Award

NERC Data Labs Phase 4

UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY

This public procurement record has 1 release in its history.

Award

20 Sep 2021 at 09:29

Award Notice
Summary of the contracting process

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is seeking service providers for the project titled "NERC Data Labs Phase 4". This procurement falls under the classification of development software packages, with a contract value of £99,968.88. The tender was awarded on 14th September 2021, and the contract period spans from 15th September 2021 to 31st December 2021. The procurement method utilised was a direct approach through a single tender action, as the project amount is below threshold. The tender was located in Wallingford, England and represents a critical step in advancing the functionality of the NERC Data Lab to meet the demands of contemporary research.

This tender presents significant opportunities for businesses specialising in data analytics, software development, and cloud computing, particularly those with experience in environmental data services and research collaboration. Companies with a strong background in innovative software solutions and a proven track record in developing collaborative research environments would be well-positioned to compete. The successful bidder, Tessella Limited, has demonstrated the capacity to meet rigorous technical requirements and should inspire potential challengers to showcase their unique competencies to win future contracts within this evolving sector.

Find more tenders on our Open Data Platform.
How relevant is this notice?

D3 Tenders Premium

Win More Public Sector Contracts

AI-powered tender discovery, pipeline management, and market intelligence — everything you need to grow your public sector business.

Start Free Trial Book a Demo
All Features Pricing

Notice Information

Notice Title

NERC Data Labs Phase 4

Notice Description

NERC JASMIN Data Labs development capital plan As part of the JASMINX proposal NERC has provided 120K to enable further developments of the NERC Data Labs project. NRC DataLabs underpins a number of UKRI projects supporting innovative use of NERC data combined with new computational and analytical methods using JASMIN as the host computing platform (Digital Environment and Digital solutions) . In this way, Data Labs leverage novel use of NERC's data assets and reduce the technical barriers to exploitation of JASMIN investment by the wider research community. Currently, NERC Data Labs provide a range of functionality to support research collaboration including:- * Secure sign on and allocation of users to individual "data labs" where development projects are carried out on JASMIN * Flexible data storage using GlusterFS including use of parallel data cluster services such as DASK and Spark * Use of the executable notebook technologies such as Jupyter, Zepplin and R * Hosting of lightweight applications such as RShiny to allow rapid collaboration among diverse research teams * Containerisation of application deployment (e.g. using Docker) so that technologies developed can be more easily moved to other cloud platforms as required. NERC Data Lab development will move the NERC Environmental Data Service toward the paradigm of data centres as data analytics service providers where the variety and volume of data available to researchers require them to have more flexible, cloud-based research environments where analytical methods are move to and run on-demand against the dynamic data resources within the data centre rather than repeatedly downloaded. Hence, the continued investment in Data Labs development is key to enable the NERC EDS to meet new demands of research for new data intensive and transdisciplinary research (e.g. as promoted by UKRI SPF calls). Profile of work 1. Provide a visual workflow engine interface to be able to build, share and publish workflows in DataLabs. Provide an editable visual representation of the workflow. This will be dependent on funds and may have to be a scoping exercise but we can learn from the DAFNI development 2. Improve the user interface so users can see their compute usage and clean up their resources once their jobs have completed 3. Provide tighter coupling and file level control (ACL's) between the Caringo petabyte object store and Datalabs. This will reduce the requirement for users to have a JASMIN account to access the object store and allow access to data stored in the Group Workspaces. This is dependent on JASMIN infrastructure resource. 4. Provide automated sign up to DataLabs 5. Provide dashboarding solutions to enable customisable front ends to Jupyter notebooks using tools such as Panel, Voila and Dash Additional information: Tessella has been continually active within the climate science, earth observation and environmental science domain for the past twenty years. They have worked extensively with NERC Centres including: British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC), Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) and UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH). In 2014 Tessella were one of the founding user communities on JASMIN, going on to establish a range of new capabilities within JASMIN's offering, and have since been involved in establishing, defining and implementing Datalabs in collaboration with UKCEH since its inception in 2017. To continue the successful development of DataLabs we require: * An understanding of the existing Datalabs solution in order to minimise project start-up activities, and maximise knowledge sharing within the joint NERC-JASMIN implementation team. * Ability to interface between the science-focussed research community and technically-focussed implementers to define and prioritise activities supporting the key deliverables of this phase. * Ability to work collaboratively with NERC/UKCEH project leaders to initially support definition and prioritisation of a product backlog reflecting the project's key focusses, then provide strategic technical and implementation advice to minimise delivery risk against a novel technology stack. * Demonstrate rigorous software engineering practices combined with a strong devops mentality to ensure Datalabs offers a robust solution capable of supporting a large community of researchers. * Creative, vendor-independent solutions to technical challenges while not losing sight of the core robustness and supportability of the Datalabs offering for many years into the future. * Ability to work collaboratively with STFC internal infrastructure operations team. * Leveraging existing research community Datalabs champions and developing new scientific use cases to showcase Datalabs' capabilities. Tessella have worked with us on this DataLabs development since 2017. They have demonstrated those requirements stated above during the various phases of DataLabs. In addition Tessella have been heavily involved in the technical implementation of the DAFNI project (Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure), a UKRI facility hosted on JASMIN. It is important that we develop methods to link these two analytical platforms and Tessella with a knowledge of both will be able to facilitate this Several previous phases of DataLabs have been procured through competitive tenders and in each case Tessella was the successful bidder. The most recent phase was competed through the Digital Outcomes and Specialists Framework, which includes several thousand suppliers: there were three completed applications for the tender and Tessella offered the best technical solution and the best value for money. It is unlikely that a further competitive tender would

