Drupal 10 and 11 Website Managed Hosting and Development Services

The Vendor is required to provide for managed hosting and development consultation services for our current website.
- Website operates on the Drupal 10 platform, with an anticipated upgrade to Drupal 11.
- Expected to perform this upgrade, host, remotely administer, and provide development and consultation services during the contract period.
- Website Hosting: 
• Create deployment environments on its virtual servers, including a dev server, a staging/test server, and a production server, within three (3) business days of the contract start date. 
• Each environment will be configured to the specifications provided by the city, and will serve to host the city's website, which currently operates on the Drupal 10 CMS. 
• Provide telephone and email support with a two-hour (2) response time from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST Monday through Friday. 
• Provide 24x7 monitoring of system outages with a two-hour (2) response time, and monthly website access uptime of 99.9%. 
• Provide security measures that prevent breaches (including SQL injections and spam) or attacks (such as ddos) and access to confidential data collected and stored. 
• In addition, the vendor will notify the city immediately of any suspected or actual breach, investigate the source of the breach, and implement changes to remove the risk.
- Drupal 11 Upgrade: The vendor will be required to upgrade our website to Drupal 11 by July 2026, in line with the end of life for Drupal 10.
- Remediation of Accessibility Issues: Lead remediation to achieve WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance across all somervillema.gov by April 24 2026, the DOJ ADA Title II deadline for municipalities with populations of 50,000 or more.
- Tackle systemic, code‑level barriers identified in the City’s Site improve dashboard, including:
• Color‑contrast failures in forms and interactive components
• Mismatched visible labels and accessible names on controls
• Form fields missing programmatic labels
• Images and links missing text alternatives
• Empty containers/headings and hidden or improperly focused elements - Website Search Platform: 
• The City currently uses Swiftype and Elastic search for on-site search functionality but has found their performance unsatisfactory. 
• We are seeking a robust, flexible search solution that is fully compatible with the Drupal CMS and supports administrative editing and fine-tuning. 
• While our preference is for a solution based on Drupal core search, we are open to alternative approaches that can meet our requirements for relevancy, user experience, and accessibility.
- Cyber Attack Protection: The vendor must provide robust protection against cyber-attacks, including but not limited to DDoS attacks. The vendor must have a proactive approach to security and a plan for responding to potential security incidents.
- Accessibility Compliance: The vendor must ensure that the website is fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. This is crucial to ensure that the website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.
- Responsive Design: The website must be designed to be responsive, ensuring that it displays correctly and is easy to navigate on a variety of devices and screen sizes, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
- SEO Best Practices: While the vendor will not be responsible for providing SEO content, they are required to enable its effective implementation through page structure, modules, Drupal configuration, etc.
- Data Privacy and Protection: must adhere to best practices for data privacy and protection, ensuring that any personal data collected through the website is handled in a secure and compliant manner.
- Ongoing Support and Maintenance: Provide ongoing support and maintenance services, to ensure that the website remains up-to-date and secure, and to address any issues or problems that may arise.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: July 02, 2025