NNG15SD22B-140.pdf

Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise with Virtualization Pack Maintenance Control Number: TAC- 19-52269

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, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for 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 brand name Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise with Virtualization Pack Maintenance Renewal support.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information Technology (OIT), IT Operations and Services (ITOPS), Solution Delivery (SD), has a requirement for the renewal of 12 Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise licenses with Virtualization Pack Maintenance Renewal for SD to perform uniform packaging/re-packaging of software earmarked for mass delivery to the field and to track all the software changes. Flexera AdminStudio provides a robust, intuitive means to package software and un-package/re-package for remote delivery and provides a workflow manager tool to track all changes of the software, as well as release of the software. The maintenance support services will consist of software upgrades and updates to include major releases, point releases, service releases and security releases of applicable software including 24 X 7 access to knowledge base, sample code, sample projects, and 16 business hour response time. The period of performance for maintenance support shall be 12-months from date of award plus three 12-month option periods.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C 4106(c)(2) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Section 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: Based on extensive market research, as described in Section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for the required brand name Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise licenses with Virtualization Pack Maintenance support services. The current implementation of Flexera AdminStudio Enterprises licenses ensures the proper delivery of software to targeted machines with existing Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager for the remote delivery and installation of software to large groups of workstations. This software allows uniform packaging/re-packaging of software earmarked for mass delivery to the Field. This tool is required to track all the software changes at every step in the Change and

Release Management processes. The software maintenance is needed to ensure the existing software implementation remains fully operational. The Flexera software communicates through a source code that is based on Flexera proprietary data. Therefore, if any other source was to provide these maintenance services without the Flexera proprietary source code, it would not be able to push upgraded to the existing software or fix, and configure the software. Only Flexera or a reseller can provide the maintenance due to the proprietary source code required to develop and implement software upgrades and updates. AdminStudio Enterprise licenses with Virtualization pack is the only software that can integrate and interoperate with existing Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise software since Flexera or an authorized reseller has the proprietary rights to provide maintenance for this software. Failure to purchase the required software and maintenance would result in loss of support and upgrades of the licenses we currently own. Access to the proprietary source code is critical to meet the VA’s need to maintain the current Flexera software as operational.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), the award notice for this action will be synopsized within 14 days of award on the Federal Business Opportunities Page along with a copy of this justification. In addition, this justification shall be posted to NASA SEWP V GWAC website with the solicitation for consideration by prospective offerors.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would allow other brand software and maintenance to be interoperable with the Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise licenses, thus enabling future actions to be fully competed.

8. Market Research: Flexera AdminStudio Enterprise maintenance is a commercially available off-the-shelf software license package currently in use in VA. When conducting market research in August 2018, the Government’s technical experts reviewed similar software products to ascertain if these items could meet VA’s requirements. Specifically, the Government’s technical experts conducted web-based research on similar software products from Pacesuite and Advancedinstaller. The research revealed that neither software product provides for AdminStudio updates. Although other vendors possess similar capabilities to provide the required software and maintenance, only Flexera AdminStudio has the source code required to issue the updates. Therefore, only Flexera AdminStudio or its authorized resellers have the tools and can access the source code and other proprietary data to provide the necessary maintenance support.

Additional market research was conducted in September 2018 by the Contract Specialist by utilizing the Provider Lookup tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website which identified numerous resellers of the required Flexera software including 10 prospective Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small

Business (SDVOSB) GWAC holders. As a result, there is a reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC for the brand name Avaya hardware solution.

9. Other Facts: None.