Official UK procurement notice
Apollo Solution · UK public procurement notice
Authority: NORTHERN GAS NETWORKS LIMITED (Public body)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionA contract has been awarded for a 3 year term 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.
CPV: IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Apollo SolutionAwarded
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.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Award procedure without prior publication of a call for competition
- Legal basis
- CELEX · 32014L0025 Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 (Directive 2014/25/EU)
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Awarded without competition
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Direct award (no call for competition)
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 9 Aug 2024, 10:10 BST
- Last source update
- 3 Oct 2024, 15:04 BST
- FTS notice number
2024/S 000-031749- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-048943Find a Tender
- Why no open competition
The works, supplies or services can be provided only by a particular economic operator due to absence of competition for technical reasons
- Published justification
NGN have a contract with Brand Communications, which expires on the 31st of August 2024.
Apollo Solution 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. We cannot overcome this challenge without re-architecting our AWS landscape. With Brand technologies we have been able to circumvent these restrictions with their expert Layer 2 Network skills and experience. Bridging our VPC landscapes would not have been feasible without Brand technologies whilst ensuring security principles were maintained throughout the solution implemented.This is also extended into our Operational landscape where utilising the Brand Communication services, we are able to drastically improve our CNI network coverage, performance, monitoring and security of telemetry and gas day quality data flows from our critical offtake sites.
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 renew the contract to save NGN time and money that has been spent on building our current infrastructure to replace this with a new solution.
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast| Awarded to | Value | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand Communications LimitedApollo Solutions | £335,442 † | — | Awarded |
| Brand Communications Limited | £335,442 † | — | Awarded |
| Brand Communications Limited | £440,442 † | — | Awarded |
Contracts
Apollo Solution · Brand Communications Limited
- Signed
- 23 Aug 2024
- Value
- £335,442
- Status
- active
Contract 031749-2024-Apollo Solution-1 · Brand Communications Limited
- Signed
- 23 Aug 2024
- Value
- £440,442
- Status
- active
- Change 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., Need for additional works, services or supplies by the original contractor/concessionaire: 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.
Apollo Solutions · Brand Communications Limited
- Signed
- 9 Aug 2024
- Value
- £335,442
- Status
- active
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Dispute resolution & review bodies
- Northern Gas NetworksReview body
Bidders & participating suppliers
1 commercial party on the notice- Brand Communications LimitedAwarded supplier
Official documents & specifications
Official links; attachments are not copiedNo document links were published on the notice.