Published date: 16 August 2023

This notice was replaced on 2 January 2024

This notice does not contain the most up-to-date information about this procurement. The most recent notice is:

Opportunity (published 2 January 2024, last edited 2 January 2024)

Closed future opportunity - This means that a potential contract has passed its approach to market date. A buyer can choose to consider any supplier interest or convert this notice into an opportunity ready for live procurement.


Contract summary

Industry

  • Networking, Internet and intranet software package - 48200000

  • Hardware consultancy services - 72100000

  • Systems and technical consultancy services - 72220000

    • Computer network services - 72700000

Location of contract

South West

Value of contract

£3,000,000 to £5,000,000

Procurement reference

DDaT23365

Published date

16 August 2023

Approach to market date

8 December 2023

Contract start date

1 April 2024

Contract end date

31 March 2027

Procedure type

Open procedure (above threshold)

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

This procedure can be used for procurements above the relevant contract value threshold.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No


Description

** Please note this is not a call for competition*

This is a Prior Information Notice (PIN) for an event for the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) (UK Research and Innovation) to provide details of a project to redesign our network.

This project will consider a fresh design from the ground up, for all STFC sites across the Digital Infrastructure managed network architecture, cabling, switching, routing, and security. The redesigned architecture should take into account the needs of the next 5-10 years and be flexible enough to grow for years beyond that. Twelve years ago, there was a three-year budget to improve the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) network and many elements of the STFC network are based on 25-year-old design decisions. Over the past year we have gathered requirements from all departments and tenants that use our network. We should take into account modern network technologies and techniques, with security at the core of the new design. There is growing pressure from a number of departments for Digital Infrastructure to provide greater bandwidth for their business, while segregating workloads.

The aim of the event is to:

-Outline our plans
-Help us understand the technologies available and finalise our tender documentation.
-Provide interested parties with prior warning of an impending procurement.

There will be 30 minute virtual follow up sessions to be organised over 2nd/3rd October for individual organisations that attended the supplier day.

We would like to invite prospective bidders to attend a pre-market engagement event on Thursday 21st September at 09.30 am at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Campus, Didcot. The session will be led by: the Digital Infrastructure team from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK Research and Innovation) and UK Shared Business Services. Please see details in Additional Information on how to attend.

The agenda for the 1/2 day is as follows:

Introduction
Overview of STFC
The science we do?
Network redesign requirements and High Level Architecture (HLA)
Questions and Answers
Procurement overview
Refreshments
Site Tour


More information

Spend profile

This table displays the spend profile of the notice
Financial year Budget
2024/2025 £2,000,000
2025/2026 £2,000,000
2026/2027 £1,000,000

Additional text

A pre-market engagement event will be held on Thursday 21st September 2023 at 09.30am at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Didcot. This will provide an opportunity for potential providers to find out more about the aims of the procurement and the process. Providers wishing to attend must RSVP by Thursday 14th September 2023 at 14.00 stating their organisation, attendee names, titles, emails and phone numbers and number of vehicles - please note there is a restriction of 3 attendees per organisation. Full logistical information will be provided once an RSVP request has been received.

This information should be sent to the following email address: DDaTprocurement@uksbs.co.uk

Please ensure that the subject heading for the email is as follows:

DDaT23365 ORION Market Engagement Event.

It is anticipated that the tender documentation will be released in December 2023.


About the buyer

Contact name

Alan Bird

Address

Polaris House,North Star Avenue
SWINDON
SN21UH
England

Telephone

01793 867000

Email

DDaTprocurement@uksbs.co.uk

Website

www.uksbs.co.uk