best products and services, designed specifically for their needs. In fact, our dynamic sales force, software volume licensing experts, hardware procurement specialists, and Certified IT service professionals facilitate not just purchasing, but also strategic evaluation, solutions design, and IT support, always with a specific focus on cost savings for every purchase.

There is no denying Adrienne Pubylski’s dedication to SHI. Beginning as an Inside Sales Rep for SHI in 1996, she transitioned two years later to an Education Account Executive. After 20 years, Adrienne has worked her way to become Public Sector Vice Present of EDU West.

In her current role, Adrienne supports a dynamic group of District Managers who are eager to bring forth technology solutions that address customers' needs in the K12, Higher Education, and Higher Education/Healthcare arenas.

To ensure a world class customer experience, Adrienne leads her team with the priorities of elevating the needs of our customers more than anything else, and leading with integrity, transparency, and honesty.

Adrienne works on covering a variety of perspectives and insights to determine best solutions and works with her team members on building relationships that are mutually beneficial in support of end-users.

Adrienne’s dedication to the education sector as well as to her customers is what truly matters to her: "If we are able to help a school district improve the lives of the students that they support, that is tremendously rewarding."
Adrienne Publyski
Vice President, EDU West
Public Sector Field Sales,
West EDU
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Calling Austin, Texas home for the last 24 years, Adrienne appreciates spending time with her family— especially her nephews, and friends who are a part of her “chosen” family.

To learn more about Adrienne, to view her complete resume, or to connect with her, visit her on LinkedIn.

The South Texas Education branch retains one of SHI’s top district sales managers—Dakota Haines. He leads a team of Account Executives who help SHI’s education customers select, deploy, and manage technology in a world that is constantly changing. No one can possibly be an expert in all the facets that touch IT, but Dakota and his team help SHI customers bridge the gap in knowledge by connecting and using resources.

Dakota began his career at SHI as an Inside Account Executive at the corporate office in Austin, Texas.

After just a few years of hard work and dedication to SHI customers, he moved into the education vertical as an Account Executive. After two years, he moved into an AE role covering larger, local government accounts in Austin and West Texas for three years before moving back into the education vertical as a district sales manager.

Dakota was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and to this day, could not imagine himself living anywhere else. Along with his unrivaled love for the city of Austin comes a responsibility to support his community.

At the start of 2020, Dakota helped alleviate issues around remote access and device shortages in the city of Austin.

To connect with Dakota, or to view his resume, please visit him on LinkedIn.

With more than 12 years in the Public Sector, Amelia
Jakubczyk has been helping her customers understand
contracts and has built lasting connections with them. SHI’s culture allows this to happen naturally to the point where Amelia says her customers feel “more like friends.” Joining SHI in 2009, she quickly gained experience and expertise as an Account Executive for Arizona and Nevada SLED and
spent nearly a decade supporting state and local
governments. Now, Amelia takes on her newest role as the Senior Manager of Capture and Strategy, where she is confident that she has what it takes to build relationships with her customers and “find a path forward.” When she’s not working, Amelia can be found exploring outdoors in her home state of Colorado. There, she and her family enjoy biking, hiking, skiing, paddle boarding, and “getting off the grid” in their travel trailer to camp.

To learn more about Amelia, or to view her resume, connect with her on LinkedIn.

Dakota Haines
District Sales Manager
Public Sector
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Lisa Spurr is constantly seeking opportunities to learn and grow. She appreciates that SHI values its employees and fosters these opportunities, which is what first attracted her to the company. In fact, it’s that attitude that sets SHI apart for her and “the way people are really helpful and want to do the right thing for our customers and each other.”
Lisa has been in the technology industry for over 15 years, but in her current role at SHI as an Account Executive, her focus is on our education customers. She is responsible for understanding her customer’s business objectives, priorities, and initiatives so she can align their needs with SHI’s products, solutions, and capabilities. Lisa says she feels most rewarded when she is able to solve her customer’s problems by prioritizing their individual goals and maximizing company resources.

Residing in the Woodlands, Texas, Lisa enjoys the family-friendly atmosphere of the Houston suburb and can often be found walking and bike riding with her family.

To learn more about Lisa or to view her full resume, connect with her on LinkedIn.

Jaye Romo joined the SHI family in 2020, coming from a
nearly 30-year IT career across EMC, Datalink, Presidio, and US Signal. Given his depth of experience and detailed
knowledge of the solutions SHI can provide, Jaye leverages his aptitude for logical problem solving to see challenges from opposing points of view to find an innovative and effective solution.

In his current role as Account Executive, Jaye manages the State of Illinois and Cook County. As a resident of Greater Chicago, Jaye is quick to point out that it is not just government he serves, but their clients – the residents of the State of Illinois and Cook County.

To learn more about Jaye and connect with him, check out his LinkedIn. v. Describe Offeror’s experience working with the government sector.

SHI Response:

The Government Affairs (G.A.) team is a value-add, internal resource designed to empower the OMNIA Account Team to deliver meaningful and exceptional outcomes. With deep and diverse government knowledge and acumen, the team of Government Affairs professionals helps facilitate grant acquisition and federal funding. It leverages its vast network of I.T. leaders to benefit your end-users and communities, facilitate grants acquisition and federal funding for higher education, and leverages their vast network of IT leaders to benefit your end-users and communities.

Led by Michael Esolda, a former CTO whose career was built upon Professional Development for Teachers and Professional Services for Staff, the Government Affairs team engages with partner organizations to monitor policy trends at all levels of government; attends influential IT industry conferences, collaborates with consultants to identify opportunities; and helps with special, customized projects designed to add value for government customers.

Lisa Spurr
Account Executive
Public Sector
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Existing as part of Government Affairs, our Educational Affairs team focuses solely on how technology enhances learning and provides equitable environments for all students and educators. Since 2020, four areas have emerged as vital to a successful learning community:
• Hybrid learning
• Immersive technologies
• esports
• Cybersecurity
With the massive implementation of hybrid learning, the increased use of immersive technologies, and the growing recognition of esports’ benefits, comes an influx of new devices that need to be managed – and a growing need for cybersecurity. Technology and education are more inextricable than ever before – and that’s not going to change any time soon. Our Educational Affairs team can help OMNIA stay ahead of emerging technologies. Working in tandem with our Professional Training team, we bring tremendous value and support to your initiatives.

Working symbiotically, your SHI Account and Government Affairs Teams will ensure that customers learning environments are transformative; collaborative; protected, and optimized. Our Solutions Specialists augment our strategic teams – including our Professional Training Team – and integrate value with every aspect of your procured technology. For more detailed information on this team, please visit SHI Customer Services.
vi. Describe how your company will assist in educating customers on the distinct difference of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings and responsibilities.

SHI Response:

In collaboration with the specific manufacturer or partner, your Field Solutions Engineers are dedicated to the Public Sector and geographically spread across the country, this team’s mission is to help customers choose exactly the right technology solutions. FSEs are tightly aligned with our Account Executives to bring maximum value to our customers. This dedicated team is unique in the Public Sector Value-Added Reseller space, and our FSEs help customers compare competing software products and provide valuable technical insights on choosing the right solution for each unique organization. FSEs consult with customers, often helping them to avoid erroneous or superfluous costs. Additionally, they consider organizational skill sets, compatibility with current environment, redundancy, alignment with objectives, and total cost of ownership – all through a vendor-neutral lens. As a specific example, in the ATTACHMENT A 576
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last 12 months, our FSE team and our other sales teams have sourced over 2,000 different manufacturers’ products.
vii. Describe past litigation, bankruptcy, reorganization, state investigations of entity or current officers and directors.

SHI Response:

Within the last five years, SHI has not been involved in any investigations or litigation, whether civil or criminal, that are material to its business or financial condition or that pertained to failures in its business relationships, and no such investigation or litigation is currently pending.

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REFERENCES
viii. Provide a minimum of 5 customer references relating to the products and services within this RFP within the past three (3) years. References should include at least one customer who is:
a) Using a Microsoft Azure Solution
b) Using an Amazon Web Solution (AWS) Solution
c) Academic/education leveraging a cloud solution
d) Using a PaaS solution
e) Has purchased an IaaS solution
f) Provide any other significant information about your company that is relevant to demonstrating your experience in the cloud marketplace
Include entity name, contact name and title, contact phone and email, city, state, years serviced, description of services and annual volume.

SHI Response:

Reference 1:
• Entity name: State of Florida
• Contact name: Tony Abid
• Contact title: Senior Systems Engineer
• Contact email: [email protected]
• City, State: Tallahassee, Florida
• Years serviced: 8 Years
• Description of services: Microsoft, Symantec, VMware Contracts • Annual volume: Approximately $45 million in cloud sales in the last 2 years Reference 2:
• Entity name: State of Alabama
• Contact name: Roy Case
• Contact phone: 334-206-7000
• Contact email: [email protected]
• City, State: Montgomery, Alabama
• Years serviced: 5 Years
• Description of services: Microsoft, Symantec, VMware Contracts • Annual volume: Approximately $15 million in cloud sales in the last 2 years ATTACHMENT A 578
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Reference 3:
• Entity name: City of Baltimore
• Contact name: Eric Wildberger
• Contact title: Sr. IT Project Manager
• Contact email: [email protected]
• City, State: Baltimore, Maryland
• Years serviced: 2 Years
• Description of services: AWS
• Annual volume: Approximately $12 thousand in cloud sales in the last 2 years Reference 4:
• Entity name: Commonwealth of Kentucky Office of Technology • Contact name: Cody Taylor
• Contact phone: 502-584-9879
• Contact email: [email protected]
• City, State: Frankfort, Kentucky
• Years serviced: 9 Years
• Description of services: Microsoft Azure
• Annual volume: Quarterly Billing: $31,648 Office 365 Users:
29000
Reference 5:
• Entity name: Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Education (KETS) • Contact name: Melissa Moore
• Contact phone: 502-564-2020
• Contact email: [email protected]
• Description of services: Microsoft Azure
• Annual volume: Quarterly Billing: $32,751 Office 365 Users: 1,250,000 ix. Provide any additional information relevant to this section.

SHI Response:

Not Applicable.

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TAB 5 – VALUE ADD

2.d) Value Add
i. Provide any additional information related to products and services Offeror proposes to enhance and add value to the Contract.

SHI Response:

With our extensive experience administering cloud solutions and services contracts, we are confident that we will exceed the requirements of this request. We take pride in our ability to administer to the maximum benefit of the contract users.

When we enter into an agreement of this magnitude, we take great care to implement support and service plans to meet the needs of each contract user. SHI serves as an advocate for the organizations and endusers that Region 4 ESC ultimately serves.

Following are some of the initiatives that SHI takes to maximize the value to all contract users.

Managed Services
Staying on top of technology trends has become increasingly expensive. With our deep understanding of cloud deployment, together with our expertise in cloud-based IT infrastructure, we can design unique solutions that make technology your trusted investment.

Let SHI help your organization—
• Transition to a cloud environment or extend the value of existing IT investment. • Scale out quickly and affordably by running apps and workloads in the cloud. • Boost productivity and collaboration with SharePoint Online. • Work with full versions of Microsoft Office anytime, anywhere, and on virtually any device with Office 365.
• Implement flexible, affordable data backup and disaster recovery solutions by taking advantage of cloud services like Microsoft Azure.
• Safeguard organizational data by integrating enterprise identity management solutions like Active Directory with cloud services.

Security Planning Services
SHI will provide services within a Microsoft Azure Cloud environment to protect against spyware and malware, data interception, identity theft, viruses, and hacking attempts. Standard best practices for security are given priority importance, to include the following:
• Acceptance of industry/organizational standards
• System development and maintenance
• Organizational continuity planning
• Compliance and governance
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SHI One Overview
The SHI One Management Platform is a portal for customers to manage both cloud and IT services bought through SHI. It gives customers a centralized place to track and manage their public clouds, allowing them to spend less time struggling with reports, management, and support, and more time on strategic initiatives to drive their business forward.

SHI One enables customers to perform the following self-services on a single platform:

User Management
Control who can access SHI One by adding, editing, and removing users, assigning their security groups, and granting different levels of user permissions.

Team Management
Control which teams can access which contracts and submit technical, billing, or account management tickets.

Invoice History
All Amazon Web Service (AWS), Azure Cloud Service Provider (CSP), and O365 CSP basic, professional, and managed customers can view and send invoices to the requested contact on file.

AWS Account View
Accessed within the SHI One portal, the AWS Account View allows companies to view their AWS Accounts that are resold through SHI, including the level of support provided by SHI and provided by AWS. As an added benefit, Region 4 ESC can view all AWS accounts managed and resold by SHI via a single dashboard. Additionally, you can track the service levels with SHI and associated service levels with AWS.

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AWS Reporting
AWS Reporting provides views of AWS consumption by hour, day, week, or month.

Benefits—
• View up to 12 months of consumption data
• Group by multiple options, including custom perspectives that SHI can help configure • Export to excel
Azure Account View
Accessed within the SHI One portal, the Azure Account View provides a view of Azure consumption by hour, day, week, or month.

Benefits—
• View up to 12 months of consumption data
• Group by multiple options including custom perspectives that SHI can help configure • Export to excel
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Monitoring
The Monitoring Dashboard shows any alerts in AWS Accounts and Azure Subscriptions, as well as an overview of any alerts within AWS Accounts and Azure Subscriptions, enabling the user to see a list of alerts and drill down further into the alert itself.

O365 Account View
Accessed within the SHI One portal, the O365 Account View allows companies to view their Office 365 subscriptions that are resold through SHI’s Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Program, including the level of support provided by SHI. As an added benefit, Region 4 ESC can view all Office 365 subscriptions managed by SHI under the CSP program via a single dashboard. Additionally, you can track the technical support service level purchased with SHI.

O365 Backup as a Service
The O365 Backup as a Service is a self-service cloud backup solution that protects a company from data loss and enables the customer to restore deleted or corrupted data quickly and easily.

Benefits—
• Customer self-service through the click of a button
• Search for and restore lost data in seconds
• Choose which accounts to back up
• Unlimited back-up
• Digital statement of work (SOW) speeds up the onboarding process • Cloud-to-cloud backup on Azure – nothing on-premises
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Customer Innovation Center
SHI recently established our Customer Innovation Center (CIC) as a vehicle for emerging technologies, advancing industry standards, and – as the name denotes – customer innovations. As part of the CIC, representatives from Region 4 ESC can see, touch, and observe software in both our Showcase Lab, where we house equipment and technology from a wide range of OEMs, and within our Software and Sandbox Lab, where customers can engage with hardware and software specifically designed for use in particular settings like a classroom, administrative office, or data center.

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TAB 6 – APPENDIX C - ADDITIONAL

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
Please see the following pages for the completed forms. • Doc #1 Acknowledgment and Acceptance of Region 4 ESC’s Open Records Policy • Doc #2 Antitrust Certification Statement (Tex. Government Code § 2155.005) • Doc #3 Implementation of House Bill 1295 Certificate of Interested Parties (Form 1295) • Doc #4 Texas Government Code 2270 Verification Form
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Doc #1 Region 4 ESC’s Open Records Policy
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Doc #2 Antitrust Certification Statement (Tex. Government Code § 2155.005)
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Doc #3 Implementation of House Bill 1295 Certificate of Interested Parties (Form 1295)
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Doc #4 Texas Government Code 2270 Verification Form
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SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS

ADDENDUM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SHI acknowledges the following addendums:
• Addendum 1
• Addendum 2
• Addendum 3
• Addendum 4
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AWS PARTNER PACKAGE
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“This document is provided for informational purposes only. It represents AWS’s current product offerings and practices as of the date of issue of this document and is subject to change. Customers are responsible for making their own independent assessment of the information in this document and any use of AWS’s products or services.

