Supply and Installation of Enterprise Backup & Recovery Software Solution

**Project:** Building Institutions And Systems to Harness And Realize Agenda 2063 Project

Invitation for Bids (IFB)

Issuing date of the IFB: 28 July 2026

Name of Country: Ethiopia

Name of Project: Building Institutions and Systems to Harness and Realize Agenda (BIASHARA) 2063 Project

Brief Description of the Information System: The scope of the assignment includes the standardization and centralization of backup and recovery services across all MISD managed environments within the African Union Commission. It includes protection of critical workloads hosted in the AU Data Center (VMware-based infrastructure), cloud-hosted systems in Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft 365 services that support collaboration and institutional operations across AU organs. The scope also encompasses core business applications such as ERP, identity services, file systems, web portals, database systems, departmental application servers, and mission-critical platforms.

 

Grant Number: IDA-E2020-001

IFB Title: Supply and Installation of Enterprise Backup & Recovery Software Solution

IFB Number: ET-AUC-555562-GO-RFB

 

1.         This Invitation for Bids (IFB) follows the General Procurement Notice (GPN) for this project that appeared in UNDB online on 01 June 2023

2.         The African Union has received a Grant from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / International Development Association] toward the cost of Building Institutions and Systems to Harness and Realize Agenda (BIASHARA) 2063 Project, and it intends to apply part of the proceeds of this grant to payments under the agreement resulting from this IFB:  Supply and Installation of Enterprise Backup & Recovery Software Solution.

3.         The African Union Commission serves as the implementing agency for the project and now invites sealed bids from eligible Bidders for Supply and Installation of Enterprise Backup & Recovery Software Solution. The assignment will standardize and centralize backup and recovery services across MISD-managed environments within the AUC, including protection of critical workloads hosted in the AU Data Center (VMware workloads), Physical Windows and Linux Servers, Databases [Microsoft SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL DB, SAP S/4 HANA, Oracle], File Servers, Identity Servers, ERP System, Web Portals and other business critical platforms. Implementation of and operational acceptance shall be completed within Eight (8) weeks from effective date of contract award. Warranty and support obligations shall continue for the periods stated in the contract.

 

4.         Bidding will be conducted using the National Competitive Bidding (NCB) procedures specified in the World Bank’s Guidelines: Procurement under IBRD Loans and IDA Credits, edition of September 2023 and is open to all Bidders eligible as defined in these Guidelines, that meet the following minimum qualification criteria.

• Bidders shall demonstrate their qualifications and capability to deliver an Enterprise Backup and Recovery solution by providing the following:

• Proven competence in delivering enterprise backup and recovery solutions based on recognized technologies such as Veeam, Commvault, Rubrik, or equivalent.
• Evidence of successfully completing at least three comparable enterprise backup and recovery projects within the last five years.
• For each project reference, provide:
  • • • Client organization name.
      • Project scope and achieved outcomes.
      • Technologies and vendor solutions implemented.
      • Project duration and completion date.
• Evidence of relevant manufacturer authorization, partnership status, or certifications for the proposed solution.
• Evidence of adequate organizational resources, qualified technical experts, and established project-delivery methodologies.
• Demonstrated experience integrating backup and recovery solutions with operating systems, directory services, enterprise applications, VMware vSphere, databases, cloud platforms, and other enterprise workloads.

• Bidders shall submit a structured implementation methodology covering:

• Assessment of the existing environment, workloads, data volumes, risks, dependencies, and recovery requirements, including workload criticality, backup scope, retention periods, and RPO/RTO targets.
• Solution architecture, capacity sizing, storage tiering, network requirements, replication, disaster recovery integration, licensing, installation, and configuration.
• Configuration of backup policies for physical servers, virtual machines, databases, applications, cloud workloads, and file systems.
• Implementation of encryption, immutability, isolated backup copies, RBAC, MFA, malware protection, and privileged-access controls.
• Integration with identity management, SIEM, monitoring, alerting, ticketing, and reporting systems.
• Migration of existing backup configurations and protected workloads, where applicable, including off-site replication, archival, long-term retention, and media lifecycle management.
• Backup, restoration, failover, failback, data-integrity, and disaster recovery testing to validate the agreed RPO/RTO targets.
• Development of policies, procedures, recovery runbooks, governance controls, dashboards, and operational reports.
• Training, knowledge transfer, technical documentation, operational handover, warranty, maintenance, upgrades, troubleshooting, and manufacturer escalation support.

• Provide the proposed project team structure, including the roles and responsibilities of each key expert.
• Submit detailed CVs demonstrating relevant qualifications, certifications, and hands-on experience in backup and recovery design, deployment, configuration, integration, and support.
• Provide summaries of at least three comparable backup and recovery projects in which the proposed key personnel participated, clearly indicating their respective roles.
• Demonstrate the capability to provide ongoing technical support, maintenance, upgrades, troubleshooting, and manufacturer escalation.
• Submit evidence of post-implementation support, operational handover, and knowledge transfer delivered under previous comparable projects.

 

5.         Interested eligible Bidders may obtain further information from African Union Commission (AUC) Offices and inspect the bidding documents at the address given below from 0900Hrs to 1700 Hrs. East African Time at the address given below.

6.         A complete set of bidding documents in English Language may be downloaded from https://au.int/en/bids free of charge. The downloadable version of the bidding documents, and any addenda to it, will be the binding one. 

7.         Bids must be delivered to the address below at or before 01 September 2026 at 12:30Hrs (East African Time).  Bids need to be secured by Bid Security, the amount of Bid Security required is USD 2000.00.  Late bids will be rejected.  Bids will be opened in the presence of Bidders’ representatives who choose to attend at the address below at the African Union Commission (AUC) Offices, Third Floor, Building C, on 01 September 2026 at 12:30Hrs (East African Time).

8.         The attention of prospective Bidders is drawn to (i) the fact that they will be required to certify in their bids that all software is either covered by a valid license or was produced by the Bidder and (ii) that violations are considered fraud, which can result in ineligibility to be awarded World Bank-financed contracts.

 

African Union Commission,

Attn: Head of Supply Chain Management Division

Building C, 3rd Floor,

P.O Box 3243, Roosevelt Street

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Tel: +251 (0) 11 551 7700

E-mail: Tender@AfricanUnion.org