Public procurement notice: Modification Of A Contract/Concession During Its Term
Published: 2020-07-24
Buyer: National Treasury Management Agency
Country: IE
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 72251000: Disaster recovery services

Technical requirements: A tender competition was conducted in 2012 (via an open procedure conducted under the European Communities (Award of Public Contracts) Regulations, 2006) for the provision of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services to the NTMA. A contract was awarded as further described in Section V of this notice.
Provision of business continuity and disaster recovery services to the NTMA as described in the applicable procurement documents.
After contract award in 2013, certain changes were made to meet NTMA requirements in relation to increasing seating provision with subsequent increase in the provision of desktop equipment in the NTMA area, additional power supplies in the rack area and expansion of testing and invocation services. The first monetary amount indicated in Section VII.2.3) of this notice is the total value of the contractual arrangement including the earlier changes described in this paragraph.
Details of the modifications that are the subject of this notice (and Regulation 72 of the EU (Award of Public Authority Contracts) Regulations 2016) are set out in Section VII.2.1) below. The monetary amount indicated in Section VII.1.6) of this notice is the total value of such modifications.
The NTMA moved to its new offices in Treasury Dock in 2019 and procured new high speed communication links between treasury dock and the business continuity site as part of that move on the basis of 5-year contracts.It is therefore considered that the cost of moving business continuity site at this stage would be substantial as similar high speed communication links would have to be procured and installed in any new business continuity site. The existing site and its entire communications infrastructure would also have to be maintained until the operational performance and communications link stability of any new business continuity site has been tested and verified. This could also lead to substantial duplication of costs during this transitional period.
The NTMA is also currently undertaking a review of optimal ICT business continuity and disaster recovery options. This is likely to conclude on a modified model for the business continuity and disaster recovery operational environment, taking account of the new ICT infrastructural environment, current and emerging mobile technology options and possible enhancements to the new ways of working enabled in Q3/Q4 2019 by the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) platform. All options need to be fully explored and assessed before a final decision can be made in relation to the optimal solution for business continuity and disaster recovery site design.
Having just completed a significant modification to the entire ICT estate, with residual modifications and upgrades extending into 2020, the change of service provider at this time would have caused:
3) significant inconvenience and additional costs resulting from the necessary modifications to existing ICT communications contracts currently in place. Accordingly, on the basis of the technical and economic reasons outlined above, the current business continuity site contract is being extended for a period of up to 2 years from 1 August 2020.


Winner: IBM Ireland Ltd