This document does not create any warranties, representations, contractual commitments, conditions or assurances from AWS, its affiliates, suppliers or licensors. The responsibilities and liabilities of AWS to its customers are controlled by AWS agreements, and this document is not part of, nor does it modify, any agreement between AWS and its customers. For current prices for AWS services, please refer to the AWS website at www.aws.amazon.com.” Amazon Web Services Partner Package – US
State and Local Government, and Education
Q1 2022
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Table of Contents

1.0 AWS Overview ..................................................................................................... 1

2.0 Benefits of Working with the AWS Partner Network (APN) .................................. 4

2.1 Benefits of APN for Customers .......................................................................... 4

3.0 Benefits of Cloud Computing................................................................................ 5

4.0 Shared Responsibility Model ................................................................................ 7

4.1 Shared Controls for Security and Compliance ................................................... 8

4.2 Data Privacy and Ownership.............................................................................. 8

4.3 Customer Control of Data Residency................................................................. 9

5.0 Services Overview.............................................................................................. 10

5.1 Compute Services............................................................................................ 12

5.2 Storage Services.............................................................................................. 12

5.3 Database Services ........................................................................................... 12

5.4 Analytics Services ............................................................................................ 12

5.5 Networking and Content Delivery Services ...................................................... 13

5.6 Migration and Transfer Services ...................................................................... 13

5.7 Management and Governance Services .......................................................... 13

5.8 Security, Identity, and Compliance Services .................................................... 14

5.9 Developer Tools ............................................................................................... 14

5.10 Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Services ................................... 14

5.11 IoT Services.................................................................................................. 14

5.12 Mobile Services ............................................................................................ 15

5.13 Call Center Services ..................................................................................... 15

5.14 Hybrid Services............................................................................................. 15

5.15 AWS Marketplace ......................................................................................... 15

5.16 Other Services .............................................................................................. 15

6.0 AWS Cloud Infrastructure................................................................................... 15

6.1 Data Center Physical Location......................................................................... 16

6.2 Data Center Audits........................................................................................... 17

6.3 Data Center Virtual Tours ................................................................................ 17

6.4 Data Center Security........................................................................................ 18

7.0 Automatically Scaling your Resources ............................................................... 19

7.1 Scaling ............................................................................................................. 19

7.2 Load Balancing ................................................................................................ 19

7.3 Monitoring and Alarms ..................................................................................... 20

8.0 Architecting for High Availability and Reliability .................................................. 22

8.1 AWS Responsibility: Data Center Availability and Reliability............................ 22

8.2 Customer Responsibility: Designing for Availability and Reliability .................. 22

8.3 Service Level Agreements ............................................................................... 23

8.4 Resources and Reference Architecture ........................................................... 23

9.0 Building Secure Solutions on AWS..................................................................... 25 ATTACHMENT A 593
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9.1 Granting and Managing Account Access ......................................................... 25

9.1.1 IAM Users.................................................................................................. 25

9.1.2 IAM Groups ............................................................................................... 26

9.1.3 IAM Roles .................................................................................................. 26

9.1.4 Identity Federation..................................................................................... 26

9.1.5 Setting Granular Permissions .................................................................... 26

9.1.6 Temporary Security Credentials ................................................................ 27

9.2 Tools for Logical Separation............................................................................. 27

9.3 Tools for Encryption ......................................................................................... 27

9.3.1 Protecting Data at Rest.............................................................................. 28

9.3.2 Protecting Data in Transit .......................................................................... 28

9.4 Automating your Security and Compliance ...................................................... 28

9.5 Penetration Testing .......................................................................................... 28

9.6 Data Breaches ................................................................................................. 28

9.7 Security for New AWS Software....................................................................... 29

10.0 AWS Training and Certification........................................................................... 29

10.1.1 Digital and Classroom Training .............................................................. 31

10.1.2 AWS Certification ................................................................................... 31

11.0 Achieving Compliance on AWS.......................................................................... 31

11.1 Certifications/Attestations ............................................................................. 33

11.1.1 Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)...... 33

11.1.2 Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)................................... 34

11.1.3 International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2015............ 34

11.1.4 ISO/IEC 27001:2013 .............................................................................. 35

11.1.5 ISO/IEC 27017:2015 .............................................................................. 35

11.1.6 ISO/IEC 27018:2019 .............................................................................. 36

11.1.7 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)................... 36

11.1.8 System and Organization Control (SOC) Reports.................................. 37

11.2 Laws/Regulations/Privacy............................................................................. 39

11.2.1 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)............................. 39

11.2.2 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)/ Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH)......... 40

11.2.2.1 AWS and HIPAA ................................................................................ 40

11.2.2.2 HIPAA for APN Partners .................................................................... 40

11.2.3 Internal Revenue Service Publication 1075 (IRS Pub 1075).................. 41

11.2.4 Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)/Section 508.............. 41

11.2.4.1 AWS and VPAT/Section 508.............................................................. 41

11.2.4.2 VPAT/Section 508 for APN Partners .................................................. 41

11.3 Alignments/Frameworks ............................................................................... 42

11.3.1 Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) ......................................... 42 ATTACHMENT A 594
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11.3.1.1 AWS and CJIS ................................................................................... 42

11.3.1.2 CJIS for APN Partners ....................................................................... 43

11.3.2 Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)................................................................ 43

11.3.2.1 AWS and CSA.................................................................................... 43

11.3.2.2 CSA for APN Partners........................................................................ 43

11.3.3 Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)........................ 44

11.3.4 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 ............. 44

11.3.4.1 AWS and NIST 800-53....................................................................... 44

11.3.4.2 NIST 800-53 for APN Partners........................................................... 44

11.3.5 Uptime Institute Tiers ............................................................................. 45

11.3.5.1 AWS and Uptime Institute Tiers ......................................................... 45

11.3.5.2 Uptime Institute Tiers for APN Partners ............................................. 46

12.0 Managing your AWS Resources......................................................................... 46

12.1 AWS Management Console.......................................................................... 46

12.2 Command Line Interface (CLI)...................................................................... 47

12.3 AWS Developer Tools................................................................................... 47

12.4 Management Tools ....................................................................................... 47

13.0 Back-up and Disaster Recovery (DR)................................................................. 48

13.1 Backup and Restore ..................................................................................... 50

13.2 Pilot Light for Simple Recovery into AWS Warm Standby Solution .............. 51

13.3 Warm Standby Solution in AWS ................................................................... 51

13.4 Multi-Site Solution Deployed on AWS and Onsite ........................................ 51

14.0 Security Questionnaires ..................................................................................... 52

15.0 AWS Public Sector Access Policy – Instructions................................................ 53

16.0 Industry Analyst Reports on AWS Market Position............................................. 54 AWS Resources............................................................................................................ 56 AWS Overview........................................................................................................... 56 AWS Solutions........................................................................................................... 56 AWS Products and Services...................................................................................... 56 AWS in the Public Sector........................................................................................... 56 AWS Partner Community........................................................................................... 56 AWS Professional Services ....................................................................................... 56 AWS Pricing .............................................................................................................. 56 AWS Billing................................................................................................................ 57 AWS Security and Compliance.................................................................................. 57 AWS Support............................................................................................................. 57 AWS Training and Best Practices.............................................................................. 57 Industry Analysis........................................................................................................ 57 AWS Case Studies .................................................................................................... 57 Procurement .............................................................................................................. 57 Legal.......................................................................................................................... 57 Additional Resources................................................................................................. 57 ATTACHMENT A 595
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AWS Whitepapers ..................................................................................................... 58 ATTACHMENT A 596
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Tables and Figures
Table 1– Benefits of the Cloud ........................................................................................ 5 Table 2 – Summary of AWS Assurance Programs ....................................................... 32 Table 3 – AWS SOC Reports........................................................................................ 38 Figure 1 – AWS Shared Responsibility Model................................................................. 7 Figure 2 – AWS Depth and Breadth of Services ........................................................... 11 Figure 3 – Map of AWS Regions and Availability Zones in the US ............................... 16 Figure 4 – Regions and Availability Zones .................................................................... 16 Figure 5 – Auto Scaling with Elastic Load Balancing and Amazon CloudWatch alarms21 Figure 6 – Fault Tolerant AWS Reference Architecture ................................................ 24 Figure 7 – Phases of Learning Continuum.................................................................... 30 Figure 8 – Features of AWS Training and Certification Delivery ................................... 30 Figure 9 – RPO and RTO.............................................................................................. 50 Figure 10 – Spectrum of DR Options ............................................................................ 50 Figure 11 – 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services ........................................................................................................................ 55 ATTACHMENT A 597
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How to Use this Document
This document contains information on the most frequently requested proposal topics from our Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Partners. Please reach out to your proposal manager if you need additional information to meet specific request for proposal/quotation/tender, etc. (RFx) requirements.

The content in this document is intended as informational material regarding AWS Cloud services that may be used to inform your responses to particular RFxs from your public sector customers. While AWS encourages you to rely on the Partner Package content to help you formulate your response, you may not attach the Partner Package to your response or copy and paste Partner Package content into your response without prior consent from AWS. Graphics or images may be copied and pasted into your response as long as: (1) clear and appropriate attribution is given to AWS or the third party source of such images and (2) such images are copied in their entirety and without modification.

AWS is not a party to any contract resulting from a proposal or tender. As it relates to your RFx response, AWS is a supplier—not a subcontractor—and we are not submitting a joint response or co-drafting a project scope. Your response must be on your letterhead and in your voice. AWS cannot write your response—or any part of your response—on your behalf.

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1.0 AWS Overview
Amazon has a long history of using a decentralized IT infrastructure. After over a decade of building and running the highly scalable e-commerce website Amazon.com, the company realized that it had developed a core competency in operating massive scale technology infrastructure and data centers. Amazon then embarked on a much broader mission of serving a new customer segment—developers and businesses— with web services customers can use to build sophisticated, scalable applications.

Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform.

Since our inception in 2006, AWS has been an innovator in cloud computing, making over 200 services available to customers. AWS reduces the time and effort required to run existing workloads and provides access to powerful new analytics capabilities, all while meeting the security and privacy requirements that our customers expect. We also work to release new products to customers quickly, then rapidly iterate and improve on those products based on customer feedback. Our continual innovation helps healthcare customers maintain state-of-the-art IT infrastructure without having to make recapitalization investments. AWS currently supports an almost limitless variety of workloads for millions of customers worldwide.

1.1 State and Local Government and Education
The AWS Cloud is uniquely positioned to provide scalable, cost-efficient solutions to the state and local public sector and educational institutions, whether through open data initiatives, public safety modernization, education reform, citizen service improvements, or infrastructure programs. AWS Cloud services can be employed to meet mandates, reduce costs, drive efficiencies, and increase innovation. Over 7,500 government agencies, over 14,000 academic institutions, and over 35,000 nonprofit organizations around the world are already using AWS to address a diverse set of use cases. In addition, 96 percent of R1 Research Institutions are using AWS, and 19 of the top 20 most well-funded U.S. Education Technology startups are using AWS.

What makes AWS a leader for Internet of Things (IoT) for smart cities and digital government? AWS has been named a leader in worldwide applications platforms for smart cities according to the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IoT Applications Platforms for Smart Cities 2019–2020 Vendor Assessment (doc # US43580918, January 2020). The report assessed the market landscape on IoT applications platforms for enabling smart cities.

According to the IDC MarketScape report, “Given the breadth of solutions and products offered and the interoperability with third-party developers and apps, AWS is a powerful platform for cities capable of handling this rapid pace of innovation and needed custom development work, and AWS offers relative ease for communities to scale for additional functionalities after initial deployment.” ATTACHMENT A 599
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1.2 What You Can Do with AWS
With AWS, you can programmatically provision, monitor, and automate all the components of your cloud environment. AWS offers more than 175 fully featured services, including compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, IoT, mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality, media, and application development, deployment, and management—all of which are listed at AWS Cloud Products. This makes it faster, easier, and more cost effective to move your existing applications to the cloud and build nearly anything you can imagine.

AWS offerings can be developed and managed by a range of programming languages, governance tools, networking services, and application augmentation services that integrate with other AWS Cloud services. These supporting components have multiple interfaces to AWS application programming interface (API)-based services, including software development kits (SDKs), integrated development environment (IDE) toolkits, and command line tools. AWS tools and features enable you to maintain consistent controls without restricting development velocity.

The following are some of the inventive ways in which the state and local government and educational institutions can use AWS.

1.2.1 State and Local Government
• Health and human services (HHS) agencies can use big data analytics and machine learning on AWS to leverage the information they already have to make well-informed, more confident decisions by building connections that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.
• Justice and public safety customers can use AWS to help them tackle public safety data needs like records management systems, body worn camera solutions, and next generation 911 technology.
• Digital government solutions on AWS can span open data initiatives, traffic analysis, citizen service improvements, and IoT-based smart city projects, such as early flood warning systems, predictive analytics for road maintenance, and efficient trash pickup.
• Elections administrators, political campaigns, and civic organizations can leverage AWS to provide underlying elections infrastructure in a secure, costeffective, and scalable way. • Local governments can create data lakes to connect disparate homeless management information system data, potentially revealing patterns that can help care providers rapidly create and tune interventions to the unique needs of groups experiencing homelessness.
• AWS offers a business continuity solution called CloudEndure Disaster Recovery that minimizes downtime and data loss by providing fast, reliable, cloud-based disaster recovery. The solution continuously replicates applications from physical, virtual, or cloud-based infrastructure to a low-cost staging area that is automatically provisioned in any target AWS Region of choice.

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1.2.2 Support for Remote Work and Learning
• Government agencies and educational institutions can quickly set up a cloudbased contact center with Amazon Connect for IT helpdesks and other departments needing to provide inbound and outbound support. • If you need to deliver personal cloud desktops to support remote work scenarios, you can use Amazon WorkSpaces to provision either Windows or Linux desktops in just a few minutes and quickly scale to provide thousands of desktops to users, anywhere.
• If you need to virtualize computer lab spaces to support online distance learning, you can centrally manage desktops and applications on Amazon AppStream 2.0 and securely deliver them to any computer using a web browser.

1.2.3 Education
• K12 and Primary Education can use AWS for data center migration, student data and analytics, and streamlining district IT operations, among other use cases. • Higher Education Institutions can support on-demand campus-wide IT management, easily deploy big data solutions, reduce their overall IT costs, and accelerate their research timelines by focusing on science rather than infrastructure.
• Join AWS Educate to access online learning modules for cloud computing to your students and virtual cloud labs to your faculty at no cost. • EdTechs can use AWS to build and launch solutions that help students learn, with the flexibility and agility needed to experiment.

1.3 Resources for Supporting Customers during COVID-19
AWS provides highly scalable and reliable infrastructure capacity, technical support, and AWS Cloud services to help customers with their research, remote work and learning, and other solutions to address their needs and the effects this is having on communities and businesses. The following are resources that may be helpful to you as you support customers during the pandemic:

AWS-Wide Resources:
• AWS Initiatives and Response to COVID-19
Healthcare Resources:
• Getting Started with a Healthcare Data Lake
• Using Machine Learning to Support Healthcare during a Pandemic • Building Multilingual SMS Chatbot Campaigns to Support COVID-19 Patients Remotely
Local Government:
• Using the Cloud to Help Labor, Workforce, and Human Services Agencies Cope with Increased Demand for Services
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• How to Use AWS Tools to Build a Data-Driven Return-to-Work Strategy Education and Research:
• How to Build a Chatbot for your School in Less than an Hour • Resources for Researchers and Institutions to Work Remotely • Advice and Resources for Transitioning to Remote Learning, from the AWS Educate Community

2.0 Benefits of Working with the AWS Partner Network
(APN)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) recommends the AWS Partner Network (APN) for managed services. APN provides an extensive community of partner companies that offer solutions in areas such as value-added software, developer tools, and consulting expertise to help deploy and manage mission-critical workloads in the AWS Cloud. The APN program provides technical, business, and marketing support for this growing partner community.
• APN Consulting Partners: APN Consulting Partners are professional services firms that help customers design, architect, build, migrate, and manage workloads and applications on the AWS Cloud. APN Consulting Partners include System Integrators (SIs), strategic consultancies, agencies, Managed Service Providers (MSPs), and Value-Added Resellers (VARs).
• APN Technology Partners: In addition to consulting services, customers can work with APN Technology Partners that provide software solutions that are either hosted on, or integrated with, the AWS Cloud. APN Technology Partners include Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and vendors for Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), developer tools, management, and security.

