FOI release

FOI22_23-076 - Data Centre and servers

Published 20 January 2023

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Our ref: FOI22/23-076

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Thank you for your email of 12 October in which you requested from the Insolvency Service:

This is a request for information that relates to the organisation’s contracts around ICT contract(s) for Server Hardware Maintenance, Server Virtualisation Licenses and Maintenance and Storage Area Network (SAN) Maintenance/Support, which may include:

  • Server Hardware Maintenance- contracts relating to the support and maintenance of the organisation’s physical servers.

  • Virtualisation Maintenance/Support/ Licensing (VMware, Solaris, Unix, Linux, Windows Server)

  • Storage Area Network Maintenance/Support (EMC, NetApp etc)

For each of the type of contract described above, please can you provide me with the following data. If there is more than one contract, please split the information for each separate supplier this includes annual spend

  1. Contract Title: Please provide me with the contract title.

  2. Type of Contracts (ABOVE): Please can you provide me with one or more contract types the contract relate to: Server Hardware, Virtualisation, SAN (Storage Area Network)

  3. Existing/Current Supplier: Please provide me with the supplier’s name for each contract.

  4. Brand: Please state the brand of hardware or software

  5. Operating System / Software (Platform): (Windows, Linux, Unix, vSphere, AIX, Solaris etc.) Please state the operating system used by the organisation.

  6. Annual Average Spend: Please provide me with the most recent annual spend for this contract?

  7. Contract Duration: (Please can you also include notes if the contract includes any contract

Extension periods.)

  1. Contract Expiry Date: Please can you provide me with the date of when the contract expires.

  2. Contract Review Date: (An approximate date of when the organisation is planning to review this particular contract.)

  3. Purchase of Servers: Could you please provide me with the month and year in which most/bulk of servers were purchased.

  4. Number of Physical Server: Please can you provide me with the number of physical servers.

  5. Number of Virtual Servers: Please can you provide me with the number of Virtual servers’ servers.

  6. Brief Contract Description: I require a brief description of the service provided under this contract. Please do not just put maintenance. I need at least a sentence.

  7. Contract Owner: (The person from within the organisation that is responsible for reviewing and renewing this particular contract. Please include their full name, job title, direct contact number and direct email address.)

Your request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

I can confirm the agency holds the information that you have requested and I have provided answers to your questions below.

The information for question 1, 3, 6, 7 & 8 can be found on the contract finder notice here. The Insolvency Service is not obliged to provide you with a separate copy of information it holds where that information is reasonably accessible to the applicant. As such, the response to these questions is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Responses to the other questions are listed below:

2: Type of Contracts (ABOVE): Microsoft Azure.

4: Brand: Microsoft Azure Cloud Service

5: Operating System / Software (Platform): Windows, Linux

9: Contract Review Date:  Q4 2022

10: Purchase of Servers: N/A – no physical servers

11: Number of Physical Server: None

12: Number of Virtual Servers: The agency has 302 virtual servers

13: Brief Contract Description: Provision of a managed service, supporting and maintaining our Azure hosted environment

14: Contract Owner: I can confirm the agency holds the information that you have requested however, it is exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of the FOIA, because it constitutes personal data. Personal data can only be released if to do so would not contravene any of the data protection principles set out in Article 5(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation. This is an absolute exemption and does not require a public interest test.

In the case of the personal information contained in the attached documents, the individuals to whom the information relates would not have reasonably expected the information to be released outside of the Insolvency Service. The release of the requested personal information in this instance would be unlawful and therefore in contravention of the lawfulness principle at Article 5(1)(a) of the UK GDPR.

If you are not satisfied with the response we have provided you and would like us to reconsider our decision by way of an internal review (IR), please contact our Information Rights Team at foi@insolvency.gov.uk or by post at:

Information Rights Team

The Insolvency Service

3rd Floor

Cannon House

18 Priory Queensway

Birmingham

B4 6FD

United Kingdom

You also have the right to contact the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) if you wish for them to investigate any complaint you may have regarding our handling of your request. However, please note that the ICO is likely to expect an IR to have been completed in the first instance.

Kind regards

Information Rights Team

The Insolvency Service

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