Objectives

The primary objective of this tender is to appoint a service provider responsible for the hosting, development, maintenance, and support of the official Cape Winelands District Municipality website on a month-to-month basis. The goal is to ensure the website remains dynamic, visually appealing, current, informative, user-friendly, secure, and compliant with legal and technical standards, supporting ongoing public access, document uploads, and digital engagement.

Scope

The scope encompasses:

• Installation and deployment of the municipality’s website onto a designated hosting environment.
• Migration of all website components, including content, media, and downloadable resources.
• Configuration of dependencies such as web servers, databases, security measures, and network infrastructure.
• Provision of hosting infrastructure with minimum specifications (e.g., 1TB capacity, unmetered bandwidth, South African data center).
• Implementation of security measures including firewalls, malware scanning, threat detection, DDoS protection, SSL certificates, and automated backups.
• Management of domain registration, renewal, DNS, subdomains, and SSL certificates.
• Provision of support for website content management, plugin maintenance, and software compatibility.
• Monitoring, security, backup, disaster recovery, and incident response procedures.
• Regular reporting, analytics, and performance assessments.
• Ongoing technical support, updates, and enhancements to ensure website functionality and security.

Technical Requirements

The technical specifications include:

• Hosting environment with at least two servers, load balancer, redundant network, and monitoring systems.
• Security controls such as SSL/TLS, Web Application Firewall (WAF), intrusion detection/prevention systems, malware detection, IP blacklisting, and anti-spam measures.
• Automated daily backups with off-site storage and data restoration capability within 2 hours.
• Disaster recovery plan capable of full website restoration within 8 hours.
• Domain management including registration, renewal, DNS, and transfer support.
• Support for website software including LiteSpeed, LS Cache, PHP 5.6 & 7.1x, MariaDB, CGI, FTP, Softaculous, and webmail functionalities.
• Implementation of security patches, system updates, and compliance with OWASP security hardening standards.
• Scalable infrastructure to accommodate increasing resource demands.
• Compliance with relevant standards and legal requirements for data protection and cybersecurity.

Skills Requirements

The service provider must demonstrate:

• Expertise in website hosting, server management, and ICT infrastructure.
• Proficiency in cybersecurity, including firewall configuration, malware detection, threat mitigation, and DDoS protection.
• Experience with web development, especially WordPress, plugin management, and content updates.
• Knowledge of database management (MySQL/MariaDB), scripting, and software compatibility.
• Ability to implement and manage SSL certificates, DNS, domain transfers, and subdomain configurations.
• Capability to perform regular security audits, backups, disaster recovery, and incident response.
• Skills in monitoring, analytics, and reporting on website performance and security.
• Experience in managing scalable hosting environments with high availability and redundancy.
• Understanding of legal and compliance standards related to data protection and cybersecurity.