C01 - JA - Puppet Enterprise Platform_Redacted.pdf

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 (FFP) Delivery Order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) for Puppet Enterprise Software Licenses and maintenance support. The action includes a 12-month base period of performance and three 12-month option periods.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The VA Financial Services Center (FSC), Financial Technology Service (FTS), requires Puppet Enterprise Software Licenses with maintenance support. FSC currently uses Puppet to automate server builds and manage configuration and server state. This procurement supports continued use of the existing Puppet Enterprise environment by acquiring the required software licenses and premium support services. Puppet Enterprise provides both model-based and task-based automation capabilities that enable FSC to scale its multi-cloud and on-premises infrastructure. It includes agent-based and agentless automation flexibility. Premium support provides 24x7x365 phone and online support, unlimited technical contacts, and unlimited support cases per month. Additional nodes may be acquired through optional CLINs. The total estimated cost, inclusive of all option periods, is .

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Overhaul (RFO) 16.507-7, 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 RFO 16.507(b)(2), 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: Market research determined that no other configuration management solution can integrate with the VA’s existing Puppet-based automation environment without extensive redevelopment, compatibility failures, or operational disruption. Puppet Enterprise is proprietary software that uniquely supports the VA’s existing infrastructure, including the Puppet Perforce operating environment, modules, and operating system configurations. Alternative products such as IBM Automation Platform and Red Hat Ansible provide similar automation capabilities but are not interoperable with VA’s Puppet-based implementation. Their use would require a complete redesign of FSC/FTS automation processes. To adopt any non-Puppet solution, FSC/FTS would be required to replace or reconfigure existing operating systems and rewrite more than 50 legacy modules. This would require up to twelve months of work by multiple system administrators and replicate approximately 9,000 historical labor hours. Estimated redevelopment labor costs alone would exceed and would not be recovered through

CONTROL NUMBER: VA-26-00062749

competition. Over 500 servers would require reconfiguration, resulting in significant delivery delays, loss of automation continuity, and disruption of mission-critical services.

The VA requires an idempotent, agent-based configuration management tool capable of enforcing rules continuously across NIX, Mac, and Windows systems, using FACT-based logic to configure assets based on business and organizational models. Puppet is the only tool capable of meeting all these requirements within the existing VA architecture. Continued access to Puppet’s proprietary code is also required to maintain current modules and ensure uninterrupted support and configuration enforcement.

For these reasons, only Puppet Enterprise software can meet the VA’s interoperability, compatibility, and production-level configuration management requirements without significant re-engineering or unacceptable mission impact.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research, described in Section 8, confirmed that no other configuration management software meets VA’s technical and interoperability requirements. However, multiple authorized SEWP resellers are capable of offering the required brand-name Puppet Enterprise solution. In accordance with In accordance with RFO 16.507-6(f)(1) 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 updates to the marketplace that present compatibility with other software manufacturers

8. Market Research: The Contracting Officer Representative and technical staff conducted market research from January through March 2026 and again from May through June 2026. IBM Automation Platform and Red Hat Ansible were reviewed and determined unsuitable due to incompatibility with VA’s existing Puppet-based infrastructure.

An RFI was posted on NASA SEWP for five days seeking compatible solutions; only Puppet resellers responded. Technical experts confirmed that no other product can meet required interoperability, compatibility, or configuration management performance needs. Therefore, only Puppet Enterprise software can support the ongoing automation and configuration management requirements of FSC/FTS.

Nine responses were received to the SEWP RFI. Four did not meet verification requirements. Of the five that did, one was SDVOSB, one VOSB/HUBZone, one WOSB, one small business, and one minority-owned small business. These results confirm that small businesses can provide the brand-name product through authorized reseller channels.

9. Other Facts: None.

CONTROL NUMBER: VA-26-00062749

Technical/Requirements Certification

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.

11. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Price: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on adequate competition and discounts among NASA SEWP V GWAC prices. Additionally, price analysis may be performed in accordance with Revolutionary FAR Overhaul 15.404-1(b).

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification. I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. This contract action exceeds the simplified acquisition threshold, but does not exceed $900,000, therefore, the certification required by Revolutionary FAR Overhaul 16.507-6(e)(1) serves as the Contracting Officer’s approval.