An Area Monitoring System Service

The contract is expected to commence on December 1st, 2026, though this is an indicative start date and may change depending on the tendering process duration. The initial duration of the contract is two years, with an option for two (2) one-year extensions under the same terms and conditions. This means the contract could potentially run for a total of four years.

The project has three distinct phases:

• Year 1: December 1st, 2026 to November 30th, 2027, focusing on the monitoring of Area-Based Schemes.
• Year 2: December 1st, 2027 to November 30th, 2028, also focusing on the monitoring of Area-Based Schemes.

If extensions are exercised:

• Year 3: December 1st, 2028 to November 30th, 2029, with requirements depending on the new CAP.
• Year 4: December 1st, 2029 to November 30th, 2030, with requirements also depending on the new CAP.

A key milestone requires the commencement of a full and functional Area Monitoring Service by May 15, 2027. Additionally, the Project transition take-on Team must be available for up to four weeks prior to the contract commencement date.

• Public Sector Cyber Security Baseline Standards (or equivalent industry recognised cyber security standard)
• Automate First approach (for software delivery process)
• Shift Left approach (for software delivery process)
• Agile Frameworks (Software Development Methodology)
• DAFM’s Agile Framework (based on Scrum)
• Scrum (as basis for DAFM's Agile Framework)
• OAuth (access and authorisation standard)
• OpenID Connect (access and authorisation standard)
• AMQ Broker (for messaging and integration services, if not API-driven)
• Playwright (for system quality control)
• Microsoft PowerBI (for Business Intelligence dashboards)
• Windows (working desktop environment)
• IntelliJ (common development tool)
• NotePad++ (common development tool)
• Visual Studio Code (common development tool)
• Active Directory (used extensively across desktop environments)
• Enterprise Kubernetes (strategic build and deployment platform)
• Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (specific Kubernetes platform)
• Java frameworks (for bespoke applications)
• Spring Boot (Java framework)
• Quarkus (Kubernetes-native Java framework)
• Spring Framework (for legacy applications migrated to platform)
• Decoupled architecture (for bespoke Department development)
• Angular framework (for front-end development)
• Design System (for UI/UX component standards)
• Oracle Database (as "system of record")
• Python (for satellite data extraction and processing, algorithm development, database integration)
• R (for satellite data extraction and processing, algorithm development, database integration)
• Jupyter Notebooks (for accessing, retrieving and displaying data)
• FME (for LPIS data extraction and FOI creation)
• PostgreSQL (for database development)
• Atlassian Jira (tracking and collaboration tool)
• Confluence (tracking and collaboration tool)
• Gitlab (source code repository)
• Windows 11 (desktop clients)
• Internal Linux environment (DAFM RedHat Virtual Machine)
• External CREODIAS cloud environment
• Sentinel 1 data (heavy reliance for monitoring in Ireland)
• Sentinel 2 acquisitions (relatively low numbers of cloud-free acquisitions during the year)
• ISO 27001 Information Security standard (DAFM accreditation to be maintained)
• European Commission Guidance and Regulations related to Area Monitoring System implementation
• Article 70 of Commission Regulation (EU) No 2116/2021 (requires annual AMS quality assessment)
• Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation’s Guidelines for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Service