University of Galway Seeks IT Framework for Network Infrastructure Support

University of Galway are seeking to establish a single party framework agreement for the provision of IT equipment, software and related services to support its network infrastructure. The initial contract for an on-premises DDI Solution will be awarded to the successful tenderer shortly after formalisation of the framework agreement.

The University requirements for the initial contract are described hereunder: The Galway campus network consists of approximately 600 Cisco network switches connecting 5000 network nodes. The wireless network consists of 1,000 Access Points (AP) associating to a pair of Cisco 9800 wireless controllers.

The wireless network SSID used on campus is an 802.1x SSID and has peak concurrent usage of approximately 15,000 users during the teaching semester. The University network also serves satellite centres at Shannon, Carna and Gaoth Dobhair. University seeks a DDI Solution.

The purpose of DDI is to manage three core network services that work together to provide foundational network infrastructure: • DNS (Domain Name System) - Translates human-readable domain names (like google.com) into IP addresses that computers can understand. It acts as the internet's phone book, directing traffic to the correct destinations.

• DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) - Automatically assigns IP addresses and network configuration settings to devices when they connect to a network. This eliminates the need to manually configure each device's network settings. • IPAM (IP Address Management) - Tracks, plans, and manages IP address space across an organisation's networks.

It provides visibility into IP address usage, helps prevent conflicts, and supports network planning. DDI solutions integrate these three services into a unified platform. University of Galway currently has an enterprise DDI solution in place using on-prem hardware and software. This solution provides: • IP address management for all campus networks wired, wireless and WAN.

• DHCP and DNS server for all campus networks • Recursive DNS Lookups for all wireless and wired clients • Fixed DHCP address and Reserved DHCP address management • DHCP options used for phones • Use of DHCP Class ID to enable clients select a DHCP address from scopes • Reporting of scope utilization The current solution consists of 9 appliances distributed across two Data Centres (Data Centre North and Data Centre South) using a proprietary grid architecture.

The infrastructure consists of: • One HA pair for DHCP • One HA pair for DNS • Second DNS appliance • 2 cache servers and 2 external servers