Information technology services

Tender description

This notice confirms the award of the data centre facilities and the related services (energy, connectivity and physical security) which is necessary to house and provide an operating environment for physical computing infrastructure from two separate locations, meeting minimum supplier capabilities. The contract being awarded will last for an initial term of 5 years, with an option to extend by a further period, or periods, up to 10 years (15 years total). This contract award notice is based on the value of the initial term, whereby extension periods have been estimated to ensure coverage of the full (optional) 15 year term. The scope of the agreement includes the provision of the facilities, heating, power, cooling and interconnecting fibre between the 2 colocated facilities. The contract was awarded as the outcome of the tender process conducted under Contract Notice 2018/S 203-463474. The provision of collocated data centre facilities and the related services (energy, connectivity and physical security) necessary to house and provide an operating environment for physical computing infrastructure from 2 separate locations, based on minimum supplier capabilities. Southern Water are seeking to move from their existing data centre into these 2 collocated facilities. The scope that service providers were required to meet, included the following: — 2 separate tier 3 data centre premises, within 100 miles of Southern Water’s Head Office location and capable of operating on an active: active basis, — appropriate site/caged area security and access control, compliant with ISO27001, — an energy efficient data centre environment, including provision of power, heating and cooling (including power to the racking), — mobilisation of the collocation offering, including: provisioning of data centre space and racking, power connectivity, network connectivity and availability of onsite support, — accepting delivery and storage of Southern Water infrastructure hardware, — provision of Southern Water access and meeting room facilities, — secure (caged) data centre space, fully fitted with high density racking (26 racks split over 2 facilities with a minimum of 12 at each facility), — effective network connectivity between the two data centres, including: interconnecting network fibre, internet connectivity; and, additional network services (such as AWS/Azure), — onsite support to both data centres (to a minimum level of “Smart Hands”), — compliance with the required service levels and availability standards, — the ability for Southern Water to scale its requirements by taking on additional data centre space in the future, as required. Service providers were required to meet a number of minimum requirements as part of a PQQ, with 5 tenderers being brought through to the ITT stage. These tenders provided a technical response, and provided a commercial offer to best meet the requirements, in line with the response form provided. The initial term of the collocation facilities contract is 5 years, with an option to extend by a further period, or periods, up to 10 years (15 years total). A separate opportunity and tender is being undertaken for the provision of the associated infrastructure (hyper-converged) solution and associate services, which are to be installed within the facilities awarded in this Contract Award Notice.