Colocation datacentre facility to host services for CU Group

Negotiated without a prior call for competition

The works, supplies or services can be provided only by a particular economic operator for the following reason:

protection of exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights

Explanation:

AQL is our primary datacentre, it would be significant business risk to rush into a plan to relocate the primary datacentre and network communication links. We decided to continue our existing relationship with AQL for the stability of datacentre services due to the current financial position of the university group and the pressures facing the education sector. Technology is also changing at a rapid pace which makes it difficult to accurately predict long term placement of services as we continue to adopt more cloud technology. The AQL service is to remain in place for the next 2 years while a formal review is undertaken of our datacentre requirements. Once this decision is made, the university will go through a formal tender process for these services for a longer term partnership agreement.