Credit: PA

The Bank of England is ready for a “step change” in the way it hosts services and data and is planning a move to a cloud environment.

The institution is seeking a commercial partner to fulfil a two-year project to “assist in design, construction and assurance of a modern, fit-for-purpose cloud environment”. The bank already uses some hosting and software-as-a-service offerings but is now “embarking a new journey” – with the public cloud the planned destination.

The organisation said that “advances in security and vendor offerings” mean that it is now to look at moving data and services into a cloud environment.

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“The bank is seeking to improve and build upon existing capability in order to better understand best practice of identifying, configuring and delivering the optimal service that our business expects, and so this opportunity is to provision these initial services to set us up for ongoing success,” the Bank of England said. “It is anticipated that this new operating model and approach will further improve legacy items within the estate that could be considered candidates for cloud adoption.”

No formal work has been undertaken, so the chosen partner will be expected to work with representatives of the bank and its existing tech suppliers to shape the project from the ground up. Early research activities conducted by IT staff have identified a hybrid environment as the organisation’s likely preferred route.

“The bank technology team have considered existing services in the market and the characteristics of a successful delivery of a hybrid infrastructure – one that is public cloud, private cloud, and internally hosted,” the organisation said. 

The bank has not attached an estimated value to the project, but rather asked that bidders “propose a payment approach… [that is] based against deliverables and outcomes”.

Bids for the work are open until midnight on 5 February, with work scheduled to begin on 1 April.