NNG15SD19B-152.pdf

Nutanix Maintenance TAC-19-52450

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center

23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for a firm fixed price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for the procurement of annual maintenance and technical support for Nutanix hardware.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is to provide maintenance and technical support for brand-name Nutanix storage hardware platforms. The VA Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Program, Hines Field Office, Building 20, Hines, IL 60141-7008 has a requirement to provide maintenance subscription services licenses for hardware supporting the PIV system. This acquisition for hardware maintenance is necessary to allow VA to continue to leverage the hardware investment and obtain vendor supplied maintenance for updates, and consulting for integration and implementation of new features. The maintenance support services will provide incident-based third party assistance troubleshooting, fixes, and upgrades to Nutanix. This will ensure the hardware currently fielded remains operational. VA requires these services to ensure that the hardware remain operational with no break in support. Nutanix is utilized to provide a stable, high availiblity environment, have the ability to easily update the environment/infrastructure through centralized management software, maintaining a streamlined process for remediating security vulnerabilities, having extensive visibility into performance metrics which allow for proactive administration, reduce downtime, and provide scalability. The period of performance for the order will be a 12-month base period plus two (2) 12-month option periods. The total estimated price for this proposed action is inclusive of the two option years.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 document, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for this requirement. While more than one vendor is capable of providing the supplies or services required, competition is restricted as a result of a brand name requirement. The VA PIV Production system is currently

Nutanix Hardware Maintenance TAC-19-52450 operating using Nutanix equipment, which provides infrastructure hosting for the PIV system. Only Nutanix can provide the required hardware maintenance and technical support because only Nutanix, or its authorized resellers, can provide support from a qualified, certified Nutanix representative, which guarantees they are approved to work on Nutanix Hardware. If someone non-Nutanix certified works on the system, it could result in a loss of functionality and render the equipment inoperable. This would result in a loss of service for the PIV production system, PIV Issuance at 208 PIV locations across the country would be affected and PIV issuance would come to a standstill. If the PIV system was not able to function, then new PIV Cards would not be able to be issued and existing cards would not be able to be maintained, which would affect the ability of VA Employees to access the VA Network and Systems. In addition, the only provider who can support, troubleshoot and resolve Nutanix software issues with Nutanix equipment is Nutanix. This is due to the proprietary software that is used by the Nutanix equipment. No other firm has the capability to develop and issue software updates and fixes for Nutanix software. And only Nutanix employees, or its authorized resellers, have the knowledge and resources to support any problems or issue that arise.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 of this justification. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), this action will be synopsized within 14 days of award on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) page and the justification will be made publically available. In addition, in accordance with 16.505(a)(4(iii)(A), this Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity will be posted on the NASA SEWP V website with the solicitation.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the agency will work with the program office to perform additional market research so that other solutions can be considered.

8. Market Research: In July 2018, Government technical subject matter experts (SMEs) conducted market research by reviewing industry trade publications and conducting internet searches to ascertain if any other non-proprietary but fully compatible and functional hardware/software solution is available. VA PIV SMEs compared maintenance subscription services from various vendors such as VMWare, Dell, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise who also offered similar maintenance offerings and maintenance subscriptions and determined that none provided the single integrated system capability as the Nutanix solution. The Nutanix hardware solution was found to be the only PIV application hardware augmentation solution that addresses all of the PIV requirements directed by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 and represents the only solution that utilizes a single integrated system which is most compatible with current PIV System that consists of several integrated subsystems. In addition. Based on all of the market research efforts, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only the Nutanix solution can meet all of PIV System specific integration needs and emergent requirements, including the requirement for a Nutanix software and hardware maintenance subscription.

Nutanix Hardware Maintenance TAC-19-52450

Additional market research was conducted on August 24, 2018 by issuing a Request for Information (RFI) on the NASA SEWP V GWAC to determine whether brand name Nutanix support is available from resellers that hold NASA SEWP V contracts. The RFI resulted in responses from three (3) Vendor Information Pages (VIP) verified Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) sources, MicroTech, Regan Technologies and ThunderCat Technology, and one (1) other than small business source, GovConnection. Additional market research was conducted by utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Look-up Tool which confirmed that there are 14 Group B(2) VIP verified SDVOSB contract holders offering Nutanix brand-name products and services. In addition, NASA SEWP V GWAC is a dynamic GWAC in which products can be added to vendor catalogs based on customer requests on as frequent as a daily basis, as long as the required IT item is within scope of the NASA SEWP V GWAC.

Based on the analysis of the responses, there is a reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC for the required Nutanix support.

Finally, the Government’s technical experts contacted Nutantix July 2018, to inquire whether its source code was for sale. Nutanix confirmed that the source code is proprietary and not for sale.

9. Other Facts: N/A