IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Tender description

The Met Office is seeking to procure supercomputing capability via the delivery of a fully integrated service from 2022 through to 2032. Access to the procurement documents is free and unrestricted to all those signing a confidentiality agreement with the Met Office (see Section II.2.4 below). Further information can be obtained at the Met Office's e-Tendering Portal: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/supplying-the-met-office/procurement and requests to participate and tenders must be submitted electronically via the Met Office's e-Tendering Portal. The Met Office has historically procured replacement supercomputing hardware, software and associated storage and scientific computer platforms at approximately 5-year intervals, and typically supported such infrastructure within its own hosting facilities. An exciting new longer-term approach has been selected to meet the Met Office’s strategic goal of ‘Delivering our Future Supercomputing Capability’ and to achieve this through a new aggregated supercomputing capability delivery model. This contract notice is to announce the procurement of this supercomputing capability through a fully-integrated service over a 10-year contract period which will encompass a technology refresh at the 5-year point. The contract may be extended by up to a further 2 years subject to a Met Office requirement to extend the life of the new capability and subject to any additional approvals and funding that may be required. The fully integrated service will encompass: 1) U (Umbrella): Overarching implementation services and operational services to the extent not addressed in Packages A-E below required to enable the provision of the integration solution; 2) A: Provision of specialist hosting facilities and supporting operational services with capacity to host at least Package B below but not excluding the hosting of Packages D and E below if incorporated into the bidder's proposed integrated solution; 3) B: Provision of supercomputing capacity including associated storage systems (to the extent not included in Package D below), software and the supporting operational services; 4) C: Provision of interconnectivity requirements, including site to site data communications between: (a) proposed hosting location(s) and the Met Office's existing Exeter sites; (b) proposed hosting location(s) and third-party locations; and (c) (if applicable) within and between the hosting location(s). 5) D: Provision of data storage in a Managed Archival Storage System (‘MASS’) and/or archive platform and supporting operational services including maintaining the Met Office's existing MOOSE (Met Office Operational Storage Environment) data access software layer; 6) E: Provision of scientific processing integrated compute environment (‘SPICE’) post processing computer platform. Please note that the Met Office reserves the right, in its absolute discretion, to remove Package D from the Supercomputing 2020+ procurement (or make any other amendments to the packages as the Met Office sees fit). The Met Office requires supercomputing capacity across the 10-year contract period as follows: (a) Generation 1: supercomputing capability from 2022 with a 6-times uplift in capacity for an initial 5-year period; (b) Generation 2: Replacement supercomputing in 2027 with a further capacity uplift for the subsequent 5-year period. The Met Office requires at least 50 % of the supercomputing capacity to be located in the United Kingdom in order to protect essential public interests. The balance may be located outside the UK, provided the bidder can satisfy the Met Office that the regulatory and legal environment in which the balance is located does not pose a risk to availability of the services. In order to maintain an uninterrupted capability, the Met Office has a requirement for an operational go-live for the initial phase of the Generation 1 capacity no later than July 2022 as the current system will reach the end of its serviceable life in September 2022. Bidders should note that the Met Office is currently working to achieve a slightly later go-live date but this may or may not materialise. In order to meet this operational go-live date the Met Office expects the procurement process to follow the indicative timetable: — contract notice and selection questionnaire release: 17.2.2020, — bidder briefing day – 3.3.2020, — competitive dialogue process (multiple phases): April to November 2020, — preferred bidder announcement: January 2021, — contract award: February 2021. Documentation relating to this procurement is available online through the Met Office’s e-Tendering Portal accessed through the following URL: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/supplying-the-met-office/procurement. Please note that on entering the portal, bidders once logged in and having registered in this opportunity will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement before gaining access to the procurement documents. Bidders should request a selection questionnaire through the above-mentioned portal and submit their response by 20.3.2020. Bidders may be interested to note that the Met Office has made available on the e-Tendering Portal proposed Heads of Terms. Bidders are invited to provide any material comments on the proposals set out therein by or before the date for return of the selection questionnaire so that the Met Office can properly consider them when finalising the draft contract. For the avoidance of doubt, bidders are not required to comment on the heads of terms during the pre-qualification stage and any comments made on the heads of terms will not form part of the evaluation of the selection questionnaire response (see further the procurement documents). Bidders should note that the value set out at II.1.5) above represents the current estimated total value of the final contract award but are advised that, as with many large complex projects, the final value may vary by some margin. The procurement has been designed to achieve strong competition, enabling a broad spectrum of bidder proposals to be evaluated through a single procurement. The Met Office will hold a bidder briefing day on 3.3.2020 (at Flybe academy, Exeter) and all bidders are encouraged to attend. Bidders will need to register for the briefing through the Met Office's e-Tendering Portal (further guidance on this is contained in the procurement documents). Should this date change bidders will be notified via the portal.