NNG15SD22B-177.pdf

Control Number: TAC-20-57663

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: The 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 one brand name Variphy Incorporated (Variphy) enterprise bundle software license, maintenance and technical support.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology, Information Technology Operations and Services, Infrastructure Operations (IO) currently has 95,000 exisiting Variphy software licenses and has a requirement to purchase one enterprise bundle license of brand name Variphy Call Detail Record (CDR), Report and Audit software for all of IO to utilize. Variphy is a commercially available off-the-shelf software bundle that is used to configure, maintain, audit, and record the call details for Voice over Internet Protocol phones. VA also requires Variphy software extended maintenance and technical support services that allows for enhancements and optimization of the software, as well as remedying any software defects and failures which includes all new bug fixes, patches, corrections, releases, updates, versions and upgrades to the software. The software support services will provide technical support 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 365-days a year for the software via telephone, e-mail, and website. This will ensure that the Variphy application remains operational and free of vulnerabilities in order for VA to meet the mandated Continuous Readiness Information Security Program requirement to provide at least three years of CDR as stated in directive 6500 which says that the VA will comply with all federal laws and statutes. Without continued service and support, the Variphy software may not efficiently perform its intended functions, which would result in the loss of the federal mandated CDR. These records are necessary so they can be made available to the Inspector General (IG) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) agents so they can review calls made by department employees for a period of no less than three years. The period of performance for this effort shall be a 12-month base period for software licenses, maintenance and technical support, and two 12-month option periods for continued maintenance and technical support.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 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”.

Variphy Software Enterprise Edition Control Number: TAC-20-57663

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition is viable among resellers for the aforementioned brand name Variphy software licenses, maintenance and technical support. Variphy software is used in conjunction with the Cisco Call Manager phone system. Although Cisco manufactures a version of software similar to Variphy’s, Cisco’s software does not have the capability to sort the records by field, a key VA requirement utilized by the IG and FOIA agents. The current IO infrastructure is based on existing Variphy software and VA requires support compatible with the existing infrastructure protocols and functionality for continued operational availability. Only the Variphy software integrates seamlessly with the Cisco Call Manager systems and Cisco recommends utilizing the Variphy software with its Call Manager systems for CDR and analytics. VA requires software upgrades and updates to include major releases, point releases, and service releases of applicable software on a quarterly basis, or within 48 hours in cases where a high risk vulnerability fix becomes available. Only Variphy or an authorized reseller can provide the necessary software updates because of the proprietary source code required to develop and implement software updates. Also, no other source is capable of providing the required software that meets VA’s unique functional requirement to sort the records by field without access to the Variphy code. Access to this code is needed to ensure all services provided are properly configured. In addition, no other brand name software can meet all of VA’s functional requirements including call record details and analytics such as sort the records by field, call usage and phone control. In addition, an acquisition of a different product would result in a duplication of costs to purchase new software as well as decommission the existing servers, rebuild new servers and retrain Tier 2 and Tier 3 support staff. Specifically, a prior implementation of Variphy software licenses already exists in IO. The existing Variphy licenses are not compatible with any other software platform, as the software code is proprietary to Variphy. Use of another brand name software would not be able to communicate with the existing Variphy software due to the proprietary constraints. Use of any other brand name software would result in extensive deployment delays in addition to duplicative costs that would not be recovered through competition. Additionally, to provide the required updates, patches, and bug fixes, access to Variphy’s proprietary software code is required. Failure to acquire the maintenance support for the new licenses would cause system failures and put the Continuous Readiness Information Security Program requirements at risk of being compromised which would result in the loss of the federal mandated CDR.

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 Variphy resellers for these brand name Variphy software licenses, maintenance and technical support. 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

Variphy Software Enterprise Edition Control Number: TAC-20-57663

16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition on future acquisitions for this requirement, the agency will continue to perform market research to consider and ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would allow other brand products to work with the existing IO infrastructure, thus enabling future actions to be fully competed.

8. Market Research: VA technical personnel conducted market research in September 2019 which consisted of extensive internet searches, reading of white papers and reviewing service technical specifications of the vendor’s Website, and review of similar software and service packages to ascertain if these items could meet or be modified to meet VA’s requirements. Specifically, the Government’s technical experts conducted web-based research of software available from Solar Winds Call Detail Record Tracker, Media Clone, Phone X1, Uptivity and Telecom Expense Management Suite. The market research confirmed that no other software is compatible and interoperable with VA’s existing fielded Call Manager software installed in the IO infrastructure to allow for seamless integration with VA’s existing Call Manager telephony platform as outlined in Section 5 of this justification.

Further, only Variphy or an authorized reseller can access the proprietary source code in order to provide the required maintenance and support.

Additional market research was conducted in October 2019, wherein the Government’s technical experts utilized the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup tool and identified eight sources capable of meeting VA’s needs. Therefore, limited competition is anticipated for this requirement.

9. Other Facts: None