Section one: Contracting authority/entity
one.1) Name and addresses
Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower, Harbour Exchange Square,
London
E14 9SR
chris.jones@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Telephone
+44 8000234567
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
UKI - London
Internet address(es)
Main address
www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
one.4) Type of the contracting authority
Body governed by public law
one.5) Main activity
Economic and financial affairs
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
Data centre hosting, networking, support and maintenance
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
two.1.3) Type of contract
Services
two.1.4) Short description
The Financial Ombudsman Service Limited is extending it's contractual arrangements with Capita Secure Information Solutions Limited. The extension will be for a term of six months. The arrangements relate to the hosting of data centre facilities. Specifically, provision, maintenance and operation of Data Centre systems; Data Centre LAN services; Data Centre Inter-connectivity and the provision of Data Centre facilities at two separate locations until the datacentre is decommissioned later this year.
two.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots: No
two.1.7) Total value of the procurement (excluding VAT)
Value excluding VAT: £360,000
two.2) Description
two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)
- 32400000 - Networks
- 72222300 - Information technology services
- 72514000 - Computer facilities management services
- 72514100 - Facilities management services involving computer operation
- 72514300 - Facilities management services for computer systems maintenance
- 72700000 - Computer network services
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UKI - London
two.2.4) Description of the procurement
The Supplier will provide the following services to the Customer in order to fulfil the requirements for the hosting of the Customer's Data at two remote data centre facilities.
Implementation and associated support of network links between two of the Supplier's Tier 3 Data Centre facilities;
2 x 10GB active-active links
2 x 8GB active-active Fibre Channel links
Supply and set-up of 13 contiguous racks at the Supplier's primary IL3 Data Centre
Supply and set-up of 11 contiguous racks at the Supplier's secondary IL3 Data Centre
A power draw capacity of 4Kw per rack at each Data Centre
Provision of structured cabling between Network Termination Equipment and Customer cabinet.
Service Delivery
The Supplier will provide the following services to the Customer in order to fulfil the service delivery requirements for the hosting of the Customer's Data.
An Intelligent Hands call-off service procured by the Customer through the contract order form process in periods of 15 minutes. The scope of which may include;
• Undertaking the identification of faults on hardware up to operating system level
• Observing and reporting equipment condition, functionality and indicator light status
• Re-boots and power-cycling of equipment or soft reboot
• Installing/maintaining patch/crossover cables as required
• Re-connecting and changing of plug-in cards and hard drives
• Physical cable and connection checking and securing if required
• Organising and maintaining cable labelling and visually verifying connectivity
• Entering specific commands on servers and devices
• Handling media insert and swapping of tapes or DVDs
• Escorting non-whitelist Customer staff and contractors
The provision of a secure space within the Supplier's Data Centres accessible to build and support teams for use during the installation phase and for any routine maintenance.
The provision of Client rooms within the Supplier's primary and secondary Data Centres equipped with power, desk-space and Internet connectivity available for visiting Customer staff and contractors.
The provision of a 24/7/365 Service Desk contactable by telephone and email.
The provision of a designated Service Delivery Manager responsible for the management and reporting of service levels and change requests through service review meetings scheduled at a frequency agreed between the Customer and the Supplier.
The provision of regular Service Level reports produced at a frequency agreed between the Customer and the Supplier. The content of which to be agreed between the Customer and the Supplier's Service Delivery Manager following service commencement.
The provision of secure 'white-list' access arrangements for pre-arranged and short notice visits by Customer staff and contractors to enable unescorted access to the Supplier's primary and secondary Data Centres.
two.2.11) Information about options
Options: No
two.2.13) Information about European Union Funds
The procurement is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds: No
Section four. Procedure
four.1) Description
four.1.1) Type of procedure
Award of a contract without prior publication of a call for competition in the cases listed below
- The procurement falls outside the scope of application of the regulations
Explanation:
The Financial Ombudsman Service runs two replicated, remote data centres located in the UK that run most of our day-to-day business systems. The racks that house our equipment are provided by Capita Secure Information Solutions. The links connecting the data centres and our client sites are also provided by Capita.
We're awarding a contract to provide data centre hosting, support and maintenance services to our current supplier, Capita Secure Information Solutions Limited, without prior publication in the Official Journal of the European Union because:
1. There is significant risk to our IT systems and business operations from decommissioning and moving our data centres from their current locations.
2. The whole life cost of changing suppliers is higher than that of extending our contract with the incumbent supplier, making it unrealistic for an alternative supplier to offer a more competitive proposal than our incumbent. We need a comparatively short term contract while we complete our cloud migration which has been delayed due to a number of external factors.
The risks we've assessed are as follows:
• We'll have no fail-over while equipment is being moved to a new data centre. A physical move would take a minimum of one week, with data re-synchronisation taking at least another two weeks. During this time a failure in the single active data centre could mean a complete loss of our IT systems until the issue is fixed.
• Moving the equipment may cause hardware failure which could lead to data corruption or at least reduced resiliency of the systems, meaning an extended period of risk with a single data centre running and delays completing the move overall.
The whole life cost of moving will be higher because:
• We'll pay to decommission, move and recommission our IT equipment at new data centre facilities.
• We'll pay to provision new network and Internet connections at new data centre facilities.
• The internal resources that are involved in our cloud migration project are those that will be required to deliver a data centre move. As such, we'll need to invest in additional resources to support one or both of these projects.
four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: No
Section five. Award of contract/concession
A contract/lot is awarded: Yes
five.2) Award of contract/concession
five.2.1) Date of conclusion of the contract
20 June 2022
five.2.2) Information about tenders
The contract has been awarded to a group of economic operators: No
five.2.3) Name and address of the contractor/concessionaire
Capita Secure Information Solutions Limited
London
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
- UKI - London
The contractor/concessionaire is an SME
No
five.2.4) Information on value of contract/lot/concession (excluding VAT)
Total value of the contract/lot/concession: £360,000
five.2.5) Information about subcontracting
The contract/lot/concession is likely to be subcontracted
Short description of the part of the contract to be subcontracted
The network links connecting the data centres and clients sites will be subcontracted
Section six. Complementary information
six.4) Procedures for review
six.4.1) Review body
The Financial Ombudsman Service Limited
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR
Country
United Kingdom