NNG15SD21B-107.pdf

CISCO MDS SAN Control Number TAC-20-57871

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 1701 Directors Blvd, Ste. 600

Austin, TX 78744

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for a firm-fixed price (FFP) delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for a brand name Cisco Multilayer Director Switch (MDS) Storage Area Network (SAN) solution consisting of two Full Cisco MDS, two Half Cisco MDS and four CISCO 32GB FC Line Cards.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology, Information Technology Operations and Services, Infrastructure Operations (IO), Enterprise Storage Service Line has a requirement to expand the current brand name Cisco MDS SAN switching infrastructure in the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC), Capital Region Readiness Center (CRRC) and Hines Information Technology Center (HITC). The existing SAN infrastructure has reached port capacity limitations in AITC, HITC and CRRC and are unable to support new storage and server connectivity at those locations. This procurement will replenish the Storage Management Division SAN port capacity inventory levels that were consumed by the Virtual Machine Modernization as well as expand the port capacity to allow for National Data Center Program support.

This solution will support interconnectivity for all IO hosted systems, storage, and associated applications that are currently deployed using IO storage. The Contractor shall be responsible for providing and installing the MDS SAN solution at each location.

The maintenance will be covered under the Cisco National Smartnet agreement. All items will be delivered and installed within 60 days from award. The total estimated price of this proposed action is $1,663,258.58.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C.

4106(c)(2) as implemented by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in Section 8 of this justification, VA has determined that limited competition is available for the required brand name Cisco MDS SAN solution among Cisco authorized resellers. A Cisco MDS SAN solution is required to ensure that the current

IO SAN solution remains interoperable with the existing Cisco based infrastructure. VA is not replacing its entire Cisco IO SAN solution with this procurement, but rather it’s expanding licenses, chassis, and switch infrastructure; therefore, any MDS SAN solution components being purchased must interoperate and be compatible with the existing Cisco based infrastructure. Only a Cisco brand MDS SAN solution has the capability to connect and work seamlessly with the current Cisco based infrastructure in place at the Information Technology Centers. These datacenters tie into the existing Enterprise solution and support over 187 applications which traverse VA IO and require seamless communication. The use of any other brand name MDS SAN solution would not be able to provide clean interconnections and VA systems such as the Financial Management System and Personnel and Accounting Integrated Data would be reduced to local data and would be unable to communicate via the national transactions necessary to conduct VA business operations. No other source, other than Cisco and its authorized resellers, has access to the proprietary source code that runs the current Cisco infrastructure in order to fully interoperate. Due to the high level of interdependency between the devices and systems that comprise the IO storage solution, the Government requires a solution that will fully interoperate with the current Cisco solution. The use of any other solution would require IO to operate in an “interop” mode which strips features, performance and availability from the existing SAN, and raises the complexity of operations such as Operating System upgrades, zoning and trunking. Running in interop mode would greatly impair services provided by IO such as VA.gov, MyHealtheVet, and VistA Electronic Health Records (EHR), which would negatively impact performance and availability of services to Veterans and increase disruptive events such as causing the existing production VSAN to “reboot” and losing some functionality that was already configured like port channeling the Interswitch connections. Any other brand name solution would not meet VA’s functional requirements.

Furthermore, since no other brand would be able to communicate or interoperate with the existing Cisco infrastructure, in order to utilize any other brand name solution IO would be required to procure an entire duplicative infrastructure to run in parallel with the current Cisco solution until the data in the existing infrastructure could be migrated to a new solution. Migration to a new technology would also require extended outages for multiple mission critical systems and Veterans’ services, including benefits and payments, prescriptions, EHR, and VA.gov. Based upon previous procurements and migration efforts, the migration process alone is scoped to be 24 months.

Additionally, the use of an alternative MDS SAN solution would compromise the integrity of the current IO steady state production systems across the enterprise making use of IO storage. This is due to moving physical connections from the existing infrastructure to an alternate solution. In addition, only Cisco or an authorized reseller can provide the necessary installation services because of the propriety nature of the technology required to configure the Cisco solution and infrastructure. Based on the information above, Cisco, or an authorized reseller, is the only source that can provide the Government with an MDS SAN solution that can seamlessly communicate and interoperate with the current Cisco infrastructure.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for a brand name Cisco MDS SAN solution. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed. Specifically, IO will continue to monitor market trends, new/emerging products, looking for compatible and more advanced technologies to meet VA needs.

8. Market Research: Government technical experts conducted market research in September 2019, through reviews of internet websites and trade publications, to determine if other similar MDS SAN solutions could meet the Government’s requirements. Specifically, the technical experts reviewed similar Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) solutions from Brocade and Dell EMC. Although other products can provide similar capabilities, no other product can meet VA’s requirements as outlined in section 5 of this justification, as they are not compatible and interoperable with the existing IO SAN infrastructure. These OEMs solutions do not have access to Cisco’s proprietary source code needed in order to seamlessly interoperate and communicate with the existing Cisco infrastructure. The use of another OEM solution would require operating in an “interop” mode which strips features and performance functionality from the existing storage network and would result in a need for a duplicative infrastructure.

The Contract Specialist (CS) conducted market research in September 2019 by using the NASA SEWP V GWAC market research tools. Based on this market research, the CS found multiple resellers under SEWP capable of meeting the full requirement.

9. Other Facts: None

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Lynda Dale-Roos Date: _____________________________

Chief, Storage Management Division Signature: _________________________

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on the NASA SEWP V GWAC prices already determined fair and reasonable. Additionally, price competition is expected among authorized resellers for this action. Additionally, price analysis may be performed in accordance with FAR 15.404-1(b).

Ty Senour Date: ______________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: __________________

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Ty Senour Date: ______________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: __________________

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of a brand name Cisco Multilayer Director Switch (MDS) Storage Area Network (SAN) solution on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Summer Spalliero

Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics