Decision

Purchase of specialist support agreement for the Council’s firewall technologies.

Reasons for the decision

The Council's firewall support agreement has expired. The Council operates firewalls to both protect the perimeter of its network, and to protect individual servers and devices. Whilst Guildford’s ICT team manages these firewalls day-to-day, a specialist support service ensures the Council is quickly alerted to potential vulnerabilities, and that firewall upgrades and complex incidents can be escalated to firewall experts, to protect the Council’s network and data.

Alternative options considered

Two suppliers were asked to quote. Only one supplier quoted for this support service. Whilst the Council has not used this supplier for general firewall support services before, they have recently supported the replacement of the Council's firewalls, and the firewall vendor has provided positive feedback on the supplier and ongoing vendor-certified training associated to their team.
The per-annum cost of this service is lower than the Council's previous firewall support contract, and the recent firewall replacement work was performed in-line with expected standards. Returning to the market for further quotations was therefore not considered value-for-money.