APN has tens of thousands of partners from all across the globe, including partners with solutions and experience in delivering government, education, and nonprofit customer missions around the world. AWS has added more than 35,000 new APN Partners since January 2016. More information on APN, along with a directory of AWS partners, can be found on the AWS Partner Network page.

2.1 Benefits of APN for Customers
Many of our customers work in tandem with APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners in order to leverage their experience in areas such as value-added software, established business applications, developer tools, and consulting expertise.

APN provides access to qualified partners that resell AWS Cloud services and/or provide technical services to design, architect, build, migrate, and manage workloads and applications on AWS.

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APN Partners receive several benefits that distinguish them from other vendors and provide them with resources that assist their customers:
• APN Partners have access to training, service information, certifications, and other resources that help them to be experts in the AWS Cloud. These resources, often provided at a discount to qualifying partners, help APN Partners be more competent and confident in the solutions they offer to customers. • APN Partners have a direct line of access to AWS corporate resources – such as business developers, engineers, Solutions Architects, and more – to help build and enhance solutions that work the best for their customers. This level of support is not normally available to vendors and companies that do not participate in APN.
• APN Partners can attain AWS Competencies based on their specialization in key AWS solution areas. Attainment of an AWS Competency, which requires meeting or exceeding several requirements and passing a rigorous third-party audit of capabilities, is a public indication of the APN Partner’s ability to excel in an area of expertise. The AWS Public Sector Partner Program includes partners with solutions and experience in delivering on a combination of government, education, and non-profit customer missions around the world. • AWS offers the Solution Provider Program – designed for systems integrators, managed service providers, value-added resellers, and other public sector partners – to resell AWS Services as part of a differentiated solution. Under this program, Authorized Solution Providers manage, service, support, and bill AWS accounts for end customers.

The Solution Provider Program includes a tiered discount structure based on technical capabilities and success in driving a new business. It includes flexible contracting options to help meet unique end customer requirements, and it provides partners with multiple AWS Support models that align with most AWS partner practices.

Visit the Engage with AWS Partners page to learn more about customer success stories with APN Partners, learn more about APN Partner specialties, and search for APN Partners by service, industry, workload, or solution. The APN Journal page provides additional information on how APN Partners are helping customers achieve success in the AWS Cloud.

3.0 Benefits of Cloud Computing
Table 1 highlights the benefits of cloud computing, many of which are unique to the AWS Cloud.

Table 1– Benefits of the Cloud
Benefit of
Cloud Benefit to Customers
Access to more
functionality
Cloud computing gives you access a to broad selection of services that make it easier, faster, and more cost-effective to migrate your existing apps to the cloud and build nearly anything you could imagine. AWS has developed the broadest ATTACHMENT A 603
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Scalable
applications
Rather than sitting on expensive idle resources or dealing with limited capacity, with cloud computing you can access as much or as little as you need and scale up and down as required with only a few minutes’ notice. You can also design your applications to automatically and rapidly scale resources (and costs) up or down based on the actual demands on the system.

Increased speed
and agility
In a cloud computing environment, new IT resources are only a click away, which means you reduce the time it takes to make those resources available to your developers from weeks to just minutes. This results in a dramatic increase in agility for the organization, since the cost and time it takes to experiment and develop is significantly lower. You also have continual access to the newest resources and services to keep your organization on the leading edge.

Parallel fleets Many customers need to create pre-production, beta, and testing fleets to ensure the quality of their application at each stage of the development lifecycle. These parallel fleets are not always used optimally: expensive hardware may sit unused for long periods of time. In the cloud, you can provision testing fleets as you need them and simulate user traffic during load testing. You can also use parallel fleets as a staging environment for a new production release, enabling quick switchover from current production to a new application version with little or no service outages.

Increased pace
of innovation
Since our inception, AWS has been an innovator in defining cloud computing by working to get new products to customers quickly, then rapidly iterating and improving on those products based on customer feedback. Our continual innovation helps customers maintain state-of-the-art IT infrastructure without having to make recapitalization investments.

Massive
economies of
scale
AWS’s global footprint, efficiencies from automation, and economies of scale allow us to pass savings to you on a continuous basis. We continually focus on reducing our data center hardware costs, improving our operational efficiencies, lowering our power consumption, and passing savings back to customers. As of March 15, 2021, we have reduced prices 107 times since AWS launched in 2006. Additionally, we provide multiple pricing options that can save you 90% from on-demand rates if you choose to pre-purchase capacity or make use of spare capacity.

Minimal
downtime
Cloud computing allows you to easily deploy applications across the country (or even the world), providing higher availability, lower latency, and a better experience at minimal cost. Our infrastructure is designed for physical redundancy and provides resilience, enabling uninterrupted performance, even in the event of power outages, internet downtime, floods, and other natural disasters. AWS currently has 6 geographic Regions and 22 Availability Zones throughout the United States.

Information on each Region can be found at AWS Global Infrastructure.

Security and
compliance
AWS customers obtain greater security in the cloud than is available in traditional data centers. The AWS Cloud infrastructure has been designed and managed in alignment with many regulations, standards, and industry best practices, and AWS manages over 2,500 security controls. AWS is under a constant state of audit to comply with multiple risk management and compliance regimes, all of which are described on the AWS Compliance page. AWS also offers a suite of services to help you manage security and compliance, including access control, encryption, and threat detection.

Auditability The message-based interoperability of web services allows customer configuration and use of AWS products to be uniformly logged, monitored, and audited. AWS ATTACHMENT A 604
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CloudTrail, for example, allows you to log, continuously monitor, and retain account activity related to actions across your AWS infrastructure—making it easier for you to demonstrate compliance with policies or regulatory standards.

Focus on core
competencies
The ultimate benefit of the cloud is that customers can spend less time on undifferentiated tasks and more time focusing on the core competencies that add value to their organizations.

4.0 Shared Responsibility Model
Because our customers build systems on top of AWS Cloud infrastructure, security and compliance responsibilities are shared between AWS and the customer. This shared responsibility model can help relieve customers’ operational burden as AWS operates, manages, and controls the components from the host operating system and virtualization layer down to the physical security of the facilities in which the service operates. Customers—and in some cases, our AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners who work with those customers—control how they architect and secure their applications and data put on the AWS Cloud. AWS provides a wide array of security and compliance services, and customers should carefully consider the services used, integration of those services into their IT environment, and applicable laws and regulations. AWS’s shared responsibility/security model is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – AWS Shared Responsibility Model
This differentiation of responsibility is commonly referred to as security of the cloud versus security in the cloud.
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Cloud. This infrastructure is composed of the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run AWS Cloud services.
• Customer/APN Partner Responsibility (Security in the Cloud) – Customers/APN Partners assume responsibility and management of the guest operating system (including updates and security patches); other associated application software; configuration of the AWS-provided security group firewalls; and other security, change management, and logging features.

AWS’s shared responsibility model is further explained on the AWS Compliance webpage.

4.1 Shared Controls for Security and Compliance
Some controls apply to both the infrastructure layer (AWS responsibility) and customer layers (customer/APN Partner responsibility), but in completely separate contexts or perspectives. In a shared control, AWS provides the requirements for the infrastructure, and the customer/APN Partner must provide their own control implementation within their use of AWS Cloud services. Examples of these shared controls include the following:
• Patch Management – AWS is responsible for patching and fixing flaws within the infrastructure, but customers/APN Partners are responsible for patching their guest operating systems and applications.
• Configuration Management – AWS maintains the configuration of its infrastructure devices, but customers/APN Partners are responsible for configuring their own guest operating systems, databases, and applications. • Awareness and Training – AWS trains AWS employees, but customer/APN Partners must train their own employees.

For example, services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) are categorized as infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and, as such, require the customer to perform all of the necessary security configuration and management tasks.

If a customer deploys an Amazon EC2 instance, they are responsible for management of the guest operating system (including updates and security patches), any application software or utilities installed by the customer on the instances, and the configuration of the AWS-provided firewall (called a security group) on each instance.

4.2 Data Privacy and Ownership
As a customer, you maintain ownership of your content, and you select which AWS Cloud services can process, store, and host your content. We do not access or use your content for any purpose without your consent. AWS gives you ownership and control over your content through simple, powerful tools that allow you to determine where your content will be stored, secure your content in transit and at rest, and manage your access to AWS Cloud services and resources for your users. We also implement responsible and sophisticated technical and physical controls that are designed to prevent unauthorized access to or disclosure of your content.

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Four basic guidelines of data privacy and ownership on AWS include the following:
• Access – As a customer, you manage access to your content and user access to AWS Cloud services and resources. We provide an advanced set of access, encryption, and logging features to help you do this effectively (such as AWS CloudTrail). We do not access or use your content for any purpose without your consent. Customer virtual instances are solely controlled by the customer who has full root access or administrative control over accounts, services, and applications.

AWS personnel do not have the ability to log into customer instances. We never use your content or derive information from it for marketing or advertising. • Geographical Location of Data – You choose the AWS Region(s) in which your content is stored. We do not move or replicate your content outside of your chosen AWS Region(s) without your consent, except as legally required and as necessary to maintain the AWS Cloud services.
• Security – You choose how your content is secured, including via tokenization, data decomposition, cyber detection, and encryption. We have developed a security assurance program that uses best practices for global privacy and data protection to help you operate securely within AWS, and to make the best use of our security control environment. These security protections and control processes are independently validated by multiple third-party independent assessments. We also offer you strong encryption for your content in transit and at rest, and we provide you with the option to manage your own encryption keys. • Disclosure of Customer Content – We do not disclose customer content unless we’re required to do so to comply with the law, or with a valid and binding order of a governmental or regulatory body. Unless we are prohibited from doing so or there is clear indication of illegal conduct in connection with the use of Amazon products or services, Amazon notifies customers before disclosing customer content so they can seek protection from disclosure. Additional information can be found in our latest transparency report and our Amazon Law Enforcement Guidelines.

4.3 Customer Control of Data Residency
Some customers mandate data residency—the requirement that all customer content processed and stored in an IT system remain within specific geographical borders.

However, regardless of the physical location, if IT systems are in any way connected to the internet (or other multi-party networks)—even indirectly—they are at considerable risk. In fact, most vulnerabilities are exploited remotely. In addition, manual processes present risk for human error, and insider threats prevail as a significant risk regardless of the data’s physical location. Real world examples have shown that storing data on your own servers, in your own datacenter, in your own country, is by no means an adequate basis for securing your data.

AWS data centers are secure by design based on our physical and environmental controls. Both Gartner and IDC concluded that the security posture of major cloud service providers (CSPs) is equal to or better than the best enterprise data centers, and ATTACHMENT A 607
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Although data residency does not inherently mean stronger security, it is possible for customers to adhere to these regulations on AWS. Customers own their data and choose the Region(s) in which they store their data. AWS does not access customer data without their consent, and their data does not move unless the customer decides to move it. It is therefore possible for a customer to benefit from our inherited physical and environmental controls while still keeping their data within the United States. In addition, customers can build hybrid cloud architectures that integrate their on-premises and cloud operations for use cases such as data center extension and edge computing.

Read more in our Data Residency policy perspectives whitepaper and Hybrid Cloud with AWS page.

5.0 Services Overview
AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any cloud workload. We now have more than 200 fully featured services, with several highlighted in the following subsections and depicted in Figure 2. In addition, our AWS Documentation page provides user guides, developer guides, API references, and tutorials to help our customers and APN Partners get started on AWS and learn more about each of our services. You can also watch videos or read through AWS reference architectures and architecture whitepapers at AWS Architecture Center. Further, you can visit the AWS This is My Architecture web page for innovative cloud architectures from customers and APN Partners.

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Figure 2 – AWS Depth and Breadth of Services
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5.1 Compute Services
AWS offers a comprehensive portfolio of compute services, allowing you to develop, deploy, run, and scale your applications and workloads. Our compute services range from virtual machines and servers with Amazon EC2 and Amazon Lightsail, to containers with Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and AWS Fargate, to serverless with AWS Lambda, and more.

Did you know?
80% of all containerized applications running in the cloud run on AWS.

5.2 Storage Services
AWS offers a complete range of cloud storage services to support both application and archival compliance requirements. Select from object, file, and block storage services— like Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS), Amazon FSx, and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)—and archive, backup, and hybrid storage— like Amazon S3 Glacier, AWS Backup, and AWS Storage Gateway.

Did you know?
• Amazon S3 is designed for 99.999999999% (11 9's) of durability, and stores data for millions of applications for companies all around the world.

5.3 Database Services
AWS offers fully managed database services such as relational databases for transactional applications (Amazon Aurora and Amazon Relational Database Service [Amazon RDS]), non-relational databases for internet-scale applications (Amazon DynamoDB), a data warehouse for analytics (Amazon Redshift), an in-memory data store for caching and real-time workloads (Amazon ElastiCache), a graph database for building applications with highly connected data (Amazon Neptune), a time series database for measuring changes over time (Amazon Timestream), a document database (Amazon DocumentDB), a wide column store (Amazon Managed Apache Cassandra Service), and a ledger database to maintain a complete and verifiable record of transactions (Amazon Quantum Ledger Database [Amazon QLDB]).

Did you know?
• On September 30, 2019, Amazon’s Consumer business turned off its final Oracle database after migrating nearly 7,500 databases and 75 petabytes of data across hundreds of items to AWS database services.
• Amazon Aurora is the fastest growing service in the history of AWS. Tens of thousands of AWS customers use Amazon Aurora for their relational databases.

5.4 Analytics Services
Each analytic service AWS provides is purpose-built for a wide range of analytics use cases such as interactive analysis (Amazon Athena), big data processing using Apache Spark and Hadoop (Amazon EMR), data warehousing (Amazon Redshift), real-time analytics (Amazon Kinesis), operational analytics (Amazon OpenSearch Service), data ATTACHMENT A 610
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Did you know?
AWS hosts more than 10,000 of data lakes.

5.5 Networking and Content Delivery Services
AWS networking and content delivery services enable you to isolate your cloud infrastructure with Amazon VPC, scale your request handling capacity with Elastic Load Balancing, and connect your physical network to your private virtual network with AWS Direct Connect. We also offer a secure global content delivery network (CDN) with Amazon CloudFront and a scalable cloud Domain Name Service (DNS) with Amazon Route 53.

To build a network for microservices architectures, AWS enables customers to application-level networking for containers and microservices (AWS App Mesh), create, maintain, and secure APIs at any scale (Amazon API Gateway), and discover AWS Cloud services connected to your applications (AWS Cloud Map).

5.6 Migration and Transfer Services
Whether you are migrating a server, database, or raw data into the AWS Cloud, AWS offers a suite of tools to help you with your migration. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) helps you migrate databases while the source database remains fully operational. The AWS Snow Family of devices helps you to physically transport up to exabytes of data into and out of the AWS Cloud. To help track your migration, AWS Migration Hub provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations across multiple AWS solutions. In addition, AWS Application Discovery Service helps you plan migration projects by gathering information about your on-premises data centers. Migration Evaluator delivers accurate data-driven recommendations to rightsize and right-cost compute. AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) allows you to quickly realize the benefits of migrating applications to the cloud without changes and with minimal downtime.

Did you know?
More than 450,000 databases have been migrated using AWS DMS.

5.7 Management and Governance Services
AWS provides a set of management tools that allows you to programmatically provision, monitor, and automate all the components of your cloud environment. Using these tools, you can maintain consistent controls without restricting development velocity. AWS provides four kinds of management tools that work together and are integrated with the AWS platform. These tools include provisioning tools such as AWS Control Tower and AWS CloudFormation, operations management tools such as AWS Systems Manager, monitoring and logging tools such as Amazon CloudWatch, configuration management services such as AWS Config and AWS OpsWorks, monitoring and auditing tools such as Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail, and more.

