The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) intends to issue an Invitation to Tender (ITT) for an IP Transit service to complement its current external connectivity capabilities. ECMWF relies on external network connectivity for acquisition of observation data, the dissemination of operational data products, and external access to services hosted in its Bologna Data Centre. Currently this includes a resilient 100 Gbps IP transit service provided by the GARR consortium and, historically, a lower-capacity managed private IP network through Regional Meteorological Data Communications Network (RMDCN). With the planned retirement of RMDCN, product dissemination will increasingly depend on general-purpose Internet connectivity. To improve resilience, supplier diversity and operational continuity, ECMWF intends to procure an additional independent IP transit service from a second Internet Service Provider, complementary to the existing GARR consortium service. The envisaged service should provide scalable bandwidth up to 100 Gbps on Day One and be supported by a contractual service level agreement, including a target service availability of at least 99.95%, defined restoration targets, 24/7 incident support, proactive monitoring and reporting, clear maintenance and escalation procedures, support for BGP-based Internet routing, IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity, suitable physical hand-off options, and sufficient technical and commercial flexibility to support ECMWF’s high-availability operational dissemination requirements. The intended service duration is 3 years with possible 2-year extension. The estimated date of publication of a contract notice within this procedure and of the ITT is 11 September 2026.

Provision of a secondary ISP service

ECMWF uses IP networking in its Data Centre located at the Tecnopolo in Bologna. The Data Centre IP Fabrics interconnect all the subsystems critical to data assimilation and production, such as the supercomputing facility, storage systems and on-prem cloud services. Operational meteorological data products, produced on precise schedule multiple times per day, are disseminated to its Member and Co-operating States, partners and other authorised users around the globe, making external connectivity a critical component in fulfilling its mission. More information about ECMWF’s networks can be found at ECMWF's Facilities webpages ( https://www.ecmwf.int/en/computing/our-facilities/networks ). We are seeking a reliable IP transit service to complement our current external network connectivity. The target capacity foreseen is of up to 100Gbps on Day One with a possible increase in the future. The intended availability should be at least 99.95% on a monthly basis, and an expected 4 hours time to repair. To achieve these metrics, two distinct Meet-Me Rooms as well as two building entry points are available.