Modernisation of Core IT Systems – Analysis, Design and Software Development

A Prior Information Notice (PIN) has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) to announce that the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) will be publishing a call for tenders (CfT) for the procurement of analysis, design and software development services as part of the modernisation of Government of Malta’s core IT systems in approximately Quarter 1 of 2020.

Link to Prior Information Notice

https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:59091-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML

Estimated Value

Estimated total value excluding VAT: €4,500,000.

Background Information

MITA will be issuing a tender for the development of taxation and social security systems as part of the Modernisation of Core IT Systems initiative. The work will primarily involve the implementation of cloud native solutions based on designs as explained below. Where required, the maintenance of the current legacy applications will also be executed within the project in view of the detailed analysis involved. The project is co-financed by the European Union/Government of Malta, in accordance with the rules of the European Regional Development Fund, Co-financing rate- 80 per cent European Union and 20 per cent National Funds in accordance with the rules of the Operational Programme I — European Structural and Investment Funds 2014-2020 programme. Work is envisaged to start in Quarter 2 2020 with contract duration of 3 years. The contract will be led by MITA Project Teams who will implement a number of applications using internal resources. Bidders will be expected to collaborate with MITA Project Teams and each other. The high-level design of these systems has already been produced and will be made available to the successful bidder, such that work within this tender is aligned to these designs. This consist of the following:
 
1) Reference Architecture consisting of a high-level solution architecture based on micro-services architecture following on a set of architecture principles and design practices for cloud-native, enterprise level solutions on MITA’s hybrid cloud platform;
 
2) Domain specific designs which include a list of use cases for each domain, associated business process descriptions and main components identified for each use case (UI components, application services, domain services, etc). These designs are based on domain-driven design (DDD) approach and are mapped to the reference architecture blueprint based on MITA’s hybrid cloud platform, which is based on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure Stack (for more detail, refer to http://www.cloud.gov.mt).
 
MITA intends to issue a CfT that comprises 3 lots (MITA reserves the right to repackage Lot 1 and Lots 2A/2B into 2 separate tenders):
Lot 1 for the development of front-end applications for taxation and social security;
Lot 2A for the development of back-end services for the taxation systems;
Lot 2B for the development of back-end services for the social security systems.

 

Lot 1: Front-end Applications Development – Taxation and Social Security

This package will involve the design and development of all front-end applications required for the new taxation systems and the social security systems. The application developed within this lot, will integrate with backend APIs produced within Lot 2A and Lot 2B and therefore requires work in close collaboration with other suppliers.
Tasks involved:
1) Analysis of current legacy applications – Powerbuilder, Informix 4GL/SPL and .Net (including reverse engineering existing source-code);
2) Understand the high-level designs of each domain, especially the UI components required and produce correspondent low-level design specifications for development;
3) Development of web applications, integrating with MITA’s shared services (such as: Azure B2C, Azure API Management, Government Payment Gateway (GPG) and others) and with underlying business APIs produced within Lot 2A and Lot 2B;
4) Produce test scripts and perform system testing and leading user acceptance testing (UAT).
 

Lot 2A: Back-end Services Development and Maintenance of Legacy Applications — Taxation

This lot involves the development of the all the back-end services required for the taxation systems. The high-level design of these services will be made available to the successful bidder and it is based on domain-driven design (DDD) within a microservices architecture, having services split within different layers: application layer, domain layer, integration layer. This design should serve as a baseline for the low-level design that is required for the development of these services.

Furthermore, the successful bidder will be required to maintain the current legacy applications until the new systems are deployed into production.
Tasks involved:
1) Analysis of current legacy applications – Powerbuilder, Informix SPL/4GL and .Net (including reverse engineering existing source-code);
2) Understand the high-level designs of each domain and produce correspondent low-level design specifications for development;
3) Development of microservices in line with high-level designs provided, following MITA’s software development practises and procedures;
4) Produce test scripts and perform system testing and participate in user acceptance testing (UAT);
5) Development of automated unit tests to be integrated within CI/CD pipelines;
6) Maintenance of current legacy systems until the new systems are deployed into production.
 

Lot 2B: Back-end Services Development and Maintenance of Legacy Applications — Social Security
 
This lot involves the development of the all the back-end services required for the social security systems. The high-level design of these services will be made available to the successful bidder and it is based on domain-driven design (DDD) within a microservices architecture, having services split within different layers: application layer, domain layer, integration layer. This design should serve as a baseline for the low-level design that is required for the development of these services.

Furthermore, the successful bidder will be required to maintain the current legacy applications until the new systems are deployed into production.
Tasks involved:
1) Analysis of current legacy applications – Powerbuilder, Informix SPL/4GL and .Net (including reverse engineering existing source-code);
2) Understand the high-level designs of each domain and produce correspondent low-level design specifications for development;
3) Development of microservices in line with high-level designs provided, following MITA’s software development practises and procedures;
4) Produce test scripts and perform system testing and participate in user acceptance testing (UAT);
5) Development of automated unit tests to be integrated within CI/CD pipelines;
6) Maintenance of current legacy systems until the new systems are deployed into production.

 
Additional Information

Prospective tenderers shall only be awarded 1 out of the 2 Lots (2A and 2B), in line with the provisions of Regulation 36 of the Public Procurement Regulations 2016. Technical resources assigned on this project must have at least 3 years’ experience in:
1) Microsoft .Net (ASP.NET/MVC5/Web API 2.0);
2) HTML 5, CSS3 and JQuery;
3) Microsoft .Net Core 2.1/3.0;
4) ANSI SQL.
 
Additionally, key technical resources should have proven working experience with Microsoft Azure PaaS offerings and Azure DevOps. Resources shall be required to work from MITA premises for at least 60 % of their time unless otherwise agreed with MITA.
 
Any additional information shall be uploaded on MITA's Procurement Website: https://procurement.mita.gov.mt/