Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2019-02-22
Buyer: European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Country: CH
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 48610000: Database systems | 72222300: Information technology services | 72317000: Data storage services | 73100000
Estimated value: 3400000 EUR
EU fund: Horizon Europe

Technical requirements: This PIN concerns a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP). CERN is appointed as the lead contractor to lead and coordinate the procurement on behalf of the buyers group listed in I.1.
This PIN is an early information notice for a PCP expected to be launched in September 2019, and the Open Market Consultation (OMC) organised in preparation of the procurement.
The Archiver Project — Archiving and Preservation for Research Environments — will perform R&D to develop data archiving and preservation cloud based services in a multi-disciplinary research environment complementing the current on-premise services. The innovative resulting services will leverage standard processes and best practices, whilst ensuring the research groups retain total ownership of their data. It will use the PCP instrument to competitively procure R&D services from several providers. Further information is available at the project website (http://archiver-project.eu/).
The OMC will be an open dialogue with potential tenderers and end-users about the intended R&D scope. It will identify interested providers and applications, and verify the innovation potential and feasibility of the project.
The majority of the research and development services done by a provider must be located in European Union Member States or Horizon 2020 associated countries.
The future PCP aims to competitively procure R&D services in support of the Archiver Project (http://archiver-project.eu/). R&D services contracts will be awarded to several providers carrying out development services in parallel. The tender for the PCP will be launched in September 2019 to select providers to sign a framework agreement with the contracting authorities covering up to 3 development phases: design, prototype and pilot. Framework contracts will be awarded on a best value for money basis. After each development phase, there will be an intermediate evaluation by the buyers group to select the best competing solution for the subsequent phase, also on a best value for money basis.
The PCP concept is based on a risk- and benefit-sharing approach between providers and public purchasers. As a consequence, the provider will retain ownership of the intellectual property rights on the results that it generates during the performance of the R&D services, and will be able to commercially exploit the results.
The innovative end-to-end archival and preservation services to be delivered in Archiver will tackle the following technical challenges:
— enabling effective Petabyte range data management in a hybrid model, combining the procurers on-premise infrastructure with commercial cloud services,
— optimizing data access and ingestion at very high rates (1-10 Gbps/day) for use cases in multiple scientific domains,
— enabling efficient data content distribution anticipating access profiles evolution as cloud access becomes popular and scientific data volumes grow,
— providing high-end network connectivity through GÉANT network and Federated AAI for authentication and access control,
— adopting an approach based on standard practices, compliant with the OAIS reference model and the relevant series of standards (ISO 14721),
— exploring a cost effective business model taking into account data access patterns and archive longevity.
The OMC process is intended to be evolutionary, comprising of several activities during the period April-June 2019 focusing on different user communities and stakeholders.


Award value: 3400000