Supercomputing Optimised Cloud Support

Overview The Department of Defence is seeking to understand Australian industry's capacity to provide and sustain 'on premise', supercomputing optimised commercial cloud software instances, and to undertake the development, integration and sustainment of bespoke software to meet the Commonwealth's requirements. About Defence operates one of Australia's largest, highly scalable, secure Supercomputing capabilities (the "system") at Defence Science and Technology Group in Edinburgh, SA. Scope The scope includes: Procurement of a supercomputing compatible, commercial cloud software stack for deployment on the system Development, integration and sustainment of bespoke software package/s that combine mandatory security controls with the supercomputing compatible, commercial software stack, in accordance with Defence specifications Provision of regular software release cycles, via a secure supply chain, to ensure continued functionality and timely mitigation of evolving cyber security vulnerabilities of industry provided and bespoke software applications Partnering with Defence to optimise and enhance software features to meet Defence's needs Ensuring software is able to run on existing Defence procured hardware and networks Supporting strong network segmentation of tenancies, control plane and other architectural features of the system Contractor Requirements Staff working on the bespoke security interface package/s must be Australian citizens, eligible to hold an Australian Government Baseline security clearance Demonstrated capacity to maintain code provenance and stewardship and to follow guidelines for software development in accordance with the Australian Government Information Security Manual Preparedness to achieve Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) Level 1 membership Information Requested Information on supported networks (for example Ethernet, InfiniBand, Ultra Ethernet, Slingshot), traffic separation, switch management, NIST HPC security, storage, GPUs, CPUs, hardware vendors and privilege separation Views on the use of AI for code development, listed for discussion Instructions to Tenderers Tender responses are to be submitted electronically via the AusTender website www.tenders.gov.au, using the 'Lodgement Page' link on this tender notification. Enquiries Aleksandra Wojcik can be contacted via email: complexprocurement.edinburgh@defence.gov.au