2025-0042 Application Migration Engineering Services (NS) - THU 19 Jun RELAUNCH

Time On-Site: 100%

Period of Performance: 2025 BASE: As soon as possible but not later than 21 JUL 2025 until 31 DEC 2025 with the possibility to exercise following options:

• 2026 option: from 01 JAN 2026 to 31 DEC 2026
• 2027 option: from 01 JAN 2027 to 31 DEC 2027
• 2028 option: from 01 JAN 2028 to 31 DEC 2028

Required Security Clearance: NATO Secret

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the work packages in this project is migrating applications and services from on premise environments across the NATO Enterprise to the cloud. The CTO-CCoE is leading the guidance for the migration and offering Subject Matter Expert (SME) support to facilitate this service/application migration process.

The CTO-CCoE is looking for a contractor to provide Cloud Engineering services to support the CTO-CCoE team. The contractor should have a strong background on migration applications to the cloud.

2 OBJECTIVES

The main objective of this statement of work is to support the CTO-CCoE team and the application teams migrating selected applications from the current on-premises environment to a public cloud environment.

3 SCOPE OF WORK

Under the direction / guidance of the NCIA Point of Contact or delegated staff, the contractor will provide Application Migration Engineering services support the CTO-CCoE and application teams to plan and execute the migration of services and application to the cloud.

This includes the following activities:

Application Assessment and Analysis:

• Engage with application owners and stakeholders to perform technical analysis of the applications to be migrated.
• Support application owners and stakeholders to gather requirements and expectations as well as application complexity and priority.
• Support the development of Application Assessment Reports for each application.

Technical Planning and Execution:

• Advise application owners and stakeholders on possible migration options.
• Support application teams to design how their applications are to be deployed in the cloud.
• Support technical planning and execution of application migrations.
• Support the applications team’s engineers and developers to execute migration plans.
• Support application teams to design and develop automation for the deployment of their applications into the cloud.

Testing and Validation:

• Advise application teams on the development and execution of comprehensive testing plans to validate application functionality post-migration.
• Advise application teams on post migration performance testing to ensure applications meet required SLAs and performance benchmarks.
• Support application teams to address and resolve any issues identified during testing.

Data Migration and Integrity:

• Design and support the migration of application data to the cloud, taking into account data integrity, security, and compliance throughout the migration process.
• Design and support data validation and reconciliation processes to verify successful data migration.

Security and Compliance:

• Advise application teams to ensure applications adhere to security best practices and organizational policies during and after migration.
• Support application teams to address compliance requirements and regulatory considerations related to applications.

Communication, Collaboration and Coordination:

• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including developers, IT, CQO, cyber security and business units, to ensure successful migrations.
• Provide regular status updates on application migration progress, risks, and issues.

The contractor will be part of a team and will provide services using an Agile and iterative approach during multiple sprints. Each sprint is planned for a duration of 1 week. The content and scope of each sprint will be agreed during the sprint-planning meeting.

Due to the AGILE approach of this project, there is a need to define a set of specific arrangements between the NCIA and the contractor that specifically defines the deliverables to be provided for each sprint as well as their associated acceptance criteria.

This includes sprint planning, execution and review processes, which are detailed below:

1. Sprint Planning:

• Objective: Plan the objectives for the upcoming sprint
• Kick-off meeting: Conduct a monthly meeting with the contractor to plan the objectives of upcoming sprints and review contractor`s manpower to meet the agreed deliverables.
• Set sprint goals: Define clear, achievable goals for the sprint and associated acceptance criteria, including specific delivery targets, Quality standards as well as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each task to be recorded in the sprint meeting minutes.
• Agree on the required level of effort for the various sprint tasks.
• Backlog Review: Review and prioritise the backlog of tasks, issues, and improvements from previous sprints.
• Assess each payment milestone cycle duration of one calendar month. State of completion and validation of each sprint status and sign off sprints to be submitted for payment as covered in Section 4.