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Did you know?
• Amazon CloudWatch monitors more than 1 quadrillion (or 1000 trillion) metric observations per month, with over 1 million customers using the service weekly.

5.8 Security, Identity, and Compliance Services
AWS provides security tools and services that can help you every step of the way to ensure understanding of and transition to a secure cloud, from encryption with AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to threat detection with Amazon GuardDuty to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection with AWS Shield. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) allows customers to have granular control over access to your services. Furthermore, Amazon Macie can help you discover, classify, and protect your most sensitive data.

5.9 Developer Tools
The AWS Developer Tools is a set of services designed to enable developers and IT operations professionals practicing DevOps to rapidly and safely deliver software.

Together, these services help you securely store and version control your application’s source code and automatically build, test, and deploy your application to AWS or your on-premises environment.

5.10 Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Services AWS offers pre-trained AI services for computer vision (Amazon Rekognition), language (Amazon Polly, Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Textract, Amazon Translate, Amazon Transcribe, and Amazon Lex), recommendations (Amazon Personalize), and forecasting (Amazon Forecast), with several more in preview. AI services easily integrate with your applications to address common use cases such as personalized recommendations, modernizing your contact center, improving safety and security, and increasing customer engagement. In addition, Amazon SageMaker helps you to quickly build, train and deploy machine learning models at scale.

Amazon SageMaker removes the heavy lifting from each step of the machine learning process to make it easier to develop high quality models. SageMaker provides all of the components used for machine learning in a single toolset so models get to production faster with much less effort and at lower cost. SageMaker includes features specific to the various stages of ML model development and launch: Collect and Prepare, Build, Train and Tune, and Deploy.

Did you know?
Amazon SageMaker provides Managed Spot Training to help you to reduce training costs by up to 90%.

5.11 IoT Services
AWS IoT provides broad and deep functionality and brings together data management and rich analytics so that you can build IoT solutions for virtually any use case across a wide range of devices. Our device software (FreeRTOS and AWS IoT Greengrass) ATTACHMENT A 612
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Finally, our data services (AWS IoT Analytics, AWS IoT Events, and AWS IoT SiteWise) help you extract value from IoT data.

5.12 Mobile Services
AWS offers a suite of services for building and deploying mobile applications, including AWS Amplify for provisioning and managing backends for your mobile applications, AWS Device Farm for app testing, and Amazon Pinpoint for customer engagement.

5.13 Call Center Services
Amazon Connect provides a seamless omnichannel experience through a single unified contact center for voice and chat.

5.14 Hybrid Services
AWS offers hybrid cloud services that can help you integrate a mix of cloud, onpremises data centers, and edge locations. VMware Cloud on AWS is an integrated cloud offering jointly developed by AWS and VMware that allows organizations to seamlessly migrate and extend their on-premises VMware vSphere-based environments to the AWS Cloud. AWS Outposts is a hybrid cloud solution that brings the AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, management tools, and support to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility.

5.15 AWS Marketplace
AWS Marketplace is an online store that helps customers find, buy, and immediately start using the software and services they need to build products and run their businesses. More than 310,000 active customers are using software from AWS Marketplace, which offers 50 categories from more than 1,600 independent software vendors.

5.16 Other Services
In addition to the types of services listed above, AWS also offers services for application integration, desktop apps, blockchain, quantum technologies, media streaming, satellite, robotics, AR/VR, game development, and more.

6.0 AWS Cloud Infrastructure
Our AWS Cloud infrastructure allows customers to build solutions that are more highly available, fault tolerant, and scalable than would be possible with a single data center.

This is because the AWS Cloud infrastructure is built around Regions and Availability Zones. A Region is a physical location in the world where we have multiple Availability ATTACHMENT A 613
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Zones. Availability Zones consist of one or more discrete data centers, each with redundant power, networking, and connectivity and housed in separate facilities.

AWS currently has 6 Regions and 22 Availability Zones in the United States (see Figure 3). Information on each Region can be found at the AWS Global Infrastructure page. The AWS products and services that are available in each region are listed at the AWS Regional Services webpage.

Figure 3 – Map of AWS Regions and Availability Zones in the US Figure 4 illustrates the relationship between regions and Availability Zones.

Figure 4 – Regions and Availability Zones

6.1 Data Center Physical Location
AWS does not disclose the exact location of data centers and does not allow data center access to customers, as this exposes a wide range of customers to physical access of a third party. To meet this customer need, an independent and competent ATTACHMENT A 614
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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. auditor validates the presence and operation of controls as part of our System and Organization Controls (SOC 1) Type 2 report. This broadly accepted third-party validation provides customers with the independent perspective of the effectiveness of controls in place. AWS customers that have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with AWS may request a copy of the SOC 1 Type 2 report.

6.2 Data Center Audits
Instead of allowing customers to perform physical audits, AWS has an independent third party perform audits of its data centers. These audits are conducted in accordance with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA): AT 801 (formerly Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements [SSAE] 16), and International Standards for Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3402 professional standards.

The auditors produce a SOC 1 Type 2 report in connection with the audit. Independent reviews of data center physical security are also part of an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 audit, a Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) assessment, and an International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) audit.

Our rigorous attention to auditing provides peace of mind to our customers. Much as a customer trusts a bank based on reputation and regulation by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), our customers trust the independent third party audits described above. It is widely accepted that such accrediting organizations are competent and qualified to assure customer confidence and acceptance without a personal inspection and accreditation—or customers having to hire their own accreditor.

To help you fulfill your own audit and regulatory requirements, we detail our controls on our website.

6.3 Data Center Virtual Tours
You can take a virtual tour of our data centers. The following provides a list of each data center layer with a link to a virtual tour for each one. • Perimeter Layer – AWS data center physical security begins at the Perimeter Layer. This layer includes a number of security features depending on the location, such as security guards, fencing, security feeds, intrusion detection technology, and other security measures.
• Infrastructure Layer – The Infrastructure Layer is the data center building and the equipment and systems that keep it running. Components like back-up power equipment, the HVAC system, and fire suppression equipment are all part of the Infrastructure Layer. These devices and systems help protect servers and ultimately your data.
• Data Layer – The Data Layer is the most critical point of protection because it is the only area that holds customer data. Protection begins by restricting access ATTACHMENT A 615
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• Environmental Layer – The Environmental Layer is dedicated to environmental considerations from site selection and construction to operations and sustainability. AWS carefully chooses our data center locations to mitigate environmental risk such as flooding, extreme weather, and seismic activity.

6.4 Data Center Security
AWS’s data centers are state of the art, using innovative architectural and engineering approaches. Amazon has many years of experience in designing, constructing, and operating large-scale data centers. This experience has been applied to the AWS Cloud. The following subsections address some of our customers’ frequently asked questions about our data center security.
• Physical and Environmental Security – AWS data centers are housed in nondescript facilities for anonymity. Physical access is strictly controlled at both the perimeter and at building ingress points by professional security staff using video surveillance, intrusion detection systems, and other electronic means.

Authorized staff must pass two-factor authentication a minimum of two times to access data center floors. All visitors and contractors are required to present identification and are signed in and continually escorted by authorized staff. AWS only provides data center access and information to employees and contractors who have a legitimate business need for such privileges. When an employee no longer has a business need for these privileges, his or her access is immediately revoked, even if they continue to be an employee of Amazon or AWS. All physical access to data centers by AWS employees is logged and audited. • Fire Detection and Suppression – Automatic fire detection and suppression equipment has been installed to reduce risk. The fire detection system utilizes smoke detection sensors in all data center environments, mechanical and electrical infrastructure spaces, chiller rooms and generator equipment rooms.

These areas are protected by either wet-pipe, double-interlocked pre-action, or gaseous sprinkler systems.
• Power – The data center electrical power systems are designed to be fully redundant and maintainable without impact to operations 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units provide backup power in the event of an electrical failure for critical and essential loads in the facility. Data centers use generators to provide backup power for the entire facility. • Climate and Temperature – Climate control is required to maintain a constant operating temperature for servers and other hardware, which prevents overheating and reduces the possibility of service outages. Data centers are conditioned to maintain atmospheric conditions at optimal levels. Personnel and systems monitor and control temperature and humidity at appropriate levels. • Physical Plant Management – AWS monitors electrical, mechanical, and life support systems and equipment so that any issues are immediately identified.

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Preventative maintenance is performed to maintain the continued operability of equipment.
• Storage Device Decommissioning – As part of AWS’s storage decommissioning process, when a storage device has reached the end of its useful life, AWS procedures include a decommissioning process that is designed to prevent customer data from being exposed to unauthorized individuals. AWS uses the techniques detailed in National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-88 (Guidelines for Media Sanitization) as part of the decommissioning process.

AWS will provide the SOC 1 Type 2 report to customers under NDA. The AWS Security Center provides up-to-date information on AWS audits by independent third-party auditors.

7.0 Automatically Scaling your Resources
To be confident that your infrastructure can handle a spike in traffic, you can use AWS Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing to automatically scale your AWS cloud-based resources up to meet unexpected demand, and then scale those resources down as demand decreases. While AWS Auto Scaling adjusts capacity for multiple resources, Elastic Load Balancing distributes incoming application traffic across targets such as Amazon EC2 instances and containers.

7.1 Scaling
AWS Auto Scaling monitors your applications and automatically adjusts capacity to maintain steady, predictable performance at the lowest possible cost. The service provides a user interface that lets you build scaling plans for resources including Amazon EC2 instances and Spot Fleets, Amazon ECS tasks, Amazon DynamoDB tables and indexes, and Amazon Aurora Replicas.

Auto Scaling maintains the number of instances that you specify by performing periodic health checks on the instances in the group. If an instance becomes unhealthy, the group terminates the unhealthy instance and launches another instance to replace it.

Auto Scaling policies can be used to automatically increase or decrease the number of running Amazon EC2 instances in a group of servers to meet changing conditions.

When the scaling policy is in effect, the Auto Scaling group adjusts the desired capacity of the group and launches or terminates the instances as needed, either dynamically or on a schedule if there is a known and predictable ebb and flow of traffic.

7.2 Load Balancing
Elastic Load Balancing automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses, and AWS Lambda functions. It can handle the varying load of your application traffic in a single Availability Zone or across multiple Availability Zones. When combined with Auto Scaling, ATTACHMENT A 617
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Elastic Load Balancing offers three types of load balancers that all feature the high availability, automatic scaling, and robust security necessary to make your applications fault tolerant:
• Application Load Balancer – Best suited for load balancing of HTTP and HTTPS traffic
• Network Load Balancer – Best suited for load balancing of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) traffic where extreme performance is required • Classic Load Balancer – Best suited for applications that were built within the Amazon EC2-Classic network

7.3 Monitoring and Alarms
Customers can use Amazon CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, and set alarms. Customers can architect their solutions so that Amazon CloudWatch’s metrics and alarms can work together with Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing to dynamically deploy new instances on-demand, as depicted in Figure 5. This type of automation takes some of the administrative burden off of the customer and allows the infrastructure to manage itself on-the-fly.

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Figure 5 – Auto Scaling with Elastic Load Balancing and Amazon CloudWatch alarms ATTACHMENT A 619
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8.0 Architecting for High Availability and Reliability
Availability and reliability are shared responsibilities between AWS and the APN Partner/customer. AWS is responsible for ensuring that our services are continuously available and that we are prepared to handle a wide range of events that could affect our infrastructure. You are responsible for designing, deploying, and testing your applications on AWS to achieve the availability and resiliency you need, including for mission-critical applications that require almost no downtime. The following subsections further detail AWS and customer responsibilities for availability and reliability.

8.1 AWS Responsibility: Data Center Availability and Reliability AWS builds to guard against outages and incidents, and we account for them in the design of our services—so when disruptions do occur, their impact on customers and the continuity of services is as minimal as possible.

To minimize disruptions, AWS employs compartmentalization. We have multiple constructs that provide different levels of independent, redundant components. For example, our Regions are isolated from each other, meaning that a disruption in one Region does not result in disruption in other Regions. Our Availability Zones are physically separated and isolated, and they are built with highly redundant networking to withstand local disruptions. AWS also leverages a concept known as cell-based architecture, by which resources and requests are partitioned into “cells” that are designed to be independent of each other. This design minimizes the chance that a disruption in one cell—for example, one subset of customers—would disrupt other cells.

Additionally, although the likelihood of large-scale incidents is very low, AWS is prepared to manage them should they occur. We maintain a series of incident response plans covering both common and uncommon events, and we update them regularly to incorporate lessons learned and prepare for emerging threats.

8.2 Customer Responsibility: Designing for Availability and Reliability
While AWS goes to great lengths to provide availability and reliability of the cloud, our customers share responsibility for ensuring availability and reliability within the cloud.

Some best practices we recommend for building highly resilient systems on the AWS Cloud include the following:
• Design for Failure – It is best practice to architect across multiple AZs in the same Region to achieve extremely high Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), and service availability. For mission-critical applications, it is best practice to architect across Regions to handle the rare case of an entire Region failing—perhaps as a result of a major physical attack. • Automate Failover and Recovery – You can use AWS Auto Scaling to monitor your applications and automatically adjust capacity to maintain the optimal level to satisfy demand without over- or under-provisioning. You can also use AWS ATTACHMENT A 620
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Personal Health Dashboard, which provides alerts and remediation guidance when AWS is experiencing events that may impact you. AWS Personal Health Dashboard can integrate with Amazon CloudWatch Events, enabling you to build custom rules and select targets such as AWS Lambda functions to define automated remediation actions.
• Test your Recovery Procedures – You can use a test environment to simulate different failures or to recreate scenarios that led to failures before. This exposes failure pathways that you can test and fix before a real failure scenario, reducing the risk of components that have not been tested before failing.

8.3 Service Level Agreements
AWS provides Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that apply to customer use of specific services. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of AWS Cloud service offerings, our SLAs are best reviewed directly on our website here.

8.4 Resources and Reference Architecture
Building Fault-Tolerant Applications on AWS is a great introduction to achieving high availability in the cloud. In addition, the AWS Well-Architected Framework codifies the experiences of thousands of customers, helping customers assess and improve their cloud-based architectures and mitigate disruptions. Our Reliability Pillar whitepaper provides guidance to help you apply best practices to achieve reliability.

In addition, the AWS Architecture Center is designed to provide customers with the necessary guidance and application architecture best practices to build highly scalable and reliable applications in the AWS Cloud. These resources provide architectural guidance for design and implementation of systems that run on the AWS infrastructure.

Figure 6 provides a reference architecture for fault tolerance and high availability.

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Figure 6 – Fault Tolerant AWS Reference Architecture
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9.0 Building Secure Solutions on AWS
AWS manages over 1,800 security controls to provide a secure environment for our customers. The AWS virtual infrastructure is designed to provide optimum availability while ensuring customer security, privacy, and segregation. AWS’s highly secure data centers use state-of-the-art electronic surveillance and multi-factor access control systems and maintain strict, least-privileged-based access authorizations. Our environmental systems are designed to minimize the impact of disruptions to operations, and our multiple Regions and Availability Zones allow customers to remain resilient in the face of most failure modes. AWS Regions are connected to multiple internet service providers (ISPs) as well as to a private global network backbone, which provides lower cost and more consistent cross-region network latency when compared with the public internet.

Remember that security is a shared responsibility between AWS and the APN Partner/customer, as discussed in Section 4.0. While AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud, APN Partners/customers control how they architect and secure their applications and data on the AWS Cloud. In addition, AWS provides security documentation that shows you how to configure AWS services to meet your security and compliance objectives.

The following subsections provide further information on some of our most-inquiredabout aspects of security. You can find more detail about security and responsibilities in our Overview of Security Processes whitepaper and AWS Security Best Practices, and by visiting the AWS Cloud Security and AWS Security Documentation pages.

9.1 Granting and Managing Account Access
Identity and access management are key parts of an information security program, ensuring that only authorized and authenticated users are able to access your resources, and only in a manner that you intend. Using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), you can create and manage AWS users and groups, assign them security credentials (e.g., access keys, passwords, and multi-factor authentication [MFA] devices), and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources.

