Objectives

The primary objective of this tender is to appoint a capable, experienced, and certified OpenStack service provider to deliver professional OpenStack services. This includes deployment, optimization, and technical support for large-scale cloud infrastructure environments, with the aim of converting SANSA’s existing HPC cluster into an OpenStack cluster located at SANSA’s Hartebeeshoek site.

Specific goals include designing high-availability architectures, deploying multiple OpenStack components, supporting large-scale production environments, and providing training and ongoing support to SANSA’s team.

Scope

The scope encompasses:

• Initial assessment and planning based on SANSA’s hardware infrastructure.
• Deployment of OpenStack components across management, compute, GPU, and storage nodes (3 management nodes, 12 compute nodes, 2 GPU nodes, 8 storage nodes).
• Installation, configuration, and testing of OpenStack and related services (Keystone, Barbican, Designate, Horizon, Cinder, Glance, Nova, Swift, Neutron, Magnum, Ironic, Azimuth, Ceph).
• Automation, security, monitoring, and best-practice implementation.
• Benchmarking and performance testing.
• Documentation including architecture diagrams, operational runbooks, and configuration details.
• Knowledge transfer and training (remote or on-site).
• Post-deployment support including security hardening, incident management, software updates, and troubleshooting for a support period of 2 years, with possible extensions.

Technical Requirements

The technical requirements include:

• Design and implement high-availability OpenStack architectures.
• Experience with OpenStack distributions such as Red Hat OpenStack Platform or Canonical Charmed OpenStack.
• Proficiency with core OpenStack services: Keystone, Barbican, Designate, Horizon, Cinder, Glance, Nova, Swift, Neutron, Magnum, Ironic, Azimuth, Ceph.
• Automation skills using tools like Ansible, Terraform, Helm, or Kolla.
• CI/CD pipeline integration for configuration and lifecycle management.
• Monitoring platform integration (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Opensearch).
• Implementation of security best practices for cloud platforms.
• Support for large-scale environments with multiple compute and GPU nodes, petabyte storage, and multi-vendor setup.
• Provision of documentation, diagrams, and operational runbooks.
• Training and knowledge transfer capabilities, including remote and on-site options.

Skills Requirements

The successful bidder must demonstrate:

• Extensive experience in deploying and supporting enterprise-grade OpenStack environments.
• Proven track record with large-scale cloud infrastructure projects.
• Technical expertise in core OpenStack services and related technologies (Ceph, automation tools, monitoring systems).
• Ability to design high-availability, secure, and scalable cloud architectures.
• Strong documentation and training skills, with capacity to transfer knowledge effectively.
• Experience in benchmarking, performance testing, and troubleshooting complex cloud environments.
• Capability to provide ongoing support, incident management, patching, and software updates for a minimum of 2 years.