Decision details

Procurement of Cryoserver licences to replace the Council's existing expiring agreement.

The Council's existing Cryoserver agreement expires on 29th March 2023. The Council continues to use Cryoserver as our email archive solution.

The Council has been looking at a potential shared Microsoft "Tenancy" (365 service) with Waverley Borough Council as part of wider collaboration between the Councils. If this shared tenancy progresses, it is likely that the Councils email archive solutions will make sense to be brought together too. This would avoid complex configuration of the shared tenancy to support two separate email archive solutions.

As a result, a licensing arrangement to enable continued use of Cryoserver is therefore considered necessary at this time.

Due to the collaboration with Waverley Borough Council, and dependant conversations about a potential shared Microsoft tenancy, it is unlikely that there will be sufficient time to recover the cost of migrating to an alternative platform that doesn't align with Waverley.

Options considered were therefore limited to Waverley's Mimecast solution, or Guildford's current Cryoserver solution.

Cryoserver was the lower priced solution and renewal of the existing solution is therefore considered the best value option at this time.