1. Sprint Execution

• Objective: Contractor to execute the agreed “sprint plans” with continuous monitoring and adjustments.
• Regular meetings between NCIA and the contractor to review sprint progress, address issues, and make necessary adjustments to the processes or production methodology. The Meetings will be physically in the office.
• Continuous improvement: Contractor to establish a continuous feedback loop to gather input from all stakeholders for ongoing improvements and their subsequent implementation depending on NCIA approval.
• Progress Tracking: Contractor to use a shared dashboard or tool to track the status of the sprint deliveries and any issues.
• Quality Assurance/Quality Check: Contractor shall ensure that the quality standards agreed for the sprint deliverables are maintained throughout the sprint.
• Quality Control: NCIA to perform the Final Quality Control of the agreed deliverables and provide feedback on any issues.

1. Sprint Review

• Objective: Review the sprint performance and identify areas for improvement.
• At the end of each sprint, there will be a meeting between the NCIA and the Contractor to review the outcomes against the acceptance criteria comprising sprint goals, agreed quality criteria and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Define specific actions to address issues and enhance the next sprint.

1. Sprint Payment

• For each 4 (four) sprints to be considered as complete and payable, the contractor must report the outcome of their work during the sprint, first verbally during the retrospective sprint review meeting and then in writing within five days after the 4th sprint’s end date. A report must be sent by email to the NCIA service manager, listing all the work achieved against the agreed tasking list set for the sprint.
• The contractor's payment for each set of 4 sprints will be depending upon the achievement of agreed Acceptance Criteria for each task, defined at the sprint planning stage. This will include specific delivery targets, quality standards as well as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each task.
• The payment shall be dependent upon successful acceptance as set in the above planning/review meetings. This will follow the payment milestones that shall include a completed Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (Annex A) including the EBA Receipt number
• Invoices shall be accompanied with a Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (Annex A) signed by the Contractor and project authority.
• If the contractor fails to meet the agreed Acceptance criteria for any task, the NCIA reserves the right to withhold payment for that task/sprint.

Further, the supplier must conduct the following reviews:

• A daily ‘touch point’ between NCIA POC and the supplier’s POC to ensure work is on track
• Draft versions of the reports where the supplier’s POC presents the draft report to the customer, with the opportunity for the customer to provide feedback and implement uplifts.
• Final versions of the reports where the incumbent presents and delivers the final report to the customer.

The format of this report shall be a short email to the NCIA Project Manager mentioning briefly the work held and the development achievements during the sprint.

At the end of the project, the Contractor shall provide a Project Closure Report that is summarizing the activities during the period of performance at high level.

4 DELIVERABLES AND PAYMENT MILESTONES

The following deliverables are expected from the work on this statement of work:

1. Complete the activities/tasks agreed in each sprint meeting as per sections 2 and 3 above.
2. Produce sprint completion reports (format: e-mail update), which include details of activities performed and the list of the deliverables of the week.
3. The contractor will participate in the daily reporting and planning activities (daily stand-ups) as well as the required participation in workshops, events and conferences related to the supported services, as requested by the service delivery manager.

Payment schedule will be according to payment milestones upon completion of 4 consecutive sprints. Upon completion and validation of each sprint and at the end of the monthly milestone, following the acceptance of the sprint report.

The NCIA team reserves the possibility to exercise a number of options, based on the same scrum deliverable timeframe, at a later time, depending on the project priorities and requirements.

The payment shall be dependent upon successful acceptance of the sprint report and the delivery acceptance sheet (DAS) – (Annex A) including the EBA receipt number.

Invoices shall be accompanied with a delivery acceptance sheet (annex a) signed by the contractor and the NCIA POC.

Payment Milestones: Upon completion of each fourth sprint and at the end of the work.

The Purchaser (NCIA) reserves the right to exercise a number of options of one or more sprints based on the same scrum deliverables, at a later time, depending on the project priorities and requirements, at the following cost: for base year (2025) at the same cost, for outer years (2026, 2027 and 2028) the Price Adjustment Formula will be applied in accordance with paragraph 6.5 of the Framework Contract Special Provisions.

The payment shall be dependent upon successful acceptance of the Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (Annex A).

Invoices shall be accompanied with a Delivery Acceptance Sheet (Annex A) signed by the Contractor and the project authority.

Payment Milestones: Upon completion of each fourth sprint and at the end of the work.

