Defence Online

Type of document: Contract Notice
Country: United Kingdom

1. Title: SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS (SATCOM) TRANSMISSION SERVICES – EXPORTING OPPORTUNITY
2. Awarding Authority: Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills acting on behalf of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), GB. Web:
3. Contract type: Service contract
4. Description: Opportunity type NATO
Industry Defence
Advanced SATCOM network monitoring and control (ASNMC).
The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) provides SATCOM services to NATO through a wide variety of SATCOM terminals. These terminals range from fly-aways to static ground stations. The terminals include Radio Frequency (RF) systems (e.g. one or multiple antennas, amplifiers, splitters/combiners, matrix switches, modems), IT infrastructure (e.g. routers, switches, servers), and supporting facilities (e.g. power, heating and cooling, buildings).To manage the terminals NCIA uses a system called ‘Advanced SATCOM Network Monitoring and Control’ (ASNMC), which enables operators to control terminals, monitor their operation, and support troubleshooting.The ASNMC, as depicted below, has a distributed architecture with as main systems:- the local managers (LMs) at each terminal, which enable local management of the terminal elements (“equipment”). LMs report the status of their associated terminal to a central manager (CM, see below). Conversely, LMs can receive control information from the CM.- the LM clients, that provide local operators browser based graphical user interface (GUI) access to the LM.- the central managers (CMs), located at data centres, which provide a global SATCOM status overview including all terminals and links between them. The CMs can, through the LMs, manage terminals and provision links between the terminals.- the CM Clients, that provide browser based GUI access to the CMs for SATCOM operators at the network operations centres (NOCs) and at static terminals.
2. Summary of System NeedsIt is essential that:- the ASNMC implements LM, CM and Client functions as described above in the background section.- the ASNMC provides: – monitoring of the SATCOM terminals and links with: event creation, i.e. detecting that elements, networks and SATCOM links operate outside (configurable) normal operation conditions, and determining the anomaly/alarm severity of such an event. event correlation (filtering, aggregation, masking, and root cause analysis based on element and dynamic terminal topologies and dependencies), classification and prioritisation. logging of key performance parameters and events. operator interaction, including graphical presentation of status and performance, and alerting and tracking of relevant events. control of the SATCOM terminals and links with: configuration of terminal elements by operators at LM and CM. sequence of predefined control actions (“scripts”) on one or multiple elements, which can be triggered through scheduling, operation action, or by monitoring events.communication between the LMs, CMs and Clients is implemented such that: LMs can interoperate with the CMs over constrained SATCOM links. LMs can be operated locally without connectivity to CMs. CMs operate in a redundant configuration, in which the information between CMs is synchronised (over the NATO terrestrial WAN), so all CMs provide the same status to NOC operators. the LM supports management of elements via: – industry standard protocols and interfaces: all SNMP v1, v2c and v3 functionalities. SCPI and MODBUS over IP, RS485, and RS422 interfaces. dry contacts. syslog. lement specific and proprietary Monitoring & Control (M&C) protocols, through software (SW) modules implementing APIs/ drivers for these elements. For this purpose, LMs must be able to host such modules and support information exchange with the LM. Interface Control Documents will be provided by NCIA.- the ASNMC offers a GUI at LM and CM, which: – is accessible through a browser. provides a uniform presentation of elements with similar functionality (e.g. modems, amplifiers, test instruments…) but different implementations (e.g. different manufacturers or versions). can represent the following topologies of each terminal dynamically (i.e. with actual states/ connectivity of switches as obtained through M&C data or entered by the operator for passive switches and patch panels): RF (including IF). power (AC, DC). serial and ethernet circuits between the data ports of the modems and the terminating network devices (i.e. non-SATCOM routers or switches). – the ASNMC itself (switches, servers, routers etc.).