You can also request temporary security credentials for users who only require shortterm access.

9.1.1 IAM Users
An IAM user is an entity that you create in AWS. The IAM user represents the person or service who uses the IAM user to interact with AWS. A user in AWS consists of a name, a password to sign into the AWS Management Console, and up to two access keys that can be used with the API or CLI.

When you create an IAM user, you grant it permissions either by making it a member of a group that has appropriate permission policies attached (recommended) or by directly attaching policies to the user. You can also clone the permissions of an existing IAM ATTACHMENT A 623
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A root user is a single sign-in identity that has complete access to all AWS Cloud services and resources in the account. It is a security best practice to not use your root account because of its complete access. Instead, create individual users and grant them each the minimum amount of privilege necessary, which is known as least privilege. Note that all users have zero privileges by default. You can manage users’ privilege by individual user or by groups.

9.1.2 IAM Groups
An IAM user group is a collection of IAM users. You can use groups to specify permissions for a collection of users, which can make those permissions easier to manage for those users. For example, you could have a group called Admins and give that group the types of permissions that administrators typically need. Any user in that group automatically has the permissions that are assigned to the group. Note that a group is not truly an identity because it cannot be identified as a Principal in a resourcebased or trust policy. It is only a way to attach policies to multiple users at one time.

9.1.3 IAM Roles
An IAM role is very similar to a user, in that it is an identity with permission policies that determine what the identity can and cannot do in AWS. However, a role does not have any credentials (password or access keys) associated with it. Instead of being uniquely associated with one person, a role is intended to be assumable by anyone who needs it.

An IAM user can assume a role to temporarily take on different permissions for a specific task. A role can be assigned to a federated user who signs in by using an external identity provider instead of IAM. AWS uses details passed by the identity provider to determine which role is mapped to the federated user.

9.1.4 Identity Federation
With federation, you can use single sign-on (SSO) to access your AWS accounts using credentials from your corporate directory. Federation uses open standards such as Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0 (SAML) to exchange identity and security information between an identity provider and an application.

9.1.5 Setting Granular Permissions
Access control policies are attached to users, groups, and roles to assign permissions to AWS resources. By default, IAM users, groups, and roles have no permissions; users with sufficient permissions must use a policy to grant the desired permissions.

Using policies, you can specify several layers of permission granularity. First, you can define specific AWS service actions you wish to allow or explicitly deny access to.

Second, depending on the action, you can define specific AWS resources the actions can be performed on. Third, you can define conditions to specify when the policy is in effect (for example, if MFA is enabled or not).

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9.1.6 Temporary Security Credentials
You can use the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to create and provide trusted users with temporary security credentials that can control access to your AWS resources. Temporary security credentials are short-term and are not stored with the user; rather, they are generated dynamically and provided to the user when requested.

9.2 Tools for Logical Separation
AWS Cloud services and features that provide logical separation are enough to meet most security requirements, despite legacy requirements for physical separation.

Amazon VPC, for example, allows you to define and provision your own logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud. Amazon VPC provides a networking layer for Amazon EC2, a service that provides compute capacity within the AWS Cloud. Your VPC is logically separated from other virtual networks on the AWS Cloud, and it allows you to launch your resources into an IP address range that you determine.

Within your VPC, you can create subnets, each with an associated route table. You can configure these route tables to control network traffic. You can attach an internet gateway to your VPC, allowing your Amazon EC2 instances to communicate with the public internet. You can also create private subnets that only allow your Amazon EC2 instances to communicate with each other. Our Amazon VPC User Guide provides several example scenarios for building both public and private subnets.

In addition, AWS offers services like VPC Peering, AWS Transit Gateway, and AWS PrivateLink, which allow your VPCs to communicate with each other and with your other services on the AWS Cloud both securely and privately.

9.3 Tools for Encryption
All AWS Cloud services that store customer data offer the ability to encrypt that data. By defining an encryption approach, you can provide protection for your content against unauthorized users and against unnecessary exposure to authorized users. The combination of AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and AWS CloudHSM is the centerpiece of a rigorous encryption solution.

AWS KMS helps you manage encryption keys and integrates with many AWS Cloud services. This service provides durable, secure, and redundant storage for your master keys. You can define your key aliases as well as key-level policies. The policies help you define key administrators as well as key users. For example, a secret management system can be the only system that has access to the master key that encrypts the secrets for storage.

AWS CloudHSM is a cloud-based hardware security module (HSM) that enables you to easily generate and use your own encryption keys on the AWS Cloud. It helps you meet corporate, contractual, and regulatory compliance requirements for data security by using Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 3 validated HSMs.

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9.3.1 Protecting Data at Rest
Multiple AWS Cloud services provide built-in integration with AWS KMS to allow easy encryption of your data. Amazon S3 allows you to encrypt content by selecting a KMS key on object upload. Amazon EBS allows you to choose a KMS key to encrypt a block storage volume or Amazon Machine Image (AMI) copy operation. Amazon RDS allows you to choose an encryption key for encrypting DB instance storage at rest (including backup snapshots).

You also have the option of implementing your own encryption-at-rest approach. For example, you can encrypt content before storing in an AWS Cloud service. Amazon S3 provides you the facility to upload an already encrypted object. It also provides the ability for you to upload an object along with an encryption key that’s used in-memory to encrypt an object. To retrieve the object, you must supply the same key.

9.3.2 Protecting Data in Transit
When protecting your data in transit, selecting secure protocols that implement the latest in cryptography standards such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a common best practice. AWS Cloud services provide HTTPS endpoints using TLS for communication, thus providing encryption in transit when communicating with the AWS APIs. You have full control over your computing resources to implement encryption in transit across your services. Additionally, the AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) service provides you the ability to manage and deploy public and private certificates for your workloads. You can also leverage virtual private network (VPN) connectivity into your VPC or across your VPCs to facilitate encryption of traffic.

9.4 Automating your Security and Compliance
AWS offers a variety of security tools that you can use to secure the applications you build on the AWS Cloud, from AWS CloudTrail and AWS CloudWatch for logging and monitoring, to Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection, to AWS Shield for DDoS protection.

Our Security, Identity, and Compliance on AWS page provides a more complete listing and details on the myriad services we offer. Customers can use these tools—and the tools of our APN Partners—to automate security.

9.5 Penetration Testing
AWS customers are responsible for all scanning, penetration testing, file integrity monitoring, and intrusion detection for their Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon RDS databases, and various other applications. (Refer to the Penetration Testing page for terms of service regarding penetration testing.) Penetration tests should include customer IP addresses and not AWS endpoints. AWS endpoints are tested as part of AWS compliance vulnerability scans.

9.6 Data Breaches
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• Use encryption to secure your data.
• Configure your AWS Cloud services to keep your data secure. AWS provides information on how to secure your resources in our security documentation. • Implement least privilege permissions for access to your resources and data. • Use monitoring tools like Amazon CloudWatch to track when your data is accessed and by whom.
• Review AWS Best Practices for Security, Identity, and Compliance page for additional information on how to protect against and detect security breaches.

APN Partners/customers are responsible for reporting incidents involving customer storage, virtual machines, and applications (for more information, refer to our Vulnerability Reporting page). AWS maintains the AWS Security Bulletins webpage to notify customers of security and privacy events affecting AWS Cloud services.

Customers can subscribe to the Security Bulletin RSS Feed to keep abreast of security announcements on the Security Bulletin webpage. The customer support team maintains a Service Health Dashboard webpage to alert customers to any broadly impacting availability issues.

9.7 Security for New AWS Software
AWS Cloud services in production are managed in a manner that preserves their confidentiality, integrity, and availability. AWS has implemented secure software development procedures that are followed to ensure appropriate security controls are incorporated into the application design. As part of the application design process, new applications must participate in an AWS Security review, including registering the application, initiating the application risk classification, participating in the architecture review and threat modeling, performing code review, and performing a penetration test.

10.0 AWS Training and Certification
AWS Training & Certification offers the cloud skills enablement resources that government entities need to modernize their agencies, create a culture of innovation, and attract, develop, and retain cloud talent. We help your staff build cloud computing capabilities and the confidence to solve complex challenges, better serve your constituents, and achieve your mission.

Our approach to workforce development embraces three building blocks that constitute this learning continuum: Learn, Explore, and Apply. Each phase can be customized to optimize the learning path for your organization’s growth. We illustrate each of these phases in Figure 7 below.

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Figure 7 – Phases of Learning Continuum
AWS Training and Certification offers a no-cost self-assessment survey known as the Learning Needs Analysis (LNA), used to identify AWS skill gaps and recommends organizational and individual training plans to address these gaps. The result is faster AWS skills acquisition and optimization of training investments.

The LNA maximizes resources by ensuring investments in training are applied to the most relevant areas. The LNA is a two-step process:

1. Complete the self-assessment survey. Individuals in the organization complete a self-assessment, which measures cloud knowledge and skill across multiple functional areas. The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

2. Review skills gaps and training plans. AWS identifies skill gaps and generates training plans based on survey results.

Once you complete the LNA, AWS Training Experts, Specialists, and Solution Architects can customize training, workshops, and deep dives specialized for your industry. We then support delivery of our customized offerings both digitally and onsite.

Figure 8 below illustrates features of AWS Training and Certification delivery.

Figure 8 – Features of AWS Training and Certification Delivery Benefits of AWS Training and Certification include:

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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. • Achieve your cloud adoption goals sooner: Comprehensively trained organizations are faster to adopt cloud, compared to customers who did not have a comprehensive training program. This helps you bring your projects forward, getting to market faster, driving revenue faster, and helping you capitalize on AWS cost-savings faster.
• Performance and operations: International Data Corporation (IDC) published a whitepaper titled, Train to Accelerate Your Cloud Strategy, which asserted that comprehensively trained organizations were 4.4x1 more likely to overcome operational and performance concerns. This will help you get your team on board with your cloud initiatives. This means less time spent on stakeholder alignment, and more time on innovation and business growth.
• Improve employee productivity: IDC’s whitepaper also found that decisions makers within comprehensively trained organizations are 4.7x1 more likely to agree cloud can improve IT staff productivity. Training can help your team be more productive using the cloud.

10.1.1 Digital and Classroom Training
We offer free AWS Digital Training, in-depth AWS Classroom Training, and private onsite training so you can learn when and where it’s convenient for you:
• Free Digital Training – Over 500 on-demand digital courses that help you learn new cloud skills and services when and where it’s convenient for you, at no cost. • Classroom Training – Live classes delivered virtually or in person by accredited AWS instructors who teach you in-demand cloud skills and best practices using a mix of presentations, discussion, and hands-on labs.
• Private Onsite Training –In-person (or virtual) classes with accredited AWS instructors who teach in-depth AWS Cloud skills in a private environment that brings the classroom to you and allows hands-on learning.

10.1.2 AWS Certification
AWS Certification validates cloud expertise to help professionals highlight in-demand skills and organizations build effective, innovative teams for cloud initiatives using AWS.

You can choose from diverse certification exams by role and specialty designed to empower you and your team to meet your unique goals.

11.0 Achieving Compliance on AWS
A properly-secured environment results in a compliant environment. AWS has many compliance-enabling features that you can use for your regulated workloads in the AWS Cloud. By using AWS, you get the benefit of the many security controls that we operate, 1 Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by AWS, Train to Accelerate Your Cloud Strategy, October 2017 ATTACHMENT A 629
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Compliance is a shared responsibility between you and AWS. We demonstrate our compliance posture to help you verify compliance with industry and government requirements. We engage with external certifying bodies and independent auditors to provide you with detailed information regarding the policies, processes, and controls we establish and operate. You can use this information to perform your control evaluation and verification procedures as required under the applicable compliance standard. You can also incorporate the information that we provide about our risk and compliance program into your own compliance framework. We use thousands of security controls to monitor that we maintain compliance with global standards and best practices.

We categorize the AWS assurance programs into three groups:
• Certifications/Attestations
• Laws/Regulations/Privacy
• Alignments/Frameworks
Table 2 provides an overview of these categories, and the following subsections provide additional detail on the programs that our APN Partners most frequently ask about for the US state, local, and education market.

Table 2 – Summary of AWS Assurance Programs
Certifications/Attestations Laws/Regulations/Privacy Alignments/Frameworks C5
CMMC
Cyber Essentials Plus
DoD SRG
ENS High
FedRAMP
FINMA
FIPS
GSMA
HDS
IRAP
ISMAP
ISO 9001
ISO 27001
ISO 27017
ISO 27018
K-ISMS
MTCS Tier 3
OSPAR
PCI DSS Level 1
SEC Rule 17-a-4(f)
SOC 1
SOC 2
SOC 3
CLOUD Act
HIPAA
IRS 1075
ITAR
SEC Rule 17a-4(f)
VPAT/Section 508
CJIS
CSA
EU-US Privacy Shield
FISC
FISMA
G-Cloud
GxP (FDA CFR 21 Part 11)

HITRUST
MPAA
NIST
Uptime Institute Tiers
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TISAX

11.1 Certifications/Attestations
Certifications and attestations are performed by a third-party independent auditor. Our certifications, audit reports, and attestations of compliance are based on the results of the auditor’s work. Below are the most frequently requested certifications in the US state, local, and education market. The full list of certifications and attestations can be found at https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/.

11.1.1 Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) FedRAMP is a US government-wide program that delivers a standard approach to the security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. The governing bodies of FedRAMP include the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), US General Services Administration (GSA), US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), US Department of Defense (DoD), National Institutes of Standards & Technology (NIST), and the Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council.

Cloud services providers (CSPs) like AWS who want to offer their products and services to the US government must demonstrate FedRAMP compliance. FedRAMP uses the NIST Special Publication 800 series and requires CSPs to receive an independent security assessment conducted by a third-party assessment organization (3PAO) to ensure that authorizations are compliant with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).

There are two paths for CSPs to be FedRAMP compliant:
• Joint Authorization Board (JAB) Authorization – To receive FedRAMP JAB Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO), a CSP is reviewed by the FedRAMP Program Management Office (PMO), is assessed by a FedRAMP-accredited 3PAO, and receives a P-ATO from the JAB. The JAB is made up of the CIOs from DoD, DHS, and GSA.
• Agency Authorization – To receive FedRAMP Agency Authority to Operate (ATO), a CSP is reviewed by a customer Agency CIO or Delegated Authorizing Official(s) to achieve a FedRAMP-compliant ATO that is verified by the FedRAMP PMO.

AWS and FedRAMP
AWS offers the following FedRAMP compliant systems that have been granted authorizations:
• AWS GovCloud (US), which has been granted a JAB P-ATO and multiple ATOs for high impact level. The services in scope of the AWS GovCloud (US) JAB PATO boundary at high baseline security categorization can be found within the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program.

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FedRAMP for APN Partners
APN Partners and prospective customers can request access to the AWS APN Partner FedRAMP Security Package using AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA, and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.

11.1.2 Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)
The FIPS Publication 140-2 is a US government standard that specifies the security requirements for cryptographic modules that protect sensitive information.

AWS and FIPS
AWS works with customers to provide the information they need to manage compliance when using the AWS US East-West or AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. For more information about the standard, see Cryptographic Module Validation Program on the NIST Computer Security Resource Center website.

FIPS for APN Partners
The Amazon VPC VPN endpoints in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions operate using FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules. If you require use of FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules when accessing AWS US East/West or AWS GovCloud (US) through use of the CLI or programmatically by using the APIs, the list of available FIPS endpoints by AWS Region can be found on our FIPS Publication 140-2 page.

11.1.3 International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2015 ISO 9001:2015 outlines a process-oriented approach to documenting and reviewing the structure, responsibilities, and procedures required to achieve effective quality management within an organization. The key to the ongoing certification under this standard is establishing, maintaining, and improving the organizational structure, responsibilities, procedures, processes, and resources in a manner in which AWS products and services consistently satisfy ISO 9001:2015 quality requirements.