Notice Details

Publication & Lifecycle

Open Contracting ID
ocds-b5fd17-87ff75d9-d868-4396-8b89-cfdbf9dc881b
Publication Source
Contracts Finder
Latest Notice
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/b7b6bc39-0155-4bcb-8d1a-62a4823656da
Current Stage
Award
All Stages
Award

Procurement Classification

Notice Type
Award Notice
Procurement Type
Standard
Procurement Category
Services
Procurement Method
Direct
Procurement Method Details
Single tender action (below threshold)
Tender Suitability
SME
Awardee Scale
SME

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

CPV Divisions

48 - Software package and information systems

CPV Codes

48983000 - Development software package

Notice Value(s)

Tender Value
£99,968 Under £100K
Lots Value
Not specified
Awards Value
£99,968 Under £100K
Contracts Value
Not specified

Notice Dates

Publication Date
20 Sep 20214 years ago
Submission Deadline
13 Sep 2021Expired
Future Notice Date
Not specified
Award Date
13 Sep 20214 years ago
Contract Period
14 Sep 2021 - 31 Dec 2021 1-6 months
Recurrence
Not specified

Notice Status

Tender Status
Complete
Lots Status
Not Specified
Awards Status
Active
Contracts Status
Not Specified

Buyer & Supplier

Contracting Authority (Buyer)

Main Buyer
UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY
Contact Name
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Email
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Phone
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →

Buyer Location

Locality
WALLINGFORD
Postcode
OX10 8BB
Post Town
Oxford
Country
England
Major Region (ITL 1)
TLJ South East (England)
Basic Region (ITL 2)
TLJ1 Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire
Small Region (ITL 3)
TLJ14 Oxfordshire CC
Delivery Location
Not specified
Local Authority
South Oxfordshire
Electoral Ward
Benson & Crowmarsh
Westminster Constituency
Henley and Thame

Supplier Information

Number of Suppliers
1
Supplier Name

TESSELLA

Further Information

Notice Documents

Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)

View full OCDS Record for this contracting process

Download

The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a framework designed to increase transparency and access to public procurement data in the public sector. It is widely used by governments and organisations worldwide to report on procurement processes and contracts. 

