Firewall and Associated Services 2026

As a registered charity with resourcing constraints, IWA is looking to procure a well-featured security firewall solution and associated services at a competitive price point, which comprehensively helps IWA address the threat landscape and proactively strengthens our security posture. IWA seek a scalable solution that provides security protection at value for money to the organisation, a solution that will help equip the IWA team to defend IWA now and into the future. IWA look to address our firewall fleet across our IWA locations to improve security and performance of our network.

IWA are undergoing a digital transformation and aim for a cloud first approach, underpinned by the principles of least privilege and zero trust. IWA do operate some legacy systems and will require the firewall solution to support hybrid cloud strategies and a hybrid distributed workforce. IWA need to protect on-premises networks and resources, cloud resources as well as SaaS applications.

IWA ICT services support a variety of users across our environment to include corporate staff users, contractors, students, volunteers, guest and members who utilise IWA ICT services and internet access. IWA require support for both corporate owned and BYOD devices and endpoints. IWA operate a fleet of 45 firewalls supporting IWA fixed and wireless networks across IWA sites within the Republic of Ireland.

IWA is governed by GDPR legislation. IWA’s current critical firewall infrastructure are reaching their end-of-life milestone, past end of warranty and useable life for a live production environment which presents IWA with security risks and performance issues. IWA wish to leverage latest firewall technologies, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning capabilities to improve threat protection and detection and improve threat response for IWA, to not rely solely on signature-based security.

The firewall solution will support IWA to maintain compliant firewall rules and protect sensitive data in line with best practices. The objective of this CFT is to seek Reponses for the provision of a new quality Firewalls and Associated Services solution for IWA, to protect IWA networks, assets and to mitigate security risks while maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of IWA critical assets, systems and services.