Network infrastructure

Tender description

Extending support and updating infrastructure for the University of Edinburgh Research Data tape infrastructure. The current action will extend the infrastructure with a second site (for resilience) and increased capacity and bring all support for the infrastructure up to 2022. Under Regulation 33(4)(b) of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, a contracting authority may use the negotiated procedure without the prior publication in the case of a public contract, based on the following justification: Where a change in supplier(s) would mean that the University would have compatibility issues or disproportionate technical difficulties; this procedure can be used to acquire additional deliveries from the original supplier when needed to replace or increase supplies or installations. In this case, the contract or recurrent contract length must not exceed three years, other than in exceptional circumstances. The justification of this purchase is: — That it is an extension of an existing infrastructure — with additional components of the same hardware being used to increase capacity. — That the existing supplier — OCF — is used for this purchase to ensure the additional components are maintained by the existing supplier, so removing possibility of multiple maintenance providers performing investigation and remedial actions on the same kit. This avoids the common issue of 2 maintainers blaming each other for the issue. The duration of this contract will be 5 years. The contract is required to run beyond the permitted 3 year period to align with maintenance contracts on existing infrastructure which is being extended — i.e. to ensure that all components are maintained by the existing supplier to the same duration.