Datacenter Network Refresh

Lewisville Independent School District (LISD) is accepting quotes for Request for Quote (RFQ) #10-2026 Datacenter Network Refresh . This Request for Quote may be awarded at the District's discretion to a single Vendor or to multiple Vendors. The District may award a complete Arista system, a complete Cisco system, individual Additional Equipment items, or any combination thereof, based on quoted pricing, compliance with the requirements of this RFQ, and applicable district procurement requirements. Scope of Work LISD is seeking a turnkey, fully operational network solution to replace its datacenter Core, Distribution, Edge, and Fabric network systems. LISD’s current environment consists of a Cisco Nexus 9K-based 100G ACI Fabric & NX-OS environment. The current fabric environment spans across 2 datacenters, and presents as a single fabric/domain via ACI Multi-Pod. LISD has decommissioned the LHS data center. LISD operates two datacenters protecting district-wide resources, data retention, continuity, and business operations. LISD is implementing a new 100G Spine/Leaf setup to continue operation of active-active datacenters. This project includes implementing both datacenters. The District has identified the planned architecture and has developed equipment lists specifying the required equipment, descriptions, and quantities for two acceptable manufacturer options. Vendors shall provide pricing in accordance with the attached pricing worksheets, which include three categories: Arista, Cisco, and Additional Equipment. The District will consider alternate products, components, and equipment that meet or exceed the applicable requirements of this RFQ; however, alternate architectures or substantially different network designs are not being requested. For the Arista and Cisco options, Vendors shall provide line-item pricing for the specified equipment and shall provide a total system and implementation price for the complete system option being quoted. A Vendor quoting the Arista option or Cisco option must quote all required components of the applicable complete system option. Partial bids for an Arista or Cisco system are not permitted. The total system and implementation price shall include all applicable equipment, software, licensing, support, maintenance, implementation, and other services and costs necessary to place the applicable system option into full operational service. Detailed line-item pricing shall be provided separately in the Vendor's detailed pricing submission. The Additional Equipment category consists of separately identified equipment that may be purchased independently of the Arista or Cisco system options. Vendors may provide pricing for individual items in the Additional Equipment category. Partial or line-item bids are permitted only for the Additional Equipment category. Vendors are not required to quote a complete Arista or Cisco system in order to provide pricing for Additional Equipment. 1. Equipment, Software, Licensing, and Support For any complete Arista or complete Cisco system quoted, Vendor shall provide pricing for all equipment, software, licensing, support, maintenance, and related components identified in the attached specifications, including all required components necessary for the specified architecture to operate as intended. Any additional items identified by the Vendor that are necessary to provide a complete operational solution and are not included in the District's specifications shall be separately identified and priced in accordance with Section 8. All equipment shall comply with the District's stated requirements, including port-side intake and compatibility with the District's 208V PDUs with C13 receptacles. Appropriate power cords shall be included with all equipment. 2. Implementation and Configuration Vendor shall perform the implementation, configuration, baselining, upgrading, tuning, and integration services identified in this Scope of Work and the attached specifications. The District's network engineers will be responsible for the physical installation of equipment, including unboxing, racking, cabling, and connecting power. Vendor shall provide the technical direction, configuration, and implementation support necessary to place the equipment into operational service. Implementation shall include the new infrastructure at both District datacenters and shall be performed on-site in coordination with District network engineers. All equipment shall be shipped directly to the District. Equipment shall not be staged by the Vendor or Vendor Partner prior to delivery unless specifically authorized by the District. 3. Migration and Transition Vendor shall support the transition of District operations from the existing infrastructure to the new infrastructure identified in the planned architecture. Services shall include migration of applicable network functionality, storage, compute, virtual machines, and other datacenter resources identified by the District. Vendor shall configure and integrate the specified fabric automation/orchestration infrastructure, including required VMware and storage integration, and shall perform the necessary testing and tuning to place the new environment into operational service. The existing datacenter equipment shall remain in place and operational until the District has completed the transition to the new equipment and authorizes its removal. 4. Existing Equipment Following the successful transition and after the District confirms that the new infrastructure is operating satisfactorily, the existing network appliances identified by the District for replacement shall remain in place for an additional period specified by the District. Following that period, Vendor shall remove the designated existing equipment. Vendor shall: Back up configurations of all existing equipment and provide the configuration backups to the District. Wipe configurations and sensitive data from existing equipment according to DoD standards and any additional District requirements. Remove the designated existing equipment. Relocate the existing equipment to an on-premise location designated by the District. No District-owned assets shall transfer to the Vendor. 