Gartan Availability (Electronic Retained Availability System) Hosting and Licensing

Descriptions

NIFRS has a requirement to renew licensing, hosting, support and maintenance for the Electronic Retained Availability system (ERAS). This system provides NIFRS with enhanced operational assurance in mobilising ~900 retained (On-Call) personnel. ERAS (in the form of the Gartan Availability solution) was supplied by and is supported by Gartan Technologies. Gartan has been the sole supplier of support and maintenance for this system and therefore possess expert knowledge of the design, configuration and interdependencies with other systems and is therefore the only supplier who can provide updates, technical services, support and training on this system. This supplier holds the Source Code for this system and therefore is the only supplier able to provide the required support and maintenance.​ NIFRS' existing licensing contract expires at the end of December 2025. Originally it did not include hosting as it was hosted on NIFRS servers. However, it moved to being a Cloud hosted service mid-way through 2024 and so the hosting expires at the end of April 2025.​ This DAC is required to continue the provision of this service / solution whilst a full business case is approved and solution procured for a new Crewing and Payments System which will include functionality to manage On-Call availability. To ensure business continuity is maintained until the new system is live, the following services are required: - Cloud hosting for Gartan Availability solution from 1st May 2025 until 31st Dec 2025 to align with current licensing contract. - Cloud hosting and licensing for Gartan Availability from 1 Jan 2026 to 31 Dec 2026 with optional 1 year extension until 31 Dec 2027.