Justification_Exception_to_Fair_Opportunity_NAWCAD_Enterprise_Hosting_Final_Redacted.pdf

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Version 3/15/18

General Services Administration

Federal Systems Integration and Management Center

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

UNDER IDIQ CONTRACTS

SOLICITATION 47QFCA18R0007

FEDSIM PROJECT NUMBER NA00698

The General Services Administration (GSA) makes this Justification for the issuance of an

Exception to Fair Opportunity order pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)

16.5.

a. Identification of Agency and Contracting Activity:

Agency:

General Services Administration (GSA)

Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM)

Acting in support of: Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) 7.2

Contracting Activity:

GSA FEDSIM Contracting Office (QF0B)

1800 F Street, NW

Washington, D.C. 20405

b. Nature and/or Description of Action Being Approved:

The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) 7.2, the Information

Technology/Cyber Security Department (IT/CS) has a requirement to provide enterprise wide application and data hosting services to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and Department of Defense Agencies. It provides reliable unclassified and classified secure technologies to deliver a range of enterprise level hosting capabilities supporting

C4ISR systems with financial, data analytics, business intelligence, science and technology, acquisition, logistics and Research, Development, Testing, & Evaluation

(RDT&E) information.

As an enterprise-wide hosting facility, the current hosting environment primarily leverages on premise, government owned, funded, and managed infrastructure. The confidentiality, availability and integrity of intelligence within these systems is critical to the successful execution of the NAVAIR mission and operations.

The overall requirement is currently being satisfied through the Alliant Governmentwide

Acquisition Contract (GWAC), GS00Q09BGD0050, under Task Order (TO), GSQ0015AJ0027, also known as the Rapid Response Technical Support (RRTS) TO.

Specifically, 7.2’s requirement is being fulfilled through the RRTS TO Technical

Direction Letter (TDL) No 2018-53 – Rapid Reaction Support NAWCAD 7.2 Cloud.

TDL 2018-53 represents a portion of the work supported by the RRTS TO and was approved by the Contracting Officer on December 15, 2017. The scope of the TDL is to provide assistance in establishing operations in a Commercial Cloud Computing facility

FEDSIM is a Client Support Center housed within GSA, FAS, AAS Page 2 that provides better protection, transport and reliability for business and intelligences services data. NAWCAD 7.2 is actively working to transform legacy hosting approaches that often fail to meet the needs of the warfighter to more efficient, robust and secure cloud environments that also offer financial advantages.

Alliant Solutions, LLC (Alliant Solutions) protested GSA FEDSIM’s issuance of TDL

2018-53 to the current RRTS TO awardee Smartronix. On May 14, 2018, the U.S.

Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained the protest. The GAO decision (B-

415994) found that “the TDL’s work in supporting the migration to and operation of a cloud facility differs materially from the RRTS’s scope of work”.

To ensure NAWCAD 7.2 is able to continue with its mission and provide the required support and the Agency is able to take action on the GAO decision, GSA FEDSIM intends to award an Exception to Fair Opportunity pursuant to FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B)

TO to Smartronix, Inc. Awarding this sole source TO under the Alliant GWAC will ensure continuity of critical services in support of the NAWCAD 7.2 mission and provide

GSA Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS) time to execute pre-solicitation activities for a competitive TO with appropriate transition-in time.

The proposed period of performance is one, six-month base period and one, three-month option period. The total period of performance will be from August 2018 through April

2018. The total estimated value of the nine month period of performance is

$9,756,630.00. The resulting TO will also include FAR 52.217-8, Option to Extend

Services, for flexibility to respond to circumstances beyond the control of GSA FEDSIM.

The total estimated value for of this action including the Option to Extend Services is

$16,261,050.00.

The overall scope of the TO is to support existing data center operations and completion of five cloud migration pilot programs already underway under TDL 2018-53, which will facilitate NAWCAD 7.2’s Authority to Operate (ATO) milestone in July 2018 and Full

Operational Capability (FOC) in October 2018, provide continued support for data center operations, and support successful transition out activities for the competitive contract.

c. Description of Supplies/Services and Estimated Value:

The tasks described below are in support of NAWCAD 7.2 and its mission to provide enterprise level hosting support to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and other

Department of Defense Agencies. The hosting capability supports C4ISR systems with financial, data analytics, business intelligence, science and technology, acquisition, logistics and Research, Development, Testing, & Evaluation (RDT&E) information.

The following tasks will be provided under this TO:

Task 1: Project Management Support – Conduct project planning activities throughout the project life cycle. Develop project artifacts such as project implementation plans, project specifications, project structures, work breakdown structures (WBSs), resource allocation, project forecasting and project control.

Task 2: Transition Out Support – Provide support for a seamless transition from the current contractor to the incoming contractor.

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Task 3: Engineering and Implementation – Provide engineering support and implementation of infrastructure services and components to architect the cloud computing environment.

Task 4: Information Assurance (IA) Support – Provide support that includes consideration of FedRAMP/DOD Cloud Security Impact Levels with respect to architecture design and cost implications. Develop strategies and plans to implement cloud security best practices such as continuous monitoring strategy and reduced time to achieve ATO. Support all IA activities to achieve ATO.

Task 5: Managed Service Organization (MSO) Support – Provide training on the resulting cloud solution.

Task 6: IT Service Management - Provide continued IT support services to manage the Government’s enterprise-wide IT server, storage and computing environments. Support Government in maintaining an IT Service Management environment in the Enterprise Hosting Service Area that aligns with the

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) V3 Framework. Operate and manage all existing NAWCAD 7.2’s ITSM services.