Deadline Date: Monday 18 August 2025
Requirement: EBS – Senior Level Database Administration Support
Location: Braine l’Alleud, BE
Full Time On-Site: Yes
Time On-Site: 100%
Period of Performance: 2025 BASE: As soon as possible but not later than 1st of October 2025 – 31st December 2025, with the possibility to exercise following options:
• 2026 option 1: 01st January 2026 – 31st December 2026
• 2027 option 2: 01st January 2027 – 31st December 2027
• 2028 option 3: 01st January 2028 – 31st December 2028
Required Security Clearance: NATO SECRET
1 INTRODUCTION
The NCI Agency (hereafter referred to as the “Purchaser”) is seeking database administration support services for Oracle E-Business Suite in order to provide ongoing technical support for the NBAC Business Area for the FINS Service. The support will focus on existing applications while also offering expert guidance and consultation on continuous improvement changes and ongoing projects when required.
2 OBJECTIVES
The Fins Application Service is an integrated service which provides support for oracle E-Business Suite based software for different business processes such as finance, acquisition and travel process across NATO (ACO, ACT IMS).
This Statement of Work aims to enhance the support model for Fins Application Service, focusing on maintaining existing applications while providing support for Continuous improvement initiatives.
3 SCOPE OF WORK
Under the overall direction of the Service Area Owner and Service Delivery Manager, the following activities will be supported:
1) Database administrator services for Oracle E-Business Suite and related applications (e.g. GL Wands, Apro) both for projects and in-service support. These services are further detailed in the points below.
2) Providing 2 nd and 3 rd line support to the assigned business applications, by responding to service requests, investigating and resolving incidents and problems, communicating solutions or advices to customers and users on changes and improvements based on best business practices.
3) Contributing to the gathering, analysis, setup, design and documentation of new requirements and change requests.
4) Developing and reviewing documentation such as requirements, definitions, functional and technical design documents, system specifications or other deliverables.
5) Providing time estimates for the development and implementation of new requirements.
6) Ensures full lifecycle tests of requests for change before they are presented to the user for user acceptance testing.
7) Active contribution to relevant projects or service operation across Service Lines where integration is required.
8) Participating/attending job-related conferences and trainings in order to keep the knowledge and expertise up-to-date.
9) Providing briefings and presentations.
We envision the above services to be delivered by one Oracle E-Business Suite – Senior Database Administrator (L3 Support) that will be part of a team providing technical support to FinS for NBAC.
The Contractor will provide services related to the activities above, using an agile and iterative approach using multiple sprints, with each sprint planned for a duration of 5 days.
4 SPRINTS PLANNING, EXECUTION, REVIEW AND PAYMENT
Due to the nature of the statement of work, there is a need to define a set of specific arrangements between the NCIA and the contractor that specifically defines the deliverables to be provided for each sprint as well as their associated acceptance criteria. This includes sprint planning, execution and review processes, which are detailed below:
4.1 Sprint Planning
• Objective: Plan the objectives for the upcoming sprint.
• Kick-off meeting: Conduct a monthly meeting with the contractor to plan the objectives of upcoming sprints and review contractor`s manpower to meet the agreed deliverables.
• Set sprint goals: Define clear, achievable goals for the sprint and associated acceptance criteria, including specific delivery targets, Quality standards as well as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each task to be recorded in the sprint meeting minutes.
• Agree on the required level of effort for the various sprint tasks.
• Backlog Review: Review and prioritise the backlog of tasks, issues, and improvements from previous sprints.
• Assess each payment milestone cycle duration of one calendar month. State of completion and validation of each sprint status and sign off sprints to be submitted for payment as covered in Section 4.
4.2 Sprint Execution
• Objective: Contractor to execute the agreed “sprint plans” with continuous monitoring and adjustments.
• Regular meetings between NCIA and the contractor to review sprint progress, address issues, and make necessary adjustments to the processes or production methodology. The Meetings will be physically in the office.
• Continuous improvement: Contractor to establish a continuous feedback loop to gather input from all stakeholders for ongoing improvements and their subsequent implementation depending on NCIA approval.
• Progress Tracking: Contractor to use a shared dashboard or tool to track the status of the sprint deliveries and any issues.
• Quality Assurance/Quality Check: Contractor shall ensure that the quality standards agreed for the sprint deliverables are maintained throughout the sprint.
• Quality Control: NCIA to perform the Final Quality Control of the agreed deliverables and provide feedback on any issues.
4.3 Sprint Review
• Objective: Review the sprint performance and identify areas for improvement.
• At the end of each sprint, there will be a meeting between the NCIA and the Contractor to review the outcomes against the acceptance criteria comprising sprint goals, agreed quality criteria and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Define specific actions to address issues and enhance the next sprint.
