Tucson Data Center Services Sole Source Request

• 81112003 - Data center services

The State of Arizona needs to have a full disaster recovery site for any hard metal servers that are needed to support business continuity.  To have diverse data centers requires data centers to be located with a geographical separation with a minimum of a 25 mile separation.  Even though data centers in Phoenix Metropolitan area could meet the 25 mile separation, a natural disaster could impact the power grid in this area.  In 2020, the State signed a 5-year Agreement with Involta and moved their Tucson Data Center from the aging and inadequate location at the 400 Congress building, to the current location.

There are two known potential data center sites in Tucson but one does not meet the critical standards for the State of Arizona for survivability per Data Center assessments conducted by the State,  These assessments identified critical requirements that are not available in the other data center.  Taking this risk could jeopardize the State of Arizona being survivable during times when the disaster recovery site needs to provide full connectivity to the State of Arizona agencies.  Some of the critical requirements are:

-          66’ minimum separation for power coming into building (Diverse paths)

-          66’ minimum separation for carrier connections coming in to building (Diverse paths)

-          Two MMRs that carriers can install diverse paths and equipment for diverse paths out to floor space

-          Low flood risk

-          Low nearby business risk

-          Must have good representation of Carriers that closely mirrors the State’s contracted Carriers in its Phoenix Data Center

The Data Center assessments were performed per ANSI/BICSI 002-2014 Data Center Design and Implementation Best Practices.

Because of the stated reasons, the State determines that no reasonable alternative sources exist for a disaster recovery site for agencies’ servers and equipment and the State intends on extending its Contract with Involta, now rebranded as Ark Data Centers, for an additional five (5) years.

Per Section R2-7-E301(D). Sole Source Procurements of the Arizona Administrative Code, D. The state procurement administrator shall send notice to registered vendors on the electronic system to invite comments on the sole-source request for three working days.