The University of Cumbria is looking for a supplier to provide a new managed IT infrastructure service in a six-year deal.
In the Official Journal of the European Union tender, the university notes that the contract will be worth between £2m and £3m (excluding VAT).
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The supplier will be expected to replace the existing on-premise datacentre "compute and storage environment" which, the university says, is approaching its "end of life".
The tender continues: "The university will consider options for replacement with on-site solutions, as well as hosted off-site services and hybrid solutions: in all cases a comprehensive managed service is required to provide ongoing support for this IT infrastructure, together with professional services for the detailed design-development of the agreed IT infrastructure solution, and assistance with services migration."
Currently, the university's IT infrastructure consists of about 300 servers, of which 220 are in a virtual environment and 80 are physical, running applications that have not yet or cannot be virtualised.
The university adds that it has 50TB of unique data, which is replicated in support of its business continuity plan.
Operators that wish to participate in the tender have until 7 December 2012 to submit a request for documents.
