Credit: ATO
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is seeking a partner or partners to provide an updated mainframe through either a mainframe-as-a-service or with new mainframe hardware and related services.
In a request for tender (RFT), the ATO said its current system consists of an IBM z14 mainframe, which is reaching the end of its economic life and is intended to be replaced before the end of the 2024 financial year.
For the first replacement option of a mainframe-as-a-service, a service provider will own the mainframe, while the second option of the purchase of new mainframe hardware will see the ATO purchase the hardware directly or via a leasing arrangement.
However, these options are not mutually exclusive, with each option containing separate portions that may be contracted for separately.
“This mainframe RFT seeks to modernise the contract structure, gain commercial flexibility and importantly revamp services to benefit from recent technology advancements such as automation,” the ATO said.
Regardless of the option, the mainframe will be used to provide services for data processing for ATO applications.
The RFT is open for submissions from interested parties until 29 June.
The ATO’s search for mainframe-related services comes less than a month after the federal government body put out a similar call for partners to provide cyber augmentation services in late March.
Both the search for updates to its mainframe and cyber security posture are part of the ATO’s IT Strategic Sourcing program to modernise its IT outsourcing portfolio through the development of market-aligned flexible bundles.
When the government body first announced the program in May 2021, target areas included centralised computing, end user computing and enterprise service management centre, plus any ancillary services.