The Purchaser (NCIA) reserves the right to exercise a number of options of one or more sprints based on the same scrum deliverables, at a later time, depending on the project priorities and requirements, at the following cost: for base year (2025) at the same cost, for outer years (2026, 2027 and 2028) the Price Adjustment Formula will be applied in accordance with paragraph 6.5 of the Framework Contract Special Provisions.

The payment shall be dependent upon successful acceptance of the Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (Annex A).

Invoices shall be accompanied with a Delivery Acceptance Sheet (Annex A) signed by the Contractor and the project authority.

5 COORDINATION AND REPORTING

The contractor shall participate in daily status update meetings, sprint planning, sprint retrospectives and other meetings, physically in the office, or in person via electronic means using Conference Call capabilities, according to project manager’s instructions.

The format of this report shall be a short email to the NCIA Point of Contact mentioning briefly the work held and the development achievements during the sprint.

6 SCHEDULE

It is expected the service starts as soon as possible but no later than 21 July 2025 and ending no later than 31 December 2025.

If the 2026, 2027 and 2028 options are exercised, the period of performance is 01 JAN to 31 DEC of the respective year.

7 CONSTRAINTS

All the deliverables provided under this statement of work will be based on NCI Agency templates or agreed with the project point of contact.

All code, scripts, documentation, etc. will be stored under configuration management and/or in the provided NCI Agency tools.

All the deliverables of this project will be considered NATO UNCLASSIFIED

Part of the work may involve handling classified networks, therefore, a security clearance at the right level is expected for the contractor(s) undertaking this project.

8 SECURITY

Delivering services under this SoW requires a valid NATO SECRET security clearance.

Any resource proposed for this SOW requires valid NATO SECRET security clearance prior to the start of the engagement.

Exceptionally service delivery can start while the NATO SECRET clearance is in progress. However, should the security clearance be denied (not granted), a replacement will be requested. The proposed replacement(s) shall be in the possession of a valid NATO SECRET security clearance prior to the start of the engagement.

All the deliverables of this project will be considered NATO UNCLASSIFIED, while access to networks exceeding this classification level is required.

9 PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS

In any case, work will always be performed from a NATO country.

The work depicted in this SOW is expected to be carried out by ONE resource and will be conducted during normal office hours following the NCI Agency The Hague calendar, as well as outside office hours and on weekends, if necessary.

The NCI Agency The Hague official holiday schedule applies and will be provided to the contractor.

NCI Agency in The Hague Operates: Monday to Thursday from 0830 to 1730; and Friday from 0830 to 1530 (CET)

Contractor Furnished Services: Contractor shall furnish everything required to perform the contract except for the items specified and covered under NCIA Furnished Property and Services below.

NCIA Furnished Property and Services: Access to relevant networks and environments will be provided by NCIA.

Work is to be performed on the NCI Agency network(s) and appropriate hardware and connectivity will be provided by the NCI Agency, for the duration of this contract, and is to be returned upon completion of the contract.

10 TRAVEL

The contractor may be required to travel to other sites within NATO for completing these tasks.

Travel arrangements will be the responsibility of the contractor and the expenses will be reimbursed in accordance with Article 5.5 of AAS Framework Contract and within the limits of the NCIA Travel Directive.

11 QUALIFICATIONS

[See Requirements]

Requirements

• Delivering services under this SoW requires a valid NATO SECRET security clearance.

11 QUALIFICATIONS

The consultancy support for this work requires Cloud Migration Manager services with the following qualifications:

• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in planning and executing migrations of services and applications to the cloud.
• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in analysing applications and services and their dependencies and requirements.
• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in Azure and AWS.
• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in DevSecOps and associated tooling such as Azure DevOps, GitLab and Jenkins.
• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in Automated Deployments using Terraform, Ansible, Azure ARM and AWS CloudFormation.
• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in containerization of applications and their deployment using Kubernetes and helm charts.
• The Contractor has relevant experience with and knowledge of programming languages including Java and .NET.
• The Contractor has strong problem solving skills.
• The Contractor has relevant and recent experience in using Agile planning and execution and the Scrum methodology.
• The Contractor is able to speak and write fluent English since the work is conducted in English.
• The Contractor must have the nationality of one of the NATO nations.