5. Fiber Infrastructure Vendor shall provide and implement the fiber infrastructure identified in the attached specifications, including required OM4 and single-mode fiber trunks and associated components. All fiber components shall be compatible with the specified equipment and planned architecture. 6. Testing, Tuning, and Operational Support Vendor shall perform required testing, configuration validation, tuning, and troubleshooting associated with implementation of the specified infrastructure. Vendor shall provide day-one and day-two operational support following implementation and transition. Support shall include assistance with the operationalization of the new infrastructure and resolution of implementation-related issues identified by the District. 7. Documentation and Knowledge Transfer Vendor shall provide detailed documentation of the implemented environment, including: -Final equipment configuration -Network and infrastructure configurations -Full-stack diagrams -As-built documentation -Relevant configuration information -Operating procedures and other documentation necessary for District staff to operate and maintain the environment Vendor shall provide knowledge transfer to District personnel regarding the operation, administration, and maintenance of the implemented infrastructure. 8. Vendor-Identified Requirements If the Vendor determines that additional equipment, software, licensing, services, components, or other requirements are necessary to provide a complete and fully operational solution, the Vendor shall identify each requirement and provide the associated pricing. Vendors shall separately identify and price such items by uploading them in the Vendor-Identified Requirements / Components – Itemized Pricing in the "Response Attachments" tab. Vendor-identified requirements shall not replace, modify, or substitute the District's specified architecture, equipment, quantities, or requirements unless expressly approved by the District. The Additional Equipment category in the attached pricing worksheets is separate from Vendor-identified requirements. Vendors may provide pricing for individual items listed in the Additional Equipment category independently of the Arista and Cisco system options. 9. On-Site Requirements All implementation, configuration, migration, tuning, integration, and other services identified in this Scope of Work shall be performed on-site at the District's datacenters in coordination with District network engineers. No implementation work shall be performed remotely through VPN. Design, project management, and documentation activities may be performed remotely when authorized by the District. 10. Complete Operational Solution Vendor shall provide all specified equipment, software, licensing, support, maintenance, and implementation services identified in this RFQ and the attached specifications necessary to place the planned infrastructure into full operational service in accordance with the District's specifications. 11. Vendor Compliance and Exceptions Vendor shall identify any exceptions, substitutions, deviations, exclusions, or other variances from the equipment, specifications, quantities, or services identified in this RFQ. Vendors shall clearly identify each exception and provide an explanation and any associated pricing impact. Failure to identify an exception may be considered confirmation that the Vendor can meet the stated requirement. Vendor recommendations or proposed alternatives shall not replace, modify, or substitute the District's specified architecture or required equipment unless expressly approved by the District. Identified exceptions, substitutions, deviations, exclusions, or variances may be considered in the District's evaluation and may affect a Vendor's eligibility for award. 12. Additional Technical Specifica tions 1 2.1 Lifecycle Management The District will consider the lifecycle of proposed solutions, including product longevity, manufacturer support, and anticipated lifecycle considerations. 12.2 DC Fabric Environment The proposed solution shall replace the existing ACI Multi-Pod configuration with equivalent functionality. DC1 and DC2 shall contain fabric L3 outs, and HA edge resources shall reside outside of the fabric. Host route advertisements shall be supported as needed to ensure mobility without manual intervention. 12.3 Network Management and Orchestration The Network Management and Orchestration system must be provided as an on-premise, dedicated physical hardware appliance solution manufactured, supplied, and fully supported directly by the network manufacturer. The solution must support a high-availability, multi-node clustering architecture running bare-metal directly on the vendor-provided hardware appliances. Virtual Machine (VM)-based deployments (e.g., VMware OVA, KVM), cloud-hosted management platforms, and software-only solutions requiring District-provided or separately provided third-party x86 compute shall not satisfy the Network Management and Orchestration requirements of this RFQ. The underlying operating system and management stack must be factory-preinstalled and treated as an integrated appliance. Solutions must not require the District to license, install, patch, or maintain an underlying host OS (e.g., Enterprise Linux, Windows Server) or hypervisor (e.g., VMware ESXi, KVM). A Vendor proposing a complete Arista or complete Cisco system must provide a Network Management and Orchestration solution that satisfies all requirements identified in this Section. 12.4 Edge Environment The edge design may change from edge routers peering with ISPs to DMZ deep-buffer switches peering with ISPs via BGP. The proposed solution shall maintain redundant routing across the two datacenters and account for both hard and soft failures, with dynamic failover between networks. 13. Location The district’s primary data center is located at 1565 W. Main Street, Lewisville, TX, 75067. The secondary data center is located at 1001 N. Josey Lane, Lewisville, TX, 75067. The Anticipated Project Period: May 2027 - August 2027