Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has been awarded a $2.3 million, 12-month deal from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, for the provision of software maintenance and support services.
“The procurement with [HPE] Australia is for the renewal of support and maintenance for the HP software the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) uses in support of its programs,” a spokesperson for the Department told ARN.
“HP software is an integral component of the DIBP information technology environment and various products are used extensively by a variety of different business areas in support of the day-to-day management of their activities,” the spokesperson said.
The specific products and licence streams covered under the terms of the contract include HPE business service management, universal discovery, quality centre, application lifecycle management, performance management, adoption readiness, records management and network virtualisation licence streams.
HPE won the deal, which runs from 1 July to 30 June 2018, through an open tender process, beating out a number of other suppliers listed on the Federal Government’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Services Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Software and Hardware panel.
Other suppliers on the panel include Data#3, Datacom Systems, Fujitsu Australia, IBM Australia, UXC Connect, Dell Australia, EMC and Dimension Data Australia.
The deal comes after the Department flagged plans to review its IT operating model in a bid to “achieve increased efficiencies in service delivery”, and make further strategic-level plans to establish milestones to guide ongoing architecture and application development work within its ranks.
Ultimately, the Department wants to reduce the complexity of its IT systems by providing a “consistent and intuitive experience for end-users in the business”.
It also wants to adopt an organisation-wide view of all technology issues with processes, governance and engagement designed to meet the needs of the integrated Department.
In March, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was one of two major government entities to come under scrutiny from the national auditor for failing to properly manage contracts with IT suppliers.
The Department, along with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) were also found to be non-compliant with the mandatory cyber security controls for all Federal Government departments, according to a report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) tabled in federal parliament on 15 March.
According to the report, the ANAO found weaknesses in DIBP's management of ICT contracts. In particular, some of Immigration’s ICT contract arrangements did not align with the Information Security Manual’s security patching requirements.
"Both the ATO and Immigration did not effectively use their internal assurance processes to validate the accuracy of service provider self-assessments against contractual obligations," the ANAO said in its report.
