HPE CNI Support & Professional Services

National Energy System Operator Limited (NESO) intends to award an interim contract to Hewlett-Packard Limited (HPE) for the support and maintenance of existing HPE infrastructure supporting NESO's Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).

The contract covers four existing HPE infrastructure environments: Legacy infrastructure supporting core CNI operations; the HPE hardware and platform estate underpinning Balancing Mechanism activities; HPE server, storage and associated infrastructure supporting the Electricity CNI environment; and the HPE Nimble HF20 storage estate.

Services include, as applicable, hardware maintenance, break-fix and replacement, firmware and software support, Complete Care, mature/post-end-of-support-life support, incident response, technical assistance and associated OEM support services.

The contract will also provide a controlled mechanism for in-scope HPE Professional Services associated with the supported estate and its transition. Professional Services will be subject to defined Statements of Work or Change Requests, agreed commercial rates, NESO approvals and purchase order controls.

The currently identified support requirement is approximately £1.166 million excluding VAT. The proposed maximum contract value is £2.166 million excluding VAT (£2.599 million including VAT), including capacity for controlled in-scope Professional Services and changes. The maximum value is a contractual ceiling and does not represent committed or guaranteed spend.

The interim arrangement is intended to maintain continuity of support for the existing HPE CNI estate while NESO develops its longer-term technology and sourcing strategy.