{
    "tag": [
        "compiled"
    ],
    "id": "ocds-b5fd17-87ff75d9-d868-4396-8b89-cfdbf9dc881b-2021-09-20T10:29:23+01:00",
    "date": "2021-09-20T10:29:23+01:00",
    "ocid": "ocds-b5fd17-87ff75d9-d868-4396-8b89-cfdbf9dc881b",
    "language": "en",
    "initiationType": "tender",
    "tender": {
        "id": "PL227-21",
        "title": "NERC Data Labs Phase 4",
        "description": "NERC JASMIN Data Labs development capital plan As part of the JASMINX proposal NERC has provided 120K to enable further developments of the NERC Data Labs project. NRC DataLabs underpins a number of UKRI projects supporting innovative use of NERC data combined with new computational and analytical methods using JASMIN as the host computing platform (Digital Environment and Digital solutions) . In this way, Data Labs leverage novel use of NERC's data assets and reduce the technical barriers to exploitation of JASMIN investment by the wider research community. Currently, NERC Data Labs provide a range of functionality to support research collaboration including:- * Secure sign on and allocation of users to individual \"data labs\" where development projects are carried out on JASMIN * Flexible data storage using GlusterFS including use of parallel data cluster services such as DASK and Spark * Use of the executable notebook technologies such as Jupyter, Zepplin and R * Hosting of lightweight applications such as RShiny to allow rapid collaboration among diverse research teams * Containerisation of application deployment (e.g. using Docker) so that technologies developed can be more easily moved to other cloud platforms as required. NERC Data Lab development will move the NERC Environmental Data Service toward the paradigm of data centres as data analytics service providers where the variety and volume of data available to researchers require them to have more flexible, cloud-based research environments where analytical methods are move to and run on-demand against the dynamic data resources within the data centre rather than repeatedly downloaded. Hence, the continued investment in Data Labs development is key to enable the NERC EDS to meet new demands of research for new data intensive and transdisciplinary research (e.g. as promoted by UKRI SPF calls). Profile of work 1. Provide a visual workflow engine interface to be able to build, share and publish workflows in DataLabs. Provide an editable visual representation of the workflow. This will be dependent on funds and may have to be a scoping exercise but we can learn from the DAFNI development 2. Improve the user interface so users can see their compute usage and clean up their resources once their jobs have completed 3. Provide tighter coupling and file level control (ACL's) between the Caringo petabyte object store and Datalabs. This will reduce the requirement for users to have a JASMIN account to access the object store and allow access to data stored in the Group Workspaces. This is dependent on JASMIN infrastructure resource. 4. Provide automated sign up to DataLabs 5. Provide dashboarding solutions to enable customisable front ends to Jupyter notebooks using tools such as Panel, Voila and Dash Additional information: Tessella has been continually active within the climate science, earth observation and environmental science domain for the past twenty years. They have worked extensively with NERC Centres including: British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC), Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) and UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH). In 2014 Tessella were one of the founding user communities on JASMIN, going on to establish a range of new capabilities within JASMIN's offering, and have since been involved in establishing, defining and implementing Datalabs in collaboration with UKCEH since its inception in 2017. To continue the successful development of DataLabs we require: * An understanding of the existing Datalabs solution in order to minimise project start-up activities, and maximise knowledge sharing within the joint NERC-JASMIN implementation team. * Ability to interface between the science-focussed research community and technically-focussed implementers to define and prioritise activities supporting the key deliverables of this phase. * Ability to work collaboratively with NERC/UKCEH project leaders to initially support definition and prioritisation of a product backlog reflecting the project's key focusses, then provide strategic technical and implementation advice to minimise delivery risk against a novel technology stack. * Demonstrate rigorous software engineering practices combined with a strong devops mentality to ensure Datalabs offers a robust solution capable of supporting a large community of researchers. * Creative, vendor-independent solutions to technical challenges while not losing sight of the core robustness and supportability of the Datalabs offering