NHS Blood And Transplant Seeks Migration Partner

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has started the search for a supplier that will help with data centre migration, according to a pre-tender.

The notice states the Health Department needs a partner who can enable discovery, migration planning and execution of existing services from current data centres to two new sites.

The health Department’s IT infrastructure is essential for the safe and effective working of crucial services, such as reliable supply of blood components, solid organs, stem cells and tissues.

“The synchronous nature of the technologies requires that the separation of both primary and secondary routes between the sites cannot exceed two milliseconds,” claims the document.

“In addition, the key application requires a cable distance separation of no greater than circa 50 kilometres,” it added.

Currently, NHSBT’s primary data centre is located in the South East outside London, providing the body with support for its core services.

A second location is around 10 miles away that acts as a disaster recovery facility, while a third and smaller centre can be found in the South West – this was inherited during the integration with UK Transplant Service a few years ago.

Data Centres Provide Essential Services

For this reason, extended outages during the migration process cannot happen.

The pre-tender notes that it expects to engage a company for co-location services in a secure environment for a 3-5 year contract.

Any prospective bidders may also be expected to provide managed hosting services while NHSBT progresses service transformations.

According to the notice, an invitation to tender can be expected in mid-late July this year.

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