Section one: Contracting authority/entity
one.1) Name and addresses
NORTHERN GAS NETWORKS LIMITED
1100 Cetury Way,Thorpe Park Business Centre, Colton
LEEDS
LS158TU
Contact
Rebecca Rowley
Telephone
+44 7935077342
Country
United Kingdom
Region code
UKE42 - Leeds
Companies House
NORTHERN GAS NETWORKS LIMITED
Internet address(es)
Main address
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
Apollo Solution
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
two.1.3) Type of contract
Services
two.2) Description
two.2.1) Title
Apollo Solution
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UKE42 - Leeds
two.2.4) Description of the procurement at the time of conclusion of the contract:
A contract term of 3 years have been awarded for Apollo Solution. These services are used on all NGN laptops, tablets System Control desktops and Offtake Site Comms PCs, to enable secure remote access to NGN's IT systems. This enables widescale home-working and supports secure day to day operations for NGN's field force and system control to access NGN services to conduct their work duties.
Brand provide us capabilities within its services to overcome some critical restrictions within our AWS design architecture that Amazon natively does not support from an network routing prospective.
two.2.7) Duration of the contract, framework agreement, dynamic purchasing system or concession
Duration in months
36
Section four. Procedure
four.2) Administrative information
four.2.1) Contract award notice concerning this contract
Notice number: 2024/S 000-027150
Section five. Award of contract/concession
Contract No
Apollo Solution
five.2) Award of contract/concession
five.2.1) Date of conclusion of the contract/concession award decision:
23 August 2024
five.2.2) Information about tenders
The contract/concession has been awarded to a group of economic operators: No
five.2.3) Name and address of the contractor/concessionaire
Brand Communications Limited
Huntingdon
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
- UKH12 - Cambridgeshire CC
Companies House
Brand Communications Limited
The contractor/concessionaire is an SME
No
five.2.4) Information on value of the contract/lot/concession (at the time of conclusion of the contract;excluding VAT)
Total value of the procurement: £335,441.95
Section six. Complementary information
six.4) Procedures for review
six.4.1) Review body
Northern Gas Networks
Leeds
Country
United Kingdom
Section seven: Modifications to the contract/concession
seven.1) Description of the procurement after the modifications
seven.1.1) Main CPV code
- 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
seven.1.3) Place of performance
NUTS code
- UKE42 - Leeds
seven.1.4) Description of the procurement:
A contract term of 3 years have been awarded for Apollo Solution. These services are used on all NGN laptops, tablets System Control desktops and Offtake Site Comms PCs, to enable secure remote access to NGN's IT systems. This enables widescale home-working and supports secure day to day operations for NGN's field force and system control to access NGN services to conduct their work duties.
Brand provide us capabilities within its services to overcome some critical restrictions within our AWS design architecture that Amazon natively does not support from an network routing prospective.
seven.1.5) Duration of the contract, framework agreement, dynamic purchasing system or concession
Duration in months
36
seven.1.6) Information on value of the contract/lot/concession (excluding VAT)
Total value of the contract/lot/concession:
£335,441.95
seven.1.7) Name and address of the contractor/concessionaire
Brand Communications Limited
Huntingdon
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
- UKH12 - Cambridgeshire CC
Companies House
Brand Communications Limited
The contractor/concessionaire is an SME
No
seven.2) Information about modifications
seven.2.1) Description of the modifications
Nature and extent of the modifications (with indication of possible earlier changes to the contract):
Currently the infrastructure is running on EoSL OS and requires replacing. There is also a dependency on the back-office services to support authentication for System Control staff to access the network on their workstations, highlighting a single point of failure with the architecture. Finaly, the infrastructure is over complex, and the HA is active/passive, needing infrastructure support to manually intervene and failover servers to restore BAU services.
Upgrading the Brand infrastructure and client VPN from v2 onto v3 will enable us to simplify aspects of the architecture and remove the identified single points of failures. The infrastructure will be completely segregated from the back-office services, whilst the new v3 service will enhance security across the board and enable future work planned in the roadmap.
seven.2.2) Reasons for modification
Need for additional works, services or supplies by the original contractor/concessionaire.
Description of the economic or technical reasons and the inconvenience or duplication of cost preventing a change of contractor:
Currently the infrastructure is run by Brand and requires replacing and upgrading.
Upgrading the Brand infrastructure and client VPN from v2 onto v3 will enable us to simplify aspects of the architecture and remove the identified single points of failures. The infrastructure will be completely segregated from the back-office services, whilst the new v3 service will enhance security across the board and enable future work planned in the roadmap. There is no other supplier capable of delivering this service due to the technicalities involved.
This software is a critical part of our IT infrastructure and would be a multi-million pound investment to replace, procure and swap out all devices if Brand was replaced. Therefore there is a need to vary the contract to save NGN time and money that has been spent on building our current infrastructure to replace this with a new solution.
seven.2.3) Increase in price
Updated total contract value before the modifications (taking into account possible earlier contract modifications, price adaptions and average inflation)
Value excluding VAT: £105,000
Total contract value after the modifications
Value excluding VAT: £440,441.95