Decision

The Director of Corporate Services  approves the direct award of a one-year contract to Phoenix Software Limited (company number 02548628) for support and maintenance for the Renewal of Rubrik and Azure Backup subscriptions.

The contract will commence in October 2026 and expire in January 2028, with a contract value of up to £160k
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Reasons for the decision

The existing Rubrik support, maintenance and subscription arrangements are due to expire in January 2027, with Azure backup services requiring continuity beyond October 2026.

A one-year renewal is required to ensure continuity of service while the Council completes the design, implementation and migration to its new cloud-based backup and recovery solution.

Failure to renew would result in the loss of access to the cloud storage tiers that contain the Council’s medium and long-term backup retention for corporate systems and data storage. This would significantly impact the Council’s ability to recover data, meet retention requirements and maintain resilience against cyber incidents.

Renewing the existing service provides uninterrupted protection for both the current estate and the emerging Azure environment while longer-term backup requirements are assessed through the wider cloud transformation programme.

Failure to complete the renewal before the contract expiry date may result in service disruption and additional costs associated with licence reinstatement or recovery of services.

The proposal has been discussed with the relevant Finance Officers, who have confirmed that the costs can be accommodated through budget pressure submissions for 2027/28.

Alternative options considered

Option 1 - Do Nothing

This option is not to renew the existing service. This would result in the loss of access to medium and long-term backups of the Council’s server estate and data storage, significantly increasing the risk of data loss and reducing the Council’s ability to recover from a cyber incident.

Furthermore, the new Azure environment, which is currently being designed and deployed, would not have an enterprise backup solution in place.

Option 2 - Undertake a Competitive Procurement Exercise

Delaying a procurement exercise until the Azure design is finalised and a wider competition can be undertaken would not align with project timescales. This creates a risk that the new environment becomes operational without appropriate backup protection and recovery capabilities.

In addition, a delayed renewal may incur additional licensing or reinstatement costs from Rubrik.