enables at LMs a presentation in which elements can be grouped into sub-systems, and combinations of subsystems (and be displayed as subsystem, rather than displaying numerous elements in one screen). – enables at CMs a presentation in which terminals and links can be grouped according to criteria such as geographical area, user group, and technology. can present in graphs and tables, and can export, logged performance data with user configurable filters including time frame, terminals, type of data etc.can provide statistics for SATCOM links (SLA monitoring).- the ASNMC can be customised by the operator independent of the ASNMC vendor, through graphical interfaces and without requiring programming skills, to address changes in: – terminal topology (connectivity between elements, and the type and number of elements in a terminal). the number of terminals. – the GUI as described at item 5) above.- the LMs and CMs provide open and industry standard interfaces for the exchange of management information with external applications.- the ASNMC includes the tools for the administration of the ASNMC itself, including: mechanisms for provisioning of new and spare LM and CM. Configuration management database, detailing which SW versions are applied to which LM and CM. mechanisms to distribute SW updates. backup and restore.- the ASNMC meets the security requirements for processing classified data (notice that for secure communication between sites a VPN solution outside the scope of this survey may be assumed), including: the Operating System is approved (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Microsoft Windows). application(s) pass penetration testing. applications following a defined Secure Software Development Life Cycle process. OS and applications are hardened (OS guidance is provided by NCIA) applications: are supported with security patches. do not require an obsolete version of OS, libraries or dependencies to function. – security relevant events and account activity are logged. users have the minimum set of permissions to accomplish their work tasks. NATO approved anti-malware and Data Loss Prevention solutions are used (see www.ia.nato.int/niapc/).- the ASNMC, in relation to the SATCOM M&C functionality, provides access control which for each individual user of the system defines: its role(s) (e.g. IT (ASNMC) administrator, SATCOM administrator, SATCOM operator, NOC operator) with associated rights (e.g. manage ASNMC, view and/ or configure terminals, acknowledge alarms). which resources the user can access, based on attributes (properties) of that resource (e.g. terminals or elements within a specific mission or of specific type).-the Hardware (HW) implementation is: non-proprietary COTS for computing resources (e.g. server or workstation running the LM, CM and client applications). Serial protocol adapters and dry contact adapters as part of the solution may be proprietary, but must provide open and industry standard interfaces towards the LM computing resources. scalable in performance through adding HW resources to CMs at data centres and to LMs at static ground stations (which host hundreds of elements). At these locations, rack space and power are sufficiently available. the Software (SW) implementation is:a) Modular, non-monolithic, following a Service Oriented Architecture or Micro services Architecture, in which: main functions, including element specific APIs, are separate SW modules. SW modules can be maintained independent of each other, minimizing the need for regression testing of the complete ASNMC if updates to SW modules are made. updates to the ASNMC SW can be applied gradually to the LMs and CMs (one by one rather than a big bang approach), and different versions of SW can co-exist. instabilities in one SW module do not create instabilities in other SW modules and the ASNMC. – modules are small in size, can hence lower the maintenance costs and can be updated over low bandwidth links. resource efficient, such that for deployable terminals (which are the terminals with the lowest amount of elements) the LM function can be hosted on compact low power servers (e.g. single processor, 8 core, 32 GB RAM, SSD, 250W max. power consumption, 50% spare capacity), under the following example: 50 elements, 20 variables to monitor (poll) per element, polling frequency for each property 5 seconds, SNMPv3 based. one active operator session per LM, LM connected to CM over WAN. occasional alarms and configuration actions. implementation and use of the essential and desirable functionalities.
5. CPV Code(s): 32531000, 64228100, 64228000
6. NUTS code(s): UKC, UKD, UKE, UKF, UKG, UKH, UKI, UKJ, UKK, UKL, UKM, UKN
7. Main site or location of works, main place of delivery or main place of performance: NATO
8. Reference attributed by awarding authority: 422181
9. Estimated value of requirement: Not provided.
10. Opportunity closing date 30.8.2023.
11. Address to which they must be sent: To register your interest in the above opportunity please visit:
12. Other information: TKR-2023815-EX-1618297