AWS and ISO 9001:2015
AWS has undergone a systematic, independent examination of our quality system to determine whether the activities and activity outputs comply with ISO 9001:2015 requirements. A certifying agent found our quality management system to comply with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 for the activities described in the scope of registration. You can download AWS’s ISO 9001:2015 certification from our website.

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ISO 9001:2015 for APN Partners
The certification covers the quality management system over a specified scope of AWS Cloud services and Regions of operations. If you are pursuing ISO 9001:2015 certification while operating all or part of your IT systems on the AWS Cloud, you are not automatically certified by association. However, using an ISO 9001:2015 certified provider like AWS can make your certification process easier.

11.1.4 ISO/IEC 27001:2013
ISO/IEC 27001:2013 is a security management standard that specifies security management best practices and comprehensive security controls following the ISO/IEC 27002 best practice guidance. The basis of this certification is the development and implementation of a rigorous security program, which includes the development and implementation of an Information Security Management System (ISMS) which defines how AWS perpetually manages security in a holistic, comprehensive manner. This widely-recognized international security standard specifies that AWS do the following:
• Systematically evaluate our information security risks, taking into account the impact of threats and vulnerabilities.
• Design and implement a comprehensive suite of information security controls and other forms of risk management to address customer and architecture security risks.
• Have an overarching management process to ensure that the information security controls meet our needs on an ongoing basis.

AWS and ISO/IEC 27001:2013
AWS has certification for compliance with ISO/IEC 27001:2013, 27017:2015, and 27018:2014. These certifications are performed by independent third-party auditors.

AWS’s ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification can be downloaded from our website.

ISO/IEC 27001:2013 for APN Partners
The ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification for AWS covers the AWS security management process over a specified scope of services and data centers. If you are pursuing ISO/IEC certifications while operating part or all of your IT on the AWS Cloud, you are not automatically certified by association. However, using an ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified provider like AWS can make your certification process easier.

11.1.5 ISO/IEC 27017:2015
ISO/IEC 27017:2015 provides guidance on the information security aspects of cloud computing, recommending the implementation of cloud-specific information security controls that supplement the guidance of the ISO/IEC 27002 and ISO/IEC 27001 standards. This code of practice provides additional information security controls implementation guidance specific to CSPs like AWS.

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AWS and ISO/IEC 27017:2015
AWS’s attestation to the ISO/IEC 27017:2015 guidance not only demonstrates our ongoing commitment to align with globally-recognized best practices, but also verifies that AWS has a system of highly precise controls in place that are specific to cloud services. AWS’s ISO/IEC 27017:2015 certification can be downloaded from our website.

ISO/IEC 27017:2015 for APN Partners
AWS’s ISO/IEC 27017:2015 certification covers the security management process and cloud provider specific controls. If you are pursuing ISO/IEC certifications while operating part or all of your IT environment on the AWS Cloud, you are not automatically certified by association. However, using an ISO/IEC 27017:2015 certified provider like AWS can make your certification process easier. The AWS ISO/IEC 27017:2015 assessment provides evidence that our security controls are aligned with the 27017:2015 guidance specific to CSPs.

11.1.6 ISO/IEC 27018:2019
ISO/IEC 27018:2019 is a code of practice that focuses on protection of personal data in the cloud. It is based on ISO/IEC information security standard 27002 and provides implementation guidance on ISO/IEC 27002 controls applicable to public cloud personally identifiable information (PII). It also provides a set of additional controls and associated guidance intended to address public cloud PII protection requirements not addressed by the existing ISO/IEC 27002 control set.

AWS and ISO/IEC 27018:2019
AWS maintains the high bar of data protection and privacy controls outlined in ISO/IEC 27018:2014 for all customer content, regardless of whether or not any particular data is PII. AWS’s ISO/IEC 27018:2019 certification can be downloaded from our website.

ISO/IEC 27018:2019 for APN Partners
Alignment demonstrates to customers that AWS has a system of controls in place that specifically address the privacy protection of their content. AWS’s alignment with and independent third-party assessment of this internationally recognized code of practice demonstrates AWS’s commitment to the privacy and protection of customers’ content.

11.1.7 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) PCI DSS Level 1 is a proprietary information security standard administered by the PCI Security Standards Council, which was founded by American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc.

PCI DSS applies to all entities that store, process, or transmit cardholder data (CHD) or sensitive authentication data (SAD), including merchants, processors, acquirers, ATTACHMENT A 634
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AWS and PCI DSS
AWS is certified as a PCI DSS 3.2 Level 1 Service Provider, the highest level of assessment available. The compliance assessment was conducted by Coalfire Systems Inc., an independent Qualified Security Assessor (QSA). The PCI DSS Attestation of Compliance (AOC) and Responsibility Summary is available to AWS customers by using AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.

PCI DSS for APN Partners
As a customer who uses AWS products and services to store, process, or transmit cardholder data, you can rely on AWS technology infrastructure as you manage your own PCI DSS compliance certification.

AWS does not directly store, transmit, or process any customer CHD. However, you may create your own cardholder data environment (CDE) that can store, transmit, or process cardholder data using AWS products.

Customers must manage their own PCI DSS compliance certification, and additional testing will be required to verify that your environment satisfies all PCS DSS requirements. However, for the portion of the PCI CDE that is deployed in AWS, your QSA can rely on AWS AOC without further testing.

11.1.8 System and Organization Control (SOC) Reports
AWS SOC Reports are independent third-party examination reports that demonstrate how AWS achieves key compliance controls and objectives. The purpose of these reports is to help you and your auditors understand the AWS controls established to support operations and compliance. Table 3 describes the four AWS SOC Reports.

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Table 3 – AWS SOC Reports
Report What is the report? What’s the Primary Report Purpose? Who is the Primary Report Audience?
SOC 1 A description of the AWS control
environment and external audit of AWS defined controls and objectives.

To provide information to customers about AWS’s control environment that may be relevant to their internal controls over financial reporting.To provide information to customers and their auditors for their assessment and opinion of the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting (ICOFR).

Customer management and their auditors. AWS’s SOC 1 report is available through AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.

SOC 2: Security, Availability and Confidentiality
A description of the AWS controls environment and external audit of AWS controls that meet the AICPA Trust Services Security, Availability, and Confidentiality Principles and Criteria.

To provide customers and users with a business need with an independent assessment of AWS’s control environment relevant to system security, availability, and confidentiality.

Users with business need.AWS’s SOC 2 report is available through AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.

AWS SOC 2 Privacy Type I Report
A description of the AWS controls environment and external audit of AWS controls that meet the AICPA Trust Services Privacy Principles and Criteria.

To provide customers with an independent assessment of AWS’s systems and the suitability of the design of AWS’s privacy controls.The SOC 2 Privacy Trust Principle, developed by the AICPA, establishes criteria for evaluating controls related to how personal information is collected, used, retained, disclosed, and disposed to meet the entity’s objectives.

Users with business need to understand the AWS controls relevant to privacy.AWS’s SOC 2 report is available through AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.

SOC 3: Security, Availability and Confidentiality
A public facing report demonstrating AWS has met the AICPA Trust Services Security, Availability, and Confidentiality Principles and Criteria.

To provide customers and users with a business need with an independent assessment of AWS’s control environment relevant to system security, availability, and confidentiality without disclosing AWS internal information.

Publicly available on our website.

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11.2 Laws/Regulations/Privacy
AWS customers remain responsible for complying with applicable compliance laws and regulations. In some cases, AWS offers functionality (such as security features), enablers, and legal agreements (such as the AWS Data Processing Agreement and Business Associate Addendum) to support customer compliance. No formal certification is available to (or distributable by) a CSP like AWS within these law and regulatory domains. The following subsections provide details on the laws, regulations, and privacy considerations that APN Partners ask about most in regards to the US state, local, and education market.

11.2.1 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) The FERPA of 1974 was enacted to support and promote the protection of privacy and reasonable governance of student education records. FERPA provides parents of students and eligible students with the following:
• The right to inspect and review their education records • Governance over disclosure of their education records • A mechanism to amend incorrect education records
FERPA requires states to use reasonable methods to ensure the security of their IT solutions. This may be achieved by hosting education records on cloud computing solutions. The law, in general, requires covered institutions and agencies to reasonably safeguard student education records from improper use or disclosure. Securing student record information, including students’ PII, is essential for educational institutions and vendors that provide services which fall under the purview of FERPA.

AWS and FERPA
AWS implements physical and logical controls for internal services and provides robust offerings externally for customers to leverage in order to comply with FERPA. These controls are discussed in detail in our FERPA Compliance on AWS whitepaper.

FERPA for APN Partners
Because FERPA was authored in 1974, it lacks clear guidance on modern technology use, which means that educational institutions are often left to create their own solutions. As part of this solution, customers are encouraged to take steps such as creating device compliance policies, threat protection plans, and data loss prevention plans that suit their organization to protect sensitive information. In addition, customers are encouraged to use encryption and access controls. Access controls also provide auditing and logging capabilities to customers in order to validate privacy and data protection policies that customers have in place. AWS offers a comprehensive set of features and services to make encryption of PII easy to manage and simpler to audit, including AWS KMS. Customers with FERPA compliance requirements have a great deal of flexibility in how they meet encryption requirements for PII.

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11.2.2 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)/ Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH)
HIPAA legislation is designed to make it easier for US workers to retain health insurance coverage when they change or lose their jobs. This legislation also seeks to encourage electronic health records to improve the efficiency and quality of the US healthcare system through improved information sharing. Along with increasing the use of electronic medical records, HIPAA includes provisions to protect the security and privacy of protected health information (PHI).

HITECH expanded the HIPAA rules in 2009. HIPAA and HITECH together establish a set of federal standards that are intended to protect the security and privacy of PHI.

11.2.2.1 AWS and HIPAA
There is no HIPAA certification for a CSP such as AWS. In order to meet the HIPAA requirements applicable to our operating model, AWS aligns our HIPAA risk management program with FedRAMP and NIST 800-53, which are higher security standards that map to the HIPAA Security Rule. NIST supports this alignment and has issued SP 800-66: An Introductory Resource Guide for Implementing the HIPAA Security Rule, which documents how NIST 800-53 aligns to the HIPAA Security Rule.

Under the HIPAA regulations, AWS is considered a business associate. The BAA is an AWS contract that is required under HIPAA rules to ensure that AWS appropriately safeguards PHI. The BAA also serves to clarify and limit, as appropriate, the permissible uses and disclosures of PHI by AWS, based on the relationship between AWS and our customers, and the activities or services being performed by AWS.

AWS has a standard BAA we present to customers for signature. It takes into account the unique services AWS provides and accommodates the AWS Shared Responsibility Model. To review, accept, and manage the status of the BAA for your account, sign in to AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA, and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.

11.2.2.2 HIPAA for APN Partners
AWS enables covered entities and their business associates subject to HIPAA to use the secure AWS environment to process, maintain, and store protected health information.

For detailed information about how you can use AWS for the processing and storage of health information, see the whitepaper Architecting for HIPAA Security and Compliance on Amazon Web Services.

The following resources are available for more information:
• HIPAA Compliance webpage
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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. • SlideShare presentation “Security and Privacy, Using AWS to Meet Requirements for HIPAA, CJIS, and FERPA”

11.2.3 Internal Revenue Service Publication 1075 (IRS Pub 1075) IRS Pub 1075 provides guidance for US government agencies and their agents to protect Federal Tax Information (FTI).

While the IRS does not publish an official designation or certification for compliance with IRS Pub 1075, AWS supports organizations to protect FTI managed on the AWS Cloud by aligning our implementations of NIST 800-53 and FedRAMP security controls with the respective IRS Pub 1075 security requirements. AWS has worked closely with the IRS to ensure that the AWS GovCloud (US) and AWS US East/West Regions meet Pub 1075 requirements for storing and processing FTI. Refer to section 11.1.1 for information on AWS and FedRAMP security controls.

11.2.4 Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)/Section 508 In 1998, the US Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual’s ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in IT, make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals.

The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. § 794 (d)), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others. Because Section 508 is a federal and state requirement, any and all of AWS government customers will have Section 508 compliance needs.

11.2.4.1 AWS and VPAT/Section 508
AWS is committed to complying with all relevant government standards and compliance controls. This commitment is reflected in the importance we place on understanding, implementing, and maintaining ongoing compliance with these standards for all individuals who access and consume our services.

11.2.4.2 VPAT/Section 508 for APN Partners
AWS provides API-based cloud computing services with multiple interfaces to those services, including SDKs, IDE Toolkits, and Command Line Tools for developing and managing AWS resources. AWS provides two graphical user interfaces, the AWS Management Console and the AWS ElasticWolf Client Console. The AWS ElasticWolf Client Console has incorporated Section 508 requirements, and AWS has prepared a VPAT that outlines the AWS ElasticWolf Client Console’s accessibility features. The VPAT is available to customers using AWS Artifact. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA and use of the content is subject to the terms of ATTACHMENT A 639
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11.3 Alignments/Frameworks
Compliance alignments and frameworks include published security or compliance requirements for a specific purpose, such as a specific industry or function. AWS provides functionality (such as security features) and enablers (including compliance playbooks, mapping documents, and whitepapers) for these types of programs.

Requirements under specific alignments and frameworks may not be subject to certification or attestation; however, some alignments and frameworks are covered by other compliance programs. The following subsections provide details on the alignments and frameworks that APN Partners ask about most frequently for the US state, local, and education market.

11.3.1 Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS)
Criminal Justice Information (CJI) refers to the data necessary for law enforcement agencies to perform their mission and enforce the laws, such as biometric, identity history, person, organization, property, and case/incident history data. CJI also refers to data necessary for civil agencies to perform their mission, including data used to make hiring decisions.

The CJIS Security Policy reflects the shared responsibility between Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) CJIS, CJIS Systems Agency, and the State Identification Bureaus (SIB) of the lawful use and appropriate protection of CJI. The CJIS Security Policy provides a baseline of security requirements for current and planned services and establishes a minimum standard for new initiatives.

11.3.1.1 AWS and CJIS
By using solutions built on AWS, agencies can manage and secure their applications, data, and other CJIS resources in the AWS GovCloud (US). AWS GovCloud (US) Regions consist of US data centers hosting services authorized to FedRAMP High, managed by US citizens, and offering the FIPS validated endpoints necessary to build CJIS-compliant solutions.

Technological advancements have removed the need to engage in the traditional method of relying on physical security and background checks as a way to qualify an individual’s “access” to unencrypted CJI. While the traditional approach can help achieve minimum compliance under the CJIS Security Policy, it doesn’t compare to the security that can be achieved using strong encryption practices and the deployment of “least privilege” principles to restrict CJI access to those with a need-to-know, right-toknow, and your explicit authorization.

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11.3.1.2 CJIS for APN Partners
Properly securing CJI and maintaining compliance with the CJIS Security Policy requires a number of security controls aimed at ensuring only authorized individuals have access to the CJI.

One critical control is the use of independently tested and validated encryption to protect sensitive information both in-transit and at-rest, regardless of physical location.

AWS empowers customers and partners to encrypt their criminal justice data in AWS GovCloud (US) employing FIPS 140-2 validated encryption in-transit services and FIPS197 compliant encryption for data at-rest. AWS GovCloud (US) also offers AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) using FIPS 140-2 validated hardware security modules, allowing you to create, own, and manage your own customer master keys for all encryption. These customer master keys never leave the AWS KMS FIPS validated hardware security modules unencrypted and are never known to AWS personnel.

Another critical control involves limiting access to individuals that hold or manage encryption keys, allowing agencies to define and limit the universe of users with logical access to CJI. The principal of least privilege is one of the most fundamental underpinnings of the CJIS Security Policy based on a “need-to-know, right-to-know” standard. AWS GovCloud (US) you can enforce least privilege by securely encrypting your CJI and limiting all access to the CJI to only those with access to the encryption keys. By using AWS GovCloud (US), you are provided AWS Cloud services, tools, and security assurance to enable your customers to retain complete control and ownership over their own criminal justice data.

See our webpage, Using AWS for Criminal Justice Information Solutions, for additional information.

11.3.2 Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
CSA is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to “promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing, and to provide education on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing.”

