Janet UK looking for co-location data centre provider in £130m tender

Network for UK research and education community issues tender that could last for 15 years

Janet UK, the network for the UK research and education community, is looking for a supplier to provide a co-location data centre facility, in a contract that could be worth £130m.

The company, which claims to serve over 18 million end users, issued a tender in the Official Journal of the European Union. The notice states that Janet is seeking to establish a single supplier framework agreement for the design, supply, installation, configuration, commissioning and maintenance of a co-location data centre facility with power, cooling and shared facilities including security.

It explains that the 15-year framework is for a greater period than the usual four years because of Janet's long-term fibre lease and tenants' long-term data centre strategies, which need assurance of continuity with the supplier selected.

Within 12 months, Janet estimates that a minimum of 120 racks will be procured with usable power of 1,200 kW. It forecasts that it will procure 500 racks within the first five years with usable power of 1.2 MW.

The contract, which is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement, covers purchases by University College London (UCL), King's College London, Queen Mary University of London, the London School of Economics (LSE), the Anchor Tenants, The Francis Crick Institute, The Wellcome Sanger Institute and other higher education institutions and further education colleges in the UK and their purchasing consortia.

Purchases will also be welcomed by public and private research councils and the Department of Health.

The selected supplier will have to cover the provision and maintenance of: data centre co-location space, supply of power to the tenant areas, data centre environmental equipment, data centre building structure and security, and passive assets such as cable and fibre that are outside the tenant areas within the data centre.

Additional services including on-site tenant shared office space, with one to two desks with internet access, a desk and a phone are also required.

According to Janet, among other things, the solution needs to "demonstrate a high quality fully resilient, standards based, cable and power design".

The contract will be for an initial period of five years with the possibility of extension for two further periods of five years. There will be a review at each five year break point to determine whether the contract will be extended.

The estimated value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement range between £40m and £130m.