SOTERIA (Database & Mission Data Support)

Tender description

Joint Electronic Warfare Operational Support Centre (JEWOSC) provides Electronic Warfare Operational Support (EWOS) to Defence in the form of Electronic Warfare (EW), Mission Data (MD) and Intelligence Mission Data (IMD), and other products resulting from the fusion of Electromagnetic Intelligence and doctrine, such as the Electromagnetic Order of Battle (EOB). It is Defence’s authoritative organisation for the generation of the EOB and EW MD. It is responsible for the iDEWDB, a Defence critical asset, which contains EOB and parametric data, from which the MD is derived. The iDEWDb consists of Thurbon, Nighthawk, Athene Equinox standalone applications which exist in the production, test & acceptance, training, and development environments.    The requirement is to continue to develop the capabilities and effectiveness of the iDEWDb whilst at the same time maintaining the agreed level of system availability, security, and safety. This will be a combination of on-site (primarily located at RAF Waddington) and off-site support.   An on-site support team (OSST) will be expected to provide day-to-day support for all relevant applications, Oracle databases, as well as Windows, Intel and Solaris components within the iDEWDb. This includes but is not limited to: incident investigation; fault diagnoses; system monitoring, and maintenance activity. The OSST personnel must not only have the technical expertise to provide such support but also hold Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance upon contract award.   The OSST are expected to be on-site during core hours (0800-1700 Mon-Fri, excluding Bank holidays and when JEWOSC is non-operational) however, there is also the requirement to provide support outside of these core hours to resolve high priority incidents and support the operational outputs of the JEWOSC.    Off-site support will normally consist of bug fixes, system refinements, patching and software updates, with any changes being tested and accepted prior to being released. There is also the possibility of conducting further development work on the iDEWDb. It is crucial that the supplier have sufficient off-site technical expertise and resources to be able fulfil these requirements securely, quickly and transparently. In addition, the supplier must have or be able to attain Facility Security Clearance (FSC) and their off-site personnel will require a minimum of Security Clearance (SC), with some required to have a DV by contract award.     It is envisaged that the supplier be able to deliver both Agile SAFe projects and waterfall in line with all DE&S current and policies. Agile should be used for day-to-day business practices and development whereas larger or 'core' work may be conducted via a more traditional waterfall approach. It should be noted that two of the applications (Thurbon & Nighthawk) have Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) constraints which will require commercial agreements with MASS Consultants Limited and SRC, Inc, whilst Nighthawk is subject to ITAR restrictions. This contract is not open to overseas suppliers. Quantity or scope: Please refer to Section II.1.5 for details of the scope.