11.3.2.1 AWS and CSA
AWS participates in the voluntary CSA Security, Trust & Assurance Registry (STAR) Self-Assessment to document our compliance with CSA-published best practices. We publish our completed CSA Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) on the AWS website.

11.3.2.2 CSA for APN Partners
The CSA CAIQ provides a set of questions that the CSA anticipates a cloud consumer and/or cloud auditor would ask of a CSP like AWS. It provides a series of security, control, and process questions that can then be used for a wide range of uses, including cloud provider security evaluation.

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11.3.3 Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) AWS enables US government agencies to achieve and sustain compliance with FISMA.

The AWS infrastructure has been evaluated by independent assessors for a variety of government systems as part of their system owners’ approval process. Numerous Federal Civilian and DoD organizations have successfully achieved security authorizations for systems hosted on AWS in accordance with the Risk Management Framework (RMF) process defined in NIST 800-37 and DoD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP). AWS’s secure infrastructure has helped federal agencies expand cloud computing use cases and deploy sensitive government data and applications in the cloud while complying with the rigorous security requirements of federal standards.

11.3.4 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 NIST 800-53 security controls are generally applicable to US Federal Information Systems. Federal Information Systems typically must go through a formal assessment and authorization process to ensure sufficient protection of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and information systems.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is supported by governments and industries worldwide as a recommended baseline for use by any organization, regardless of its sector or size. According to Gartner, in 2015 the CSF was used by approximately 30 percent of US organizations, and usage is projected to reach 50 percent by 2020. Since Fiscal Year 2016, federal agency FISMA metrics have been organized around the CSF, and agencies are now required to implement the CSF under the Cybersecurity Executive Order.

11.3.4.1 AWS and NIST 800-53
AWS Cloud infrastructure and services have been validated by third-party testing performed against the NIST 800-53 Revision 4 controls and additional FedRAMP requirements. AWS has received FedRAMP ATOs from multiple authorizing agencies for both AWS GovCloud (US) and the AWS US East/West Regions. For more information, see the AWS FedRAMP compliance webpage, or the following FedRAMP Marketplace webpages:
• AWS East/West Region complete list of authorizing agencies • AWS GovCloud (US) complete list of authorizing agencies • AWS GovCloud JAB P-ATO at the high baseline

11.3.4.2 NIST 800-53 for APN Partners
Under NDA, AWS provides an AWS FedRAMP SSP template based upon NIST 800-53 Rev. 4, which is prepopulated with the applicable NIST 800-5 Rev. 4 Low/Moderate/High control baseline. Control responsibility is as follows:
• Shared Responsibility – You will provide security and configurations of your software components, and AWS will provide security for its infrastructure.

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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. • Customer-Only Responsibility – You are fully responsible for guest operating systems, deployed applications, and select networking resources (for example, firewalls). More specifically, you are solely responsible for configuring and managing your security in the cloud.
• AWS-Only Responsibility – AWS manages the cloud infrastructure, including the network, data storage, system resources, data centers, physical security, reliability, and supporting hardware and software. Applications built on top of the AWS system inherit the features and configurable options that AWS provides.

AWS is solely responsible for configuring and managing security of the cloud.

For security authorization purposes, compliance with the FedRAMP requirements (based on NIST 800-53 rev 4 Low/Moderate/High control baseline) is contingent upon AWS fully implementing AWS-only and shared controls and you implementing customer-only and shared controls. A FedRAMP-accredited 3PAO has assessed and authorized AWS implementation of our control responsibility. The portion of shared controls that you are responsible for and the controls related to applications you implement on top of the AWS infrastructure must be separately assessed and authorized by you in agreement with NIST 800-37 and your specific security authorization policies and procedures.

AWS FedRAMP-compliant systems have been granted authorizations, have addressed the FedRAMP security controls (NIST 800-53), use the required FedRAMP templates for the security packages posted in the secure FedRAMP Repository, have been assessed by an accredited independent 3PAO, and maintain the continuous monitoring requirements of FedRAMP.

You can use the NIST CSF whitepaper to assess your AWS environment against the NIST CSF and improve the security measures you implement and operate. The whitepaper also provides a third-party auditor letter attesting to the AWS Cloud services’ conformance to NIST CSF risk management practices.

11.3.5 Uptime Institute Tiers
The Uptime Institute created the standard Tier Classification System to evaluate various data center facilities in terms of potential site infrastructure performance, or uptime.

Uptime Institute has not authorized other organizations to certify data centers under its Tier Classification System. Uptime Institute does not design, build, or operate data centers.

11.3.5.1 AWS and Uptime Institute Tiers
AWS operates our data centers in alignment with the Tier III+ guidelines, but we have chosen not to have a certified Uptime Institute-based tiering level so that we have more flexibility to expand and improve performance. AWS’s approach to infrastructure performance acknowledges Uptime Institute’s tiering guidelines and applies them to our global data center infrastructure design to ensure the highest level of performance and availability for our customers. AWS then improves on the guidelines provided by the Uptime Institute to scale for global operations and produce an operating outcome for ATTACHMENT A 643
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AWS has identified critical system components required to maintain the availability of the system and recover service in the event of outage. Critical system components are backed up across multiple, isolated locations known as Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone runs on its own physically distinct, independent infrastructure, and is engineered to be highly reliable. Availability Zones are connected to each other with fast, private fiber-optic networking, enabling you to easily architect applications that automatically fail-over between Availability Zones without interruption.

11.3.5.2 Uptime Institute Tiers for APN Partners
AWS customers can build highly resilient systems in the cloud by employing multiple instances in multiple Availability Zones plus data replication to achieve extremely high recovery time and recovery point objectives, as well as service availability of 99.999% and more. Service availability is therefore a function of the design; customers who care about the availability and performance of their applications want to deploy these applications across multiple Availability Zones in the same region for fault tolerance and low latency. Some AWS Cloud services, such as Amazon S3, are built to leverage all Availability Zones within the region and have a durability objective of 99.999999999%.

12.0 Managing your AWS Resources
With the AWS Cloud, customers can easily provision, manage, and monitor all of their IT resources through a “single pane of glass” with the tool that best fits their unique needs. This helps you know what is going on in your cloud environment, such as instance health, logs of user actions, and ways you can save money. AWS Cloud services are driven by robust APIs that allow for a wide variety of monitoring, management and developer tools to integrate easily with AWS Cloud resources.

Common tools from vendors such as Microsoft, VMware, BMC Software, Okta, RightScale, Eucalyptus, CA, Xceedium, Symantec, Racemi, and Dell are supported on AWS. Below are some AWS-native management options, which can be used alongside familiar management tools available on AWS Marketplace.

12.1 AWS Management Console
The AWS Management Console is a single destination for managing all AWS resources. Customers can use the AWS Management Console to perform any number of tasks (e.g., deploying new applications, monitoring the health of applications, accessing monthly spending by service, and managing security credentials). The AWS Management Console supports all AWS Regions and lets customers provision resources across multiple Regions.

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12.2 Command Line Interface (CLI)
The AWS CLI is a unified tool used to manage AWS Cloud services. With just one tool to download and configure, customers can control multiple AWS resources from the command line and automate them through scripts. The AWS CLI introduces a new set of simple file commands for efficient file transfers to and from Amazon S3.

12.3 AWS Developer Tools
AWS offerings are provided with a range of supporting components like developer tools, toolkits, and command line tools for developing and managing your AWS applications:

The AWS Developer Tools help you securely store and version control your application’s source code and automatically build, test, and deploy your application to AWS or your on-premises environment, including tools for continuous integration and continuous delivery. Our developer tools include the following:
• AWS Cloud9 – Write, run, and debug code in a cloud integrated development environment (IDE)
• AWS CodeBuild – Build and test code
• AWS CodeCommit – Store code in private Git repositories • AWS CodeDeploy – Automate code deployments
• AWS CodePipeline – Release software using continuous integration and delivery • AWS CodeStar – Develop, build, and deploy applications on AWS • Amazon Corretto – Develop and run Java applications on popular operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS
• AWS X-Ray – Analyze and debug production applications

12.4 Management Tools
AWS provides management tools that allows you to programmatically provision, monitor, and automate all the components of your cloud environment. Using these tools, you can maintain consistent controls without restricting development velocity. These services all work together and are integrated with every part of the AWS platform, allowing you to have greater insight into your cloud environment as well as maintain logs necessary for audits. Our management tools include the following:
• AWS Auto Scaling – Easily and safely scale multiple AWS resources • Amazon CloudWatch – Collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, set alarms, and automatically react to changes in your AWS resources • AWS CloudFormation – Model and provision—in an automated and secure manner—all the resources needed for your applications across all regions and accounts
• AWS CloudTrail – Automatically log, continuously monitor, and retain account activity related to actions across your AWS infrastructure • AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) – Interact with AWS Cloud services using commands in your command-line shell
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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. • AWS Config – Inventory all configurations across your resources • AWS Control Tower – Configure AWS management and security services based on established best practices in a secure, compliant, multi-account environment • AWS License Manager – Manage licenses in AWS and on-premises servers from software vendors such as Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and IBM • AWS Management Console – Access and manage AWS Cloud services through a simple and intuitive web-based user interface
• AWS OpsWorks – Host and scale Chef Automate and Puppet Enterprise servers • AWS Personal Health Dashboard – View the performance and availability of the AWS Cloud services underlying your AWS resources
• AWS Systems Manager – Centralize operational data from multiple AWS Cloud services and automate tasks across your AWS resources
• AWS Service Catalog – Create, manage, and distribute catalogs of approved products to end users, who can then access the products they need in a personalized portal
• AWS Trusted Advisor – Provision your resources by following best practices • AWS Well-Architected Tool – Review the state of your workloads and compare them to the latest AWS architectural best practices
AWS also offers several tools for cost management:
• AWS Budgets – Set custom budgets that alert you when your costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) your budgeted amount • AWS Cost and Usage Report – Customize a report that lists AWS usage for each service category used by an account and its IAM users in hourly or daily line items, as well as any tags that you have activated for cost allocation purposes • AWS Cost Explorer – Visualize, understand, and manage your AWS costs and usage over time

13.0 Back-up and Disaster Recovery (DR)
Customers of all sizes are using AWS to enable faster disaster recovery (DR) of their critical IT systems without incurring the infrastructure expense of a second physical site.

AWS is a secure, high-performance, flexible, money-saving, and easy-to-use cloud computing platform. AWS takes care of the undifferentiated heavy lifting required to create, implement, and manage scalable backup and recovery solutions.

There are many advantages to using AWS as part of your data protection strategy:
• Durability: Amazon S3, Amazon S3 Glacier, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive are designed for 99.999999999 percent (11 nines) of durability. Both platforms offer reliable backup of data, with object replication across at least three geographically dispersed Availability Zones. Many AWS services use Amazon S3 for storage and export/import operations. For example, Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) uses Amazon S3 for snapshot storage.

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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. • Security: AWS provides a number of options for access control and data encryption while in-transit and at-rest.
• Global infrastructure: AWS services are available around the globe, so you can back up and store data in the Region that meets your compliance and workload. • Compliance: AWS infrastructure is certified for compliance with the following standards, so you can easily fit the backup solution into your existing compliance regimen.
o Service Organization Controls (SOC)
o Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) 16 o International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 o Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) o Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) o SEC1
o Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) • Scalability: With AWS, you don’t have to worry about capacity. As your needs change, you can scale your consumption up or down without administrative overhead.
• Lower total cost of ownership (TCO): The scale of AWS operations drives down service costs and helps lower the TCO of AWS services. AWS passes these cost savings on to customers through price drops. • Pay-as-you-go pricing: Purchase AWS services as you need them and only for the period that you plan to use them. AWS pricing has no upfront fees, termination penalties, or long-term contracts.

AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS) continuously replicates your machines (including operating system, system state configuration, databases, applications, and files) into a low-cost staging area in your target AWS account and preferred Region. In the case of a disaster, you can instruct CloudEndure Disaster Recovery to automatically launch thousands of your machines in their fully provisioned state in minutes.

Using these capabilities on our global infrastructure, you can build a DR solution to fit your budget, recovery time objective (RTO), and recovery point objective (RPO) (depicted in Figure 9). An organization typically decides on an acceptable RTO and RPO based on the financial impact when systems are unavailable. The organization ATTACHMENT A 647
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Figure 9 – RPO and RTO
Figure 10 shows a spectrum of scenarios—backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, and multi-site—arranged by how quickly a system can be available to users after a DR event. Typically, the shorter the recovery, the higher the cost of the solution.

Figure 10 – Spectrum of DR Options
Each DR option is discussed in more detail below.

13.1 Backup and Restore
In most traditional environments, data is backed up to tape and sent offsite regularly.

Recovery time will be the longest using this method, and lack of automation leads to increased costs. Amazon S3 is ideal for backup data, as it is designed to provide

99.999999999% durability of objects over a given year. Amazon S3 offers a range of storage classes—including options for one-zone infrequent access and archive—to help you save on costs. Transferring data to and from Amazon S3 is typically done via the network, and it is therefore accessible from any location. For a hybrid architecture, you can use AWS Storage Gateway to automatically back up on-premises data to Amazon S3. To centralize and automate your backup, AWS Backup allows you to configure backup policies and monitor backup activity.

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13.2 Pilot Light for Simple Recovery into AWS Warm Standby Solution
The idea of the pilot light is an analogy that comes from the gas heater. In a gas heater, a small idle flame that’s always on can quickly ignite the entire furnace to heat up a house as needed. This scenario is analogous to a backup and restore scenario; however, you must ensure that you have the most critical core elements of your system already configured and running in AWS (the pilot light). The pilot light typically uses a compute service like Amazon EC2 or a database service like Amazon RDS. When the time comes for recovery, you would rapidly provision a full-scale production environment around the critical core.

13.3 Warm Standby Solution in AWS
The term “warm standby” is used to describe a DR scenario in which a scaled-down version of a fully functional environment is always running in the cloud. It further decreases recovery time because, in this case, some services are always running. By identifying business-critical systems, you could fully duplicate these systems on AWS and have them always on. These servers can be running on a minimum-sized fleet of Amazon EC2 instances on the smallest sizes possible. This solution is not scaled to handle a full-production load, but it is fully functional. It can be used for non-production work, such as testing, quality assurance, and internal use. In a disaster, you can scale out the system quickly to handle the production load by adding more instances. You can automate this process using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing.

13.4 Multi-Site Solution Deployed on AWS and Onsite
A multi-site solution runs in AWS as well as on your existing on-premises infrastructure in an active-active configuration. During a disaster situation, you can simply send all traffic to AWS servers, which can scale to handle the full production load. For this approach, you can use a DNS service that supports weighted routing, such as Amazon Route 53, to route production traffic to different sites that deliver the same application or service. A proportion of traffic will go to your infrastructure in AWS, and the remainder will go to your onsite infrastructure. In an onsite disaster situation, you can adjust the DNS weighting and send all traffic to the AWS servers. The capacity of the AWS Cloud service can be rapidly increased to handle the full production load. You can automate this process using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing.

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14.0 Security Questionnaires
Under the Shared Responsibility Model, AWS is responsible for security of the cloud:
protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud. All other security in the cloud is dependent on your management of your account(s) and your solution. AWS personnel cannot fill out Security Questionnaires on behalf of our APN Partners. In addition, as an APN Partner, you maintain full control of your content and responsibility for configuring access to AWS services and resources. We provide an advanced set of access, encryption, and logging features to help you do this effectively (e.g., AWS Identity and Access Management, AWS Organizations and AWS CloudTrail). You choose how your content is secured. In the event that you need assistance to complete a questionnaire to document AWS security and compliance positions, we have the following resources to assist with understanding security on AWS. If you have additional questions about a specific requirement, please reach out and we will try to provide further information.
• Compliance FAQs – This page answers frequently-asked questions about compliance.
• AWS Artifact – AWS Artifact is your go-to, central resource for compliancerelated information that matters to you. It provides on-demand access to AWS’s security and compliance reports and select online agreements. The AWS SOC 2 report is particularly helpful for completing questionnaires because it provides a comprehensive description of the implementation and operating effectiveness of AWS security controls. Another useful document is the Executive Briefing within the AWS FedRAMP Partner Package. Note that some AWS Artifact documentation is available under NDA, and use of the content is subject to the terms of that NDA.
• CSA Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire – The CSA Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire provides a set of questions the CSA anticipates a cloud consumer and/or auditor would ask of a cloud provider. It provides a series of security, control, and process questions which can then be used for a wide range of uses, including cloud provider selection and security evaluation. This document contains the AWS answers to the CSA questionnaire. • AWS Risk and Compliance Whitepaper – This document addresses AWSspecific information around general cloud computing compliance questions.

