Section one: Contracting authority
one.1) Name and addresses
East Ayrshire Council
London Road
Kilmarnock
KA3 7BU
Contact
Lesley McLean
procurement@east-ayrshire.gov.uk
Telephone
+44 1563576183
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
UKM93 - East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire mainland
Internet address(es)
Main address
http://www.east-ayrshire.gov.uk
Buyer's address
https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/Search_AuthProfile.aspx?ID=AA00223
one.2) Information about joint procurement
The contract is awarded by a central purchasing body
one.3) Communication
Additional information can be obtained from the above-mentioned address
one.4) Type of the contracting authority
Regional or local authority
one.5) Main activity
General public services
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
Market Research - ICT Infrastructure Support – Tape Library Review
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 32571000 - Communications infrastructure
two.1.3) Type of contract
Supplies
two.1.4) Short description
The purpose of this market research questionnaire is to gather information on the supply and approximate/indicative costs of a new Tape Library for EAC. This will allow the client service to review any potential budget shortfall for the delivery of this future project.
East Ayrshire Council currently utilise two Quantum Scalar i500 Tape Libraries – one with 2 drives and one with 4 drives. This integrates easily with our disk backup enabling us to have a tiered storage architecture which backs up data to tape. The warranty expires on these in March and April 2022 respectively. The tape library drives are end of service life, therefore we cannot renew the support on these, so our choice is to renew the drives or else renew the whole tape library. In order to keep the support on the drives and the chassis as the one entity, we are seeking to replace the libraries.
We have 6 x LTO6 drives in total and approximately 1000 LTO6 tapes.
The aim of this project is to replace the tape libraries by consolidating them into the one library, and replace with one similar; we believe the Scalar i6 to be a direct replacement. This would mean less drives and only one library therefore less renewals in the future. We must maintain compatibility with our existing LTO6 tapes so that these can still be read and restored from whilst we wait for the retention periods to expire. We propose to do this by using a mix of LTO7 drives and LTO8 or LTO9 drives. The reason behind this is that LTO8/9 drives can only read back one generation, therefore we require the LTO7 drive to read our LTO6 tapes.
two.1.5) Estimated total value
Value excluding VAT: £150,000
two.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots: No
two.2) Description
two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)
- 32424000 - Network infrastructure
- 50312610 - Maintenance of information technology equipment
- 72222300 - Information technology services
- 44316400 - Hardware
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UKM93 - East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire mainland
two.2.4) Description of the procurement
East Ayrshire Council currently utilise two Quantum Scalar i500 Tape Libraries – one with 2 drives and one with 4 drives. This integrates easily with our disk backup enabling us to have a tiered storage architecture which backs up data to tape. The warranty expires on these in March and April 2022 respectively. The tape library drives are end of service life, therefore we cannot renew the support on these, so our choice is to renew the drives or else renew the whole tape library. In order to keep the support on the drives and the chassis as the one entity, we are seeking to replace the libraries.
We have 6 x LTO6 drives in total and approximately 1000 LTO6 tapes.
The aim of this project is to replace the tape libraries by consolidating them into the one library, and replace with one similar; we believe the Scalar i6 to be a direct replacement. This would mean less drives and only one library therefore less renewals in the future. We must maintain compatibility with our existing LTO6 tapes so that these can still be read and restored from whilst we wait for the retention periods to expire. We propose to do this by using a mix of LTO7 drives and LTO8 or LTO9 drives. The reason behind this is that LTO8/9 drives can only read back one generation, therefore we require the LTO7 drive to read our LTO6 tapes.
two.3) Estimated date of publication of contract notice
1 March 2022
Section four. Procedure
four.1) Description
four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes
Section six. Complementary information
six.3) Additional information
Please complete the attached market research questionnaire and submit to procurement@east-ayrshire.gov,uk by 8th October 2021
NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Public Contracts Scotland Web Site at https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=668187.
(SC Ref:668187)