Objectives

The primary objective of this tender is to appoint a qualified service provider to deliver ongoing support, maintenance, and enhancements for the existing Incident Command Centre (ICC) of Kouga Local Municipality. The aim is to ensure the ICC operates efficiently, reliably, and in line with best practices, including supporting a Backup Security Operations Centre (SOC) for full redundancy and seamless failover capabilities over a three-year period.

Scope

The scope of the contract includes:

• Support, maintenance, and enhancements of the current ICC infrastructure, components, and software (notably Hikvision HikCentral platform).
• Provision and support of a Backup SOC with full redundancy, including hardware, software, and network infrastructure.
• Management of Video Wall layouts, decoders/controllers, and associated cabling and mounts for both ICC and SOC.
• Implementation of high-availability and disaster-recovery architecture to enable seamless operational failover.
• Monitoring infrastructure health, temperature, network connectivity, and system performance via integrated tools like SolarWinds.
• Mirrored storage and synchronized recordings at both ICC and SOC, with a minimum of 6 months live footage retention and 5 years of investigation data storage.
• Provision of remote monitoring, AI integration, support for firmware/software updates, and incident reporting.
• Support services during standard hours (7am-7pm) and after-hours support as per service standards.

Technical Requirements

The technical specifications include:

• Consolidation of all CCTV views onto HikCentral platform with 99.9% system availability (excluding hosting failures).
• Real-time redundant synchronization between ICC and Backup SOC for continuous data replication and instant failover.
• Support for existing hardware infrastructure: over 300 TVs for Video Wall, HikCentral server, decoders/controllers, and monitors.
• Remote monitoring with automated alerts, health checks, and secure API integration for watchlist verification.
• Support for AI functionalities, including linking CCTV views, ANPR events, snapshots, and clips to HikCentral.
• Compliance with municipal ICT governance, cybersecurity, and physical security policies.
• Documented change control, patch management, and rollback procedures.
• Preventive maintenance quarterly, firmware/software updates within 30 days of release, and monthly backup validation.
• Support for high-availability architecture, disaster recovery, and seamless system failover.
• Provision of incident evidence archiving for at least 5 years and storage of CCTV footage for a minimum of 6 months.
• Support for infrastructure health monitoring, including temperature, network status, and system metrics, with daily reports.
• Support for service standards: system down within 1 hour, major faults within 4 hours, minor faults within 24 hours, and daily support from 7am-7pm.

Skills and Skills Requirements

The tender specifies the need for the service provider to demonstrate:

• At least 5 years of demonstrated experience with HikCentral platform (current supported version) and Video Wall configuration, supported by reference letters.
• Capability to support existing hardware infrastructure, including over 300 TVs, HikCentral server, decoders/controllers, and operator monitors.
• Remote monitoring expertise with automated health checks and API integration skills.
• Proficiency in cybersecurity standards, ICT governance, and physical security policies.
• Documented change management, patching, and rollback procedures.
• Experience in preventive maintenance, firmware/software updates, backup validation, and disaster recovery planning.
• Availability of local technical support resources, including engineers with CISCO and MikroTik certifications.
• Ability to deliver comprehensive training, including refresher courses, system configuration, troubleshooting, and internal training enablement.
• Provision of a dedicated support team capable of onsite response within 2 hours and after-hours emergency support.
• Experience in deploying enterprise-grade infrastructure health monitoring solutions (e.g., SolarWinds, Datadog).
• Ability to support high-availability, fault-tolerant, and disaster-recovery architectures.