Sharing Our Analysis of the Complexities of RFP Writing for HPC

Advanced Clustering was invited to make a presentation during the recent SIGHPC Sysadmin Professionals workshop that took place on the first day of PEARC19 last month in Chicago.

Our discussion focused on our analysis of Requests for Proposals (RFPs) that we received in 2018. Among our key findings:

• 48 days is the average number of days that RFP writers thought they would need to make an award decision
• 80 is the actual number of days until the award decision was announced
• 115 is the greatest number of days between RFP issuance and award announcement
• 8% of RFPs met their published deadlines for an award announcement

The biggest cause for problems and delays, our analyst found, was inadequate detail provided about the technical specifications of the system being requested.

Kyle Sheumaker, President and CTO of Advanced Clustering Technologies, gave a 20-minute presentation that outlined the level of technical detail that must be provided to ensure your RFP elicits adequate responses to make a sound purchasing decision.

Advanced Clustering published a white paper in 2018 that highlights best practices for writing an RFP for HPC equipment acquisitions.

“We have seen a great many RFPs fail in recent years due to a failure to provide a baseline level of technical detail about the equipment being requested,” said Wade Sisson, Marketing Director for Advanced Clustering. “Our white paper addresses those issues and is based on interviews we conducted with a number of clients who have successfully navigated the RFP process.”

The full RFP writing white paper is available for download here:

White Paper Compendium: Securing grant funding and writing an RFP