IPART opens outsourcing contract

NSW’s pricing regulator IPART is looking for providers to take over its outsourced technology environment next year.

The regulator’s current ICT contract with the Australian Centre for Advanced Computing and Communication (AC3) expires next year, and the new tender for a new provider covers all aspects of IPART’s IT and network environment.

"Services are expected to take the form of, but not limited to, platform as a service (PaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS) and professional services,” the tender states. 

The tender closes in October.

As well as environments hosted in the GovDC Silverwater and Unanderra data centres, IPART uses the NSW government’s AWS-hosted GovCMS content management system, and Microsoft-hosted Office365 services (including backup and disaster recovery).

The data centres host a variety of services, including Microsoft Teams session border controllers, local file and print services, MS Exchange, ServiceNow, firewalls, and SharePoint software.

Providers will also be responsible for operating IPART’s network, which covers its corporate office in the McKell Building in the Sydney CBD, a 10Gbps connection to the Silverwater data centre, a 1Gbps connection to Unanderra, and 100Mbps Internet connections.

The tender also covers helpdesk and IT service management ticketing, with support using Microsoft Intune, plus backup, maintenance, patch management, and managed security.

IPART expects to award the contract in March 2023, with all services to be operational by October 2023.

iTnews has contacted IPART for comment.