Sebi seeks vendor for storage, web access to 20 crore Sahara documents
New Delhi: In the high-profile Sahara case, regulator Sebi is looking for a server hosting vendor for the mammoth task of providing electronic data storage and web access services for a database of 20 crore scanned pages.
In this long-running case, Sahara group was asked by the Supreme Court in August 2012 to submit all documents and deposit investors' money with Sebi for refund purpose.
Sebi was mandated by the court to examine the documents submitted by Sahara, whose chief Subrata Roy is in Tihar Jail for over 18 months, to ascertain their genuineness and make refund to investors.
Sebi has been inviting refund applications from investors through various platforms, including newspapers and its own website, and the process of returning investors' money is underway after ascertaining genuineness of their claims.
In connection with this matter, which is being overseen by a retired Judge appointed by the Supreme Court, Sebi has generated about 20 crore pages of PDF documents and a database created out of them.
The total volume of this electronic data, including the PDF files, is 70 terabytes. Terabyte is a measure of computer storage capacity and one TB is approximately a trillion bytes.
In a tender inviting bids for its 'Electronic Data Storage and Web Access Project' with regard to the Sahara case, the regulator said, "Sebi would like to avail the services of any third party server hosting vendor to takeover, store and maintain the aforesaid electronic data of 70TB and also to provide the services of web access to the data.
"The vendor would be required to provide storage facility for 70TB of electronic data, including PDF files comprising of about 20 crore pages and also the facility for access to the said electronic data either to the users situated in Sebi headquarters in Mumbai or to any other third party as desired by the regulator.
The contract will be initially for three years and can be renewed for a further period. The scope of work also includes making necessary arrangements to take over the electronic data from a third party server, store them in appropriate hardware/software environment, maintain the same and provide access to the said electronic data by establishing cross reference amongst the components of electronic data.
Besides, the job would also include generation of reports/ execution of various queries from the electronic data provided, based on the report criteria/attributes and the format of such reports to be provided by Sebi.
The successful bidder will be required to arrange for migration of the data including the image files and the metadata and also ensure that the digital storage has safe and adequate back-up measures.
Further, the electronic data would need to be web hosted for remote access by the representatives of Sebi and its authorized agents.
