HPE CNI Support & Professional Services

National Energy System Operator Limited (NESO) intends to award an interim contract to Hewlett-Packard Limited (HPE) for the provision of support, maintenance and associated Professional Services for existing HPE infrastructure supporting NESO's Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).

The requirement covers four existing HPE infrastructure environments: Legacy infrastructure supporting core CNI operations; HPE infrastructure underpinning Balancing Mechanism activities; HPE server, storage and associated infrastructure supporting the Electricity CNI environment; and the HPE Nimble HF20 storage estate.

Services include, as applicable, hardware maintenance, break-fix and replacement, firmware and software support, Complete Care, mature/post-end-of-support-life support, incident response, technical assistance and associated OEM support services. Services will be provided remotely and/or onsite according to the applicable support requirements and service levels.

The contract also provides a controlled mechanism for in-scope HPE Professional Services associated with the supported estate and its transition. Additional services will be instructed through approved Statements of Work or Change Requests, subject to agreed commercial rates, NESO approvals and purchase order controls.

The currently identified core support requirement is approximately £1.166 million excluding VAT. The maximum proposed contract value is £2,165,631.69 excluding VAT (£2,598,758.03 including VAT), including capacity for controlled in-scope Professional Services and changes during the contract term. The maximum value is a contractual ceiling and does not represent guaranteed expenditure.

The contract is expected to run from signature until 31 December 2027. This interim arrangement maintains continuity of support for the existing HPE CNI estate while NESO develops its longer-term technology and sourcing strategy.