There are detailed descriptions of all AWS certifications, programs, reports, and third-party attestations.
• AWS Data Center Controls Web Page – Many questionnaires have an entire section with questions related to data center physical security. This web page provides you with insight into some of our physical and environmental controls. • Data Privacy – This page details our privacy and data security policies, practices, and technologies we’ve put in place.
• AWS Security and Compliance Quick Reference Guide – This guide provides an overview of our assurance programs and how to secure your content on the AWS Cloud.

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Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. • AWS Compliance Center – This page offers you a central location to research cloud-related regulatory requirements and how they impact your industry.

15.0 AWS Public Sector Access Policy – Instructions
If this opportunity requires the resale of AWS offerings, you must include the AWS Public Sector Access Policy (“Access Policy”) in your response and incorporate the Access Policy in any agreement regarding such resale, per your Reseller Agreement, as amended. The Access Policy sets out rules, conditions, and restrictions regarding use of the AWS cloud services and can be accessed at: https://s3-us-west2.amazonaws.com/solution-provider-program-legaldocuments/AWS+Public+Sector+Access+Policy.pdf ATTACHMENT A 651
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16.0 Industry Analyst Reports on AWS Market Position
[Note: “Do not edit content in this section, or use in a public document other than a direct RFx response. And, please include all citations and disclaimers outlined below.”]
AWS offers reports from trusted third-party analysts to help organizations understand the benefits and value of the AWS Cloud. The AWS in Analyst Research page provides reports and analysis from firms such as Gartner, IDC, and Forrester covering a variety of product categories and geographies.

Gartner, Inc., a leading information technology research company, recently released its 2021 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services2 3 report. In Gartner's second evaluation covering both cloud infrastructure and platform services (IaaS & PaaS, or "CIPS"), AWS is evaluated as a Leader placed highest in both axes of measurement, Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision (see Figure 11). This is the eleventh straight year that Gartner has recognized AWS as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant.
2 Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Services, Raj Bala, Bob Gill, Dennis Smith, Kevin Ji, David Wright, 27 July 2021. Gartner and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
3 All statements in this report attributable to Gartner represent AWS’s interpretation of data, research opinion or viewpoints published as part of a syndicated subscription service by Gartner, Inc., and have not been reviewed by Gartner. Each Gartner publication speaks as of its original publication date (and not as of the date of this proposal). The opinions expressed in Gartner publications are not representations of fact and are subject to change without notice.

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Figure 11 – 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services More analyst reports can be found at AWS in Analyst Research.

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AWS Resources AWS Overview• What is Cloud Computing:
https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloudcomputing/
• Types of Cloud Computing:
https://aws.amazon.com/types-of-cloudcomputing/
• About AWS:
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/
• AWS Global Infrastructure:
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/globalinfrastructure/ AWS Solutions• Websites and Web Hosting:
https://aws.amazon.com/websites/
• Development and Test:
https://aws.amazon.com/dev-test/
• Backup and Restore:
https://aws.amazon.com/backup-restore/
• Data Archive:
https://aws.amazon.com/archive/
• Disaster Recovery:
https://aws.amazon.com/disaster-recovery/
• Big Data:
https://aws.amazon.com/big-data/
• High Performance Computing:
https://aws.amazon.com/hpc/
• Internet of Things:
https://aws.amazon.com/iot/
• Financial Services:
https://aws.amazon.com/financial-services/
• Healthcare and Life Sciences
https://aws.amazon.com/health/
• Genomics:
https://aws.amazon.com/health/genomics/
• Business Applications:
https://aws.amazon.com/businessapplications/
• DevOps
https://aws.amazon.com/devops/
AWS Products and Services• List of all AWS cloud services:
https://aws.amazon.com/products/
• AWS Marketplace:
https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/
• AWS service documentation:
http://aws.amazon.com/documentation/
AWS in the Public Sector• AWS Public Sector Homepage:
https://aws.amazon.com/governmenteducation/
• U.S. Federal Government:
https://aws.amazon.com/federal/
• State and Local Government:
https://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/
• Defense and Aerospace:
https://aws.amazon.com/governmenteducation/defense/
• Education:
https://aws.amazon.com/education/
• Nonprofit Organizations
https://aws.amazon.com/governmenteducation/nonprofits/ • AWS GovCloud (US) Region:
http://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/
• AWS Government Partners:
https://aws.amazon.com/partners/government/
• AWS Public Sector Blog:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/
AWS Partner Community• AWS Partner Network:
https://aws.amazon.com/partners/
• AWS Partner Directory:
http://www.aws-partner-directory.com/
• AWS Partner Programs:
https://aws.amazon.com/partners/programs/
AWS Professional Services • AWS Professional Services:
https://aws.amazon.com/professionalservices/
• AWS Cloud Adoption Framework:
https://aws.amazon.com/professionalservices/CAF/
AWS Pricing• AWS Pricing Overview:
http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/
• Pricing for each service:
https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/services/
• AWS Economics Center:
https://aws.amazon.com/economics/
• Cloud Financial Management:
https://aws.amazon.com/aws-costmanagement/
• AWS Simple Monthly Calculator:
http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
• AWS TCO Calculator:
http://aws.amazon.com/tco-calculator/
ATTACHMENT A 654
AWS Partner Package
September 2021 Page 57
Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document.

AWS Billing• AWS Billing and Cost Management:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/billing-what-is.html • Consolidated Billing:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/consolidated-billing.html • Cost Explorer:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/cost-explorer-whatis.html • AWS Budgets and Forecasts:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/budgets-managingcosts.html AWS Security and Compliance• AWS Security Center:
http://aws.amazon.com/security/
• AWS Shared Responsibility Model:
http://aws.amazon.com/security/sharingthe-security-responsibility/ • AWS Compliance:
http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/
• AWS Data Privacy:
http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/dataprivacy-faq/
• Access Control:
http://aws.amazon.com/iam/
• AWS Security Blog:
https://blogs.aws.amazon.com/security/
AWS Support• AWS Support Tiers:
https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/
• Support Knowledge Center:
https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/ • AWS Trusted Advisor:
https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/tr
ustedadvisor/
AWS Training and Best Practices• AWS Training and Certification:
http://aws.amazon.com/training/
• AWS Architecture Center:
http://aws.amazon.com/architecture/
• AWS Quick Starts:
https://aws.amazon.com/quickstart/
Industry Analysis• Analyst Reports:
http://aws.amazon.com/resources/analystreports/
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud
Infrastructure and Platform Services (July2021):https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-271OE4VR&ct=210802&st=sb&refid=arcard&trkcampaign=acq • IDC Report: Quantifying the Business
Value of Amazon Web Services:http://d0.awsstatic.com/analystreports/IDC_Business_Value_of_AWS_May_2015.pdf AWS Case Studies• AWS Case Studies:
https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/casestudies/
Procurement• AWS Public Sector Contract Center:
http://aws.amazon.com/contract-center/
• 10 Considerations for a Cloud Procurement
Whitepaper:http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/10-considerations-for-a-cloud-procurement.pdf • How to Buy Cloud Computing Services for
your Agency (Webinar):https://aws.amazon.com/webinars/buyingcloud-computing-services/ Legal• AWS Customer Agreement:
http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/
• AWS Service Terms:
https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
• AWS Acceptable Use Policy:
http://aws.amazon.com/aup/
• AWS Trademark Guidelines:
http://aws.amazon.com/trademarkguidelines/
• AWS Site Terms:
http://aws.amazon.com/terms/
• AWS Privacy Notice:
https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/
• AWS Tax Help:
http://aws.amazon.com/tax-help/
Additional Resources• AWS Blog:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/
• AWS Discussion Forums:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/index.jspa
• What’s New from AWS:
http://aws.amazon.com/new/
• AWS YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/AmazonWebServices
• AWS Twitter Feed:
https://twitter.com/awscloud
• AWS on SlideShare:
http://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices
• Events and Webinars
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/events/
• An E-Book of Cloud Best Practices:

ATTACHMENT A 655
AWS Partner Package
September 2021 Page 58
Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this document. https://medium.com/aws-enterprisecollection/an-e-book-of-cloud-bestpractices-for-your-enterprise4a211840c55b#.corzpjf3m AWS Whitepapers• AWS Whitepapers and Guides:
http://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/
• Overview of AWS Whitepaper:
http://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/awsoverview.pdf
• Security Resources and Whitepapers:
http://aws.amazon.com/security/securityresources/
• AWS Compliance whitepapers:
http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/awswhitepapers/
• Best Practices for Security, Identity, &
Compliance:https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/security-identity-compliance • AWS Risk and Compliance Whitepaper:
https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/compl
iance/AWS_Risk_and_Compliance_Whitepaper.pdf
• AWS Storage Services Overview:
https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/Storage/AWS%20Storage%20Services%20Whitepaper-v9.pdf ATTACHMENT A 656
June 28, 2022
Stacie Becker
Proposal Manager
SHI Government Solutions
3828 Pecana Trail
Austin, TX 78749
[email protected]
Re: Award of Contract #R220804
Dear Ms. Becker:

Per official action taken by the Board of Directors of Region 4 Education Service Center on June 28, 2022, we are pleased to announce that after successful negotiated terms and conditions, SHI Government Solutions has been awarded an annual contract for the following, based on the sealed proposal (RFP#22-08) submitted on May 3, 2022:

Commodity/Service Supplier
Total Cloud Solutions and Services SHI Government Solutions This contract is effective October 1, 2022 and will expire on September 30, 2025. As indicated above, your contract # is R220804. This contract may be renewed annually for an additional two (2) years if mutually agreed upon by Region 4 ESC/OMNIA Partners, Public Sector and SHI Government Solutions.

Your participation in the proposal process is appreciated and we look forward to a successful partnership. Please feel free to provide copies of this letter to your sales representative(s) to assist in their daily course of business.

If you have any questions, please contact Deborah Bushnell, the Contract Manager assigned to your contract, at (713) 554-7348 or [email protected] Sincerely,
Robert Zingelmann
Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Operations Services DocuSign Envelope ID: D413147D-43F7-48D5-BE71-F404C2BA4D24 ATTACHMENT A 657
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 27
Pricing:

CATEGORY TYPES OF PRODUCTS

DISCOUNT FROM

ADVERTISED
LIST
Software
SW: SW-GEN-14-3
All Cloud Products*
*Note: AWS Direct Customers wishing to move to SHI minimum .50% discount off SHI Advertised List Price

1.00%
SW: SW-GEN-14-3
All Software Categories, Operating Systems, Security,
Administrative, Backup and recovery, Development
Products,Database Software

4.50%
HW: B
Computer Accessories (Keyboards, Mice, docks, Flash Memory, speakers), Telephones Sets, Headsets, Headphones, Network Routers, Channel Converters, Equipment and phone cases.

4.50%
HW: HW6-1 Notebook computers, Tablets, Servers, Point of Sale, Desktops, Thin Clients, Workstations, All in One Desktops 1.00%
HW: J Maintenance, Warrantees, etc. 4.50%
HW: Q Flat Panel Display monitors, Large screen Monitors, TVs 2.00% HW: R Printers (Ink Jet, Laser, Matrix, Line Matrix, Label), Scanners, Multifunction Machines 4.50%
ATTACHMENT A 658
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 28
HW: T Power Products, PDUs, Power Supplies, Power Monitors 4.50% All Other
Other All other undefined categories that SHI is able to offer to Omnia Members Per SOW
Sample Professional Services Rate* Card for SHI:
*Pricing is a sample and can vary on location, minimum billing requirements and other relevant variables. These rates do not include travel expenses. SHI reserves the right to review and update rates on an annual basis.
ii. Include an electronic copy of the catalog from which discount, or fixed price, is calculated. Electronic price lists must contain the following: (if applicable) • Manufacturer part #
• Offeror’s Part # (if different from manufacturer part #) • Description
• Manufacturers Suggested List Price and Net Price
• Net price to Region 4 ESC
Media submitted for price list must include the Offerors’ company name, name of the solicitation, and date on a Flash Drive (i.e., Pin or Jump Drives).

SHI Response:

ATTACHMENT A 659
Region 4 ESC
Contract # R220804
for
Total Cloud Solutions
with
SHI Government Solutions
Effective: October 1, 2022
ATTACHMENT A 660
The following documents comprise the executed contract between the Region 4 Education Service Center (“ESC”), and SHI Government Solutions effective October 1, 2022:

I. Appendix A, Supplier Contract
II. Offer & Contract Executed Signature Form
III. Supplier’s Response to the RFP, incorporated by reference.

ATTACHMENT A 661
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 3
Table of Contents
Executive summary .................................................................... 4 Tab 1 – Contract and Offer and Contract Form ...................... 6 Appendix A - Contract and Offer................................................................................ 7 Appendix B - Terms and Conditions Acceptance Form .......................................... 14 Tab 2 – Products / Pricing........................................................ 25 Partner – Terms and Conditions................................................................................ 37 Partner - Letters of Authorization .............................................................................. 38 Tab 3 – Performance Capability............................................... 44 Appendix D, Exhibit A – Response for National Cooperative Contract.................. 52 Appendix D, Exhibit F – Federal Funds Certifications........................................... 118 FEMA.......................................................................................................................... 127 Appendix D, Exhibit G – New Jersey Business Compliance................................. 142 Tab 4 – Qualification and Experience ................................... 157 References................................................................................................................. 167 Tab 5 – Value Add ................................................................... 169 Tab 6 – Appendix C - Additional Required Documents....... 174 Supporting Documents .......................................................... 179 Addendum Acknowledgements............................................................................... 179 AWS Partner Package............................................................................................... 180 ATTACHMENT A 662
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 6
TAB 1 – CONTRACT AND OFFER AND

EXECUTED CONTRACT FORM
Please see the following pages for the completed required forms.

ATTACHMENT A 663
ATTACHMENT A 664
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 8
ATTACHMENT A 665
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 9
ATTACHMENT A 666
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 10
ATTACHMENT A 667
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 11
ATTACHMENT A 668
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 12
ATTACHMENT A 669

ATTACHMENT A
670
Region 4 Education Service Center PAGE 14

APPENDIX B - TERMS AND CONDITIONS ACCEPTANCE
FORM
Please see the following pages for our exceptions to Terms and Conditions.

ATTACHMENT A 671
Section/Page Term, Condition, or
Specification
Exception/Proposed
Modification
Accepted
(For
Region 4
III.

APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT;
RECITALS; Page 1
WHEREAS, Region 4 ESC
selected Contractor’s Proposal
and wishes to engage Contractor
in providing the
services/materials described in
the RFP and Proposal;
WHEREAS, Region 4 ESC selected
Contractor’s Proposal and wishes to
engage Contractor in providing the
services, labor, materials,
equipment, and supplies provided
by Contractor under an SOW
(“Sservices”)/materials and third
party software, computer
peripherals, computer hardware,
and associated IT services provided
by third parties (“Product”)
described in the RFP and Proposal;
[SHI Note: SHI requests these terms
be defined to further clarify our role
under this Contract.]
Accepted
Accepted
Accepted
ATTACHMENT A 672
APPENDIX A;
DRAFT
CONTRACT; 9)
Contract Alterations;

Page 2 ends

City Council and Concurrent AuthoritiesJune 4, 2024

City Council and Concurrent Authorities
June 4, 2024