for many years into the future. * Ability to work collaboratively with STFC internal infrastructure operations team. * Leveraging existing research community Datalabs champions and developing new scientific use cases to showcase Datalabs' capabilities. Tessella have worked with us on this DataLabs development since 2017. They have demonstrated those requirements stated above during the various phases of DataLabs. In addition Tessella have been heavily involved in the technical implementation of the DAFNI project (Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure), a UKRI facility hosted on JASMIN. It is important that we develop methods to link these two analytical platforms and Tessella with a knowledge of both will be able to facilitate this Several previous phases of DataLabs have been procured through competitive tenders and in each case Tessella was the successful bidder. The most recent phase was competed through the Digital Outcomes and Specialists Framework, which includes several thousand suppliers: there were three completed applications for the tender and Tessella offered the best technical solution and the best value for money. It is unlikely that a further competitive tender would",
        "status": "complete",
        "classification": {
            "scheme": "CPV",
            "id": "48983000",
            "description": "Development software package"
        },
        "items": [
            {
                "id": "1",
                "deliveryAddresses": [
                    {
                        "postalCode": "OX10 8BB"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ],
        "value": {
            "amount": 99968.88,
            "currency": "GBP"
        },
        "procurementMethod": "direct",
        "procurementMethodDetails": "Single tender action (below threshold)",
        "tenderPeriod": {
            "endDate": "2021-09-14T00:00:00+01:00"
        },
        "contractPeriod": {
            "startDate": "2021-09-15T00:00:00+01:00",
            "endDate": "2021-12-31T23:59:59Z"
        },
        "suitability": {
            "sme": true,
            "vcse": false
        },
        "mainProcurementCategory": "services"
    },
    "parties": [
        {
            "id": "GB-SRS-sid4gov.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/XHZs4DAn",
            "name": "UK Centre For Ecology & Hydrology",
            "identifier": {
                "legalName": "UK Centre For Ecology & Hydrology",
                "scheme": "GB-SRS",
                "id": "sid4gov.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/XHZs4DAn"
            },
            "address": {
                "streetAddress": "Maclean Building, Benson Lane",
                "locality": "Wallingford",
                "postalCode": "OX10 8BB",
                "countryName": "England"
            },
            "contactPoint": {
                "email": "procurement@ceh.ac.uk"
            },
            "roles": [
                "buyer"
            ]
        },
        {
            "id": "GB-COH-01466429",
            "name": "TESSELLA LIMITED",
            "identifier": {
                "legalName": "TESSELLA LIMITED",
                "scheme": "GB-COH",
                "id": "01466429"
            },
            "address": {
                "streetAddress": "Dalton House,104 Dalton Avenue WARRINGTON Cheshire WA3 6YF GB"
            },
            "details": {
                "scale": "sme",
                "vcse": false
            },
            "roles": [
                "supplier"
            ]
        }
    ],
    "buyer": {
        "id": "GB-SRS-sid4gov.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/XHZs4DAn",
        "name": "UK Centre For Ecology & Hydrology"
    },
    "awards": [
        {
            "id": "ocds-b5fd17-87ff75d9-d868-4396-8b89-cfdbf9dc881b-1",
            "status": "active",
            "date": "2021-09-14T00:00:00+01:00",
            "datePublished": "2021-09-20T10:29:23+01:00",
            "value": {
                "amount": 99968.88,
                "currency": "GBP"
            },
            "suppliers": [
                {
                    "id": "GB-COH-01466429",
                    "name": "TESSELLA LIMITED"
                }
            ],
            "contractPeriod": {
                "startDate": "2021-09-15T00:00:00+01:00",
                "endDate": "2021-12-31T23:59:59Z"
            },
            "documents": [
                {
                    "id": "1",
                    "documentType": "awardNotice",
                    "description": "Awarded contract notice on Contracts Finder",
                    "url": "https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/b7b6bc39-0155-4bcb-8d1a-62a4823656da",
                    "datePublished": "2021-09-20T10:29:23+01:00",
                    "format": "text/html",
                    "language": "en"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}