The Contracting Authority ICT infrastructure is a closely integrated ecosystem setup uniquely to fulfil operational requirements. In recent years, as part of ongoing growth, the Contracting Authority ICT infrastructure support service was consolidated into a single agile Framework Agreement, so that expansion could be dynamic and easily managed through a single supplier with flexibility, and staffing resources in mind. While Contracting Authority ICT staff are trained and skilled in most of the existing product ranges in use, the external support provided via the existing Framework is part of a vital component to ensure the efficient running of day-to-day operations within Contracting Authority. The Framework covers working with Contracting Authority ICT, and other key ICT vendors/ suppliers in commissioning the services. The tender must demonstrate this experience in working with in these types of scenarios and set out the platform accordingly. A key requirement of the Framework is the tendererโs ability to design, supply, commission and fully support, with 24 hour monitoring all security elements and requirements relating such as for example firewalls, servers, hosts, logs, switches, Active Directory/Entra within Contracting Authority's current and future technical stack and are located both on-premise, and cloud/hybrid environment within the Contracting Authority Data Centres, which reside in two Government Data centres in the Dublin region (Ireland) (accessed via Government Network (GN) connection), and Microsoft Azure space (EU). The infrastructure comprises more than 400 Windows servers, ten Fortinet firewalls and WAFs, and approximately 100,000 Active Directory/Entra B2B and B2C customer users, hosted across five domains utilising on-premises, hybrid, and cloud solutions such as Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SharePoint, and Power Platform. The Contracting Authority infrastructure is categorised in Gold, Silver and Bronze categories based on the data / information security risk profile โ only Gold categorised infrastructure is in scope for this Framework.
