Public Transport Company Metro Seeks Data Centre Partner

Feb 20, 2014

Metro, the firm responsible for the co-ordination of public transport across West Yorkshire, has announced it is searching for a partner to provide a staffed and supported data centre solution.

The notice, appearing in the Official Journal of the European Union, states the firm chosen should be able to offer a high level of physical security with appropriate monitoring and control, Virgin Media Business POP, onsite data centre staff 24/7/365 and available access for Metro staff at all times.

The winning supplier will also need a minimum business impact level compliance of IL2 and ISO27001 information security accreditation.

The tender says flexibility surrounding the data centre hosting solutions should be offered: it wants a company who can provide services beyond pure rack space, such as IaaS, co-location or a hybrid solution.

The successful bidder will not only offer solutions for hosting existing infrastructure but will also need to offer possible suggestions for future projects.

It must be able to procure and manage a new, dedicated hardware infrastructure for Metro and provide rack space exclusive to the firm, according to the contract notice.

Besides this, the new provider will be expected to co-operate with third-party vendors undertaking work on behalf of Metro, hardware patching for co-located infrastructure, operating system level patching for co-located servers, management of back-up tape rotation if needed and a managed firewall as a service.

Metro said: “The Data Centre Hosting provider should demonstrate experience in migrating infrastructure services, not only for assurance but also to ensure a range of consultancy needs can be met if and required.”