The Infrastructure Security organization of Shared Services Canada (SSC) is responsible for supporting the Information Technology (IT) security systems functions of the Government of Canada (GC). Included in this purview of responsibilities are the integration, engineering, delivery and support of security systems situated within all the member departments of SSC. Both legacy systems and end-state systems are supported in parallel; however, as part of the SSC initiative, all systems will gradually shift to a consolidated, Government-wide adoption.
SSC Infrastructure Security has a requirement to replace an end-of-life and end-of-support gateway network access control (GNAC) solution. The GNAC solution as implemented in SSC networks at partners enforces SSC and partner security policies by denying access to the Internet and remote access services if a workstation or server fails a security posture assessment. GNAC integrates into the endpoint (both workstations and servers) via a security agent and the perimeter firewall networking technology. A network access control appliance ties the endpoint and networking together.
The GNAC solution is a primary tool for enforcing security compliance within some SSC-managed networks. In environments that currently utilize GNAC, 99.5 percent of the endpoints are compliant with host security policies. This high compliancy is critical in preventing malware related security breaches and network compromises. The solution is also important in providing real-time security visibility and immediate remediation. This request for proposal (RFP) ensures a replacement tool is procured and that no interruptions to the GNAC security service are encountered.
The procurement has two primary purposes. The core of the contract will be to replace the current GNAC, which is already end-of-life and will be end-of-support in the near future. The second purpose of the procurement is to provision options to meet future requirements related to visibility, posture checking and access controls. The crown does not provide any guarantees that the optional goods and services will be executed.
The procurement consists of an integration aspect as well as providing OEM hardware, software and licences. The bidder role is to meet the requirements by integrating one or more OEM solutions.
