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Introduction & Background
Careers Wales is the National Careers Service for Wales, providing impartial information, advice, and guidance to help people make informed choices about their education, training, and work. The careerswales.gov.wales website is the main online platform for delivering the service, reaching over 500K users per year, with more than 100K registered users. The website is powered by a modern and scalable micro services architecture; using Azure Kubernetes for the backend, react applications for the frontend, and Drupal CMS for content management. The website also follows a REST API approach and a style guide for consistent and user-friendly design.
The backend development of the site is predominately contracted to a software engineering team, whilst frontend development of the website and its applications are contracted to a third-party digital agency to deliver. Careers Wales has an internal product development team responsible for the project management of new products and services on the Careers Wales web platform. The product development team includes agile project management, test automation, manual software testing, UX and design. In addition, Careers Wales has an internal DevOps team consisting of systems engineers that hold responsibility for the backend infrastructure, maintenance of existing applications, and the platforms security architecture.
The purpose of this procurement paper is to invite proposals from qualified and experienced architecture review consultants, who can conduct a comprehensive and independent assessment of the website's architecture, to highlight good practice, identify any potential issues or risks, and provide recommendations for improvement.
Scope and Detailed Requirements
The scope of the architecture review will cover the following aspects of the website's architecture:
• The backend infrastructure approach, including the Azure Kubernetes cluster, the microservices (predominantly Java), the databases (predominantly Cosmos and Elastic), the CRM (Dynamics), the security, scalability, performance, and reliability.
• The interoperability between the backend and frontend applications, including the React components, the Drupal CMS, and the style guide.
• The API approach, including the design, implementation, documentation, testing, integration, and maintenance.
• The Software Development Life Cycle; specifically the CI/CD deployment model for Careers Wales applications, and Dev/SecOps processes.
• The capability of the internal technical management of the forementioned systems.
The architecture review will not cover the following aspects of the website's architecture:
• The content and functionality of the website, which are outside the scope of this paper.
• The business and operational processes of Careers Wales, which are not directly related to the website's architecture.
• The accessibility, or the usability of the website.
• The budget and timeline of the website's development and maintenance, which are subject to contractual agreements.
Objectives
The objectives of the architecture review are to:
• Validate the quality and suitability of the website's architecture, in terms of meeting the current and future needs of Careers Wales and its customers.
• Identify any strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, or threats in the website's architecture, in terms of best practices, standards, and compliance.
• Provide recommendations for improvement, enhancement, or optimisation of the website's architecture, in terms of feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and impact.
• The analysis should be conducted under the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework. The analysis should be conducted against all pillars; Reliability, Security, Cost Optimised.
Expected Outcomes
The expected outcomes of the architecture review are:
• A comprehensive report documenting the findings, analysis, and recommendations of the architecture review, with supporting evidence and rationale in line with the Well-Architected framework.
• The report should include an executive summary of the findings in a format suitable for non-technical board members.
• Presentation and discussion of the report with Careers Wales.
Skills and Experience
• Technical Expertise: Web development experience in Java, experience of cloud platforms such as Azure and related DevOps practices
• Development and architecture principles such as micro services
• Experience of working on similar projects
• Microsoft Azure/AWS Cloud Expert Partner Accreditation
Contractual
• The maximum budget available for this project is £50,000
• This work must be billed and completed by 24th March 2025
Schedule
Item Time Line
Procurement listing Sell to Wales 18/02/25
Deadline for supplier questions 25/02/25 (11:00)
Closing date 26/02/25 (11:00)
Notification of appointment 28/02/25
This work must be billed and completed by 25/03/25
NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Sell2Wales Web Site at https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=148248.
The buyer has indicated that it will accept electronic responses to this notice via the Postbox facility. A user guide is available at https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/sitehelp/help_guides.aspx.
Suppliers are advised to allow adequate time for uploading documents and to dispatch the electronic response well in advance of the closing time to avoid any last minute problems.
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