4.4 Sprint Payment
• Payment Schedule will be monthly for the completed and accepted sprints within the month, the contractor must report the outcome of their work during the sprint, first verbally during the retrospective sprint review meeting and then in writing within five days after the 4 th sprint’s end date. A report must be sent by email to the NCIA service manager, listing all the work achieved against the agreed tasking list set for the sprint.
• The contractor's payment for each set of 4 sprints will be depending upon the achievement of agreed Acceptance Criteria for each task, defined at the sprint planning stage. This will include specific delivery targets, quality standards as well as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each task.
• The payment shall be dependent upon successful acceptance as set in the above planning/review meetings.
This will follow the payment milestones that shall include a completed Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (Annex A) including the EBA Receipt number
• Invoices shall be accompanied with a Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (Annex A) signed by the Contractor and service authority.
• If the contractor fails to meet the agreed Acceptance criteria for any task, the NCIA reserves the right to withhold payment for that task/sprint.
Further, the contractor must conduct the following reviews:
• A daily ‘touch point’ between NCIA POC and the contractor to ensure work is on track
• A weekly progress meeting to report progress on incidents, service requests and changes.
For each sprint to be considered as complete and payable, the contractor must report the outcome of his/her work during the sprint, first verbally during the retrospective meeting and then in written within three (3) days after the sprint’s end date. The format of this report shall be a short email to the NCIA Service Delivery Manager mentioning briefly the work held and the development achievements during the sprint.
At the end of the project, the Contractor shall compose a Project Closure Report that is summarizing the activities during the period of performance at high level.
5 DELIVERABLES AND PAYMENT MILESTONES
The following are expected from this statement of work:
1) Complete the activities/tasks agreed in each spring meeting as per sections 2 and 3 above.
2) Produce sprint completion reports (format: e-mail update), which include details of activities performed and the list of the deliverables of the week.
3) The contractor will participate in the daily ‘touch points’ as well as the required participation in workshops, events and conferences related to the supported services, as requested by the service delivery manager.
4) Payment schedule will be according to payment milestones upon completion of 4 consecutive sprints. Upon completion and validation of each sprint and at the end of the monthly milestone, following the acceptance of the sprint report.
5) The NCIA team reserves the possibility to exercise a number of options, based on the same scrum deliverable timeframe, at a later time, depending on the service priorities and requirements.
6) The payment shall be dependent upon successful acceptance of the sprint report and the Delivery Acceptance Sheet (DAS) – (annex A).
7) Invoices shall be accompanied with a Delivery Acceptance Sheet (Annex a) signed by the contractor and the NCIA POC.
2025 BASE: PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: 1 of October 2025 to 31 December 2025
Deliverable: Up to 12 sprints (Number of sprints is estimated and will be adjusted based on actual starting date.)
Payment Milestones: Monthly for the completed and accepted sprints within the month
2026 Option 1: 01 January 2026 to 31 December 2026
Deliverable: Up to 46 sprints
Cost Ceiling: Price will be determined by applying the price adjustment formula as outlined in CO‐115786‐ AAS+ Special Provisions article 6.5.
Payment Milestones: Monthly for the completed and accepted sprints within the month
2027 Option 1: 01 January 2027 to 31 December 2027
Deliverable: Up to 46 sprints
Cost Ceiling: Price will be determined by applying the price adjustment formula as outlined in CO‐115786‐ AAS+ Special Provisions article 6.5.
Payment Milestones: Monthly for the completed and accepted sprints within the month
2028 Option 1: 01 January 2028 to 31 December 2028
Deliverable: Up to 46 sprints
Cost Ceiling: Price will be determined by applying the price adjustment formula as outlined in CO‐115786‐ AAS+ Special Provisions article 6.5.
Payment Milestones: Monthly for the completed and accepted sprints within the month
6 COORDINATION AND REPORTING
The contractor shall participate in daily status update meetings, activity planning and other meetings as instructed, physically in the office, or in person via electronic means using Conference Call capabilities, according to the Service Delivery Manager / Team Leaders instructions.
For each sprint to be considered as complete and payable, the contractor must report the outcome of his/her work during the sprint, first verbally during the retrospective meeting and then in written within three (3) days after the sprint’s end date. The format of this report shall be a short email to the NCIA Point of Contact mentioning briefly the work held and the development achievements during the sprint.
7 SCHEDULE
It is expected the service starts as soon as possible but no later than 1st of October 2025 and ending no later than 31 December 2025.
If the 2026 option is exercised, the period of performance is 01 January 2026 to 31 December 2026
If the 2027 option is exercised, the period of performance is 01 January 2027 to 31 December 2027
If the 2028 option is exercised, the period of performance is 01 January 2028 to 31 December 2028
8 CONSTRAINTS
All the deliverables provided under this statement of work will be based on NCI Agency templates or agreed with the service point of contact.
All code, scripts, documentation, etc. will be stored under configuration management and/or in the provided NCI Agency tools.
9 SECURITY
The services included under this SOW require a valid NATO SECRET security clearance.
All the deliverables of this service will be considered NATO UNCLASSIFIED, while access to networks exceeding this classification level is required.
With this role being of technical nature providing administrative support and dealing with NATO ERP data, a security clearance at the NATO Secret level is required prior to the start of the engagement.
10 PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS
10.1. Place of Performance
The contractor will be required to provide services 100% on-site at Braine l’Alleud, Belgium.
10.2. Hours of Operation Service
The Service will be provided during normal office hours following the Braine l’Alleud calendar (Mo.-Th. 08:30h-17:30h; Fr. 8:30h-15:30h). Due to the nature of the service, this will be as well outside office hours and on weekends, if necessary and agreed.
Limited part of the sprint activities may be requested to be executed outside business hours. This for patching windows (approximately once a month) during weekdays and up to 4 weekend interventions per year. For these occasions sprint price remains unchanged as the effort should be included in the print scope.
NCI Agency in Braine l’Alleud official holiday schedule applies and will be provided to the contractor.
10.3. Travel
There may be requirements to travel to other sites within NATO for completing these tasks for periods not exceeding 2 weeks.
Travel will be the responsibility of the contractor and the expenses will be reimbursed in accordance with Article 5.5 of AAS Framework Contract and within the limits of the NCIA Travel Directive. They will be invoiced separately to the purchaser by the service provider, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the framework agreement.
These additional travel costs are considered an extra charge to the overall bid price.
10.4. Contractor Furnished Services
Contractor shall furnish everything required to perform the contract except for the items specified and covered under NCIA Furnished Property and Services below.
10.5. NCIA Furnished Property and Services
Access to relevant networks and environments will be provided by NCIA
Work is to be performed on the NCI Agency network(s) and appropriate hardware and connectivity will be provided by the NCI Agency, for the duration of this contract, and is to be returned upon completion of the contract.
10.6. Other
The Service depicted in this SOW is expected to be carried by a SINGLE RESOURCE.
11 QUALIFICATIONS
[See Requirements]
Requirements
9 SECURITY
* With this role being of technical nature providing administrative support and dealing with NATO ERP data, a security clearance at the NATO Secret level is required prior to the start of the engagement.
11 QUALIFICATIONS
The consultancy support for this work requires an experienced Senior Oracle E-Business Suite Database Administrator (L3 Support) with the following qualifications:
* A minimum of 15 years recent practical experience as an Oracle E-Business Suite DBA, demonstrating a 36 months sustained period of performance on the previous 2 most recent assignments. In this capacity, the Consultant must have performed duties such as installing, upgrading, and supporting (patching, troubleshooting, tuning) Oracle E-Business Suite software and the associated Oracle Technology stack in a multi-tier/multi-node/multi-platform environment, comprising database server, applications server, web server, concurrent processing server, reports server, forms server, admin server, and discoverer server.
* Experience of managing multiple Oracle installations on large systems. In particular, the candidate must be conversant with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 (or higher) and Oracle Database 19c (or higher) product versions in Linux environments.
* Practical experience with Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Database backup/recovery (RMAN), configuration, sizing, space management, monitoring, patching, upgrades, performance tuning, troubleshooting and administration.
* Expertise in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 (or higher) technical architecture, including knowledge of the underlying database architecture, with particular reference to schemas/products, database objects, file system structure, tables, views, packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, indexes and constraints.
* Sound knowledge of and proven practical experience with IaaS, PaaS & SaaS solutions delivered through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services platforms.
* Broad knowledge of and proven practical experience with WebLogic application server and proven ability in dealings with Forms/Reporting/Apache Web servers and configuring, troubleshooting and tuning
* Sound knowledge of and proven practical experience with advanced topology elements like shared APPL_TOP, Oracle Clusterware, Rapid Application Cluster (RAC), Automatic Storage Management (ASM), Demilitarized Zones (DMZ) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions.
* Sound knowledge of and proven practical experience with Oracle's Enterprise Manager 13g or higher.
* Sound knowledge of and proven practical experience with Oracle’s Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite.
* Sound knowledge of and proven practical experience UNIX/Linux and good automation (UNIX/Linux scripting) skills.
These services are critical for maintaining efficient IT support operations, ensuring users receive timely and effective assistance.
The proposed person to deliver these services should be a motivated engineer with strong problem-solving skills, full proficiency in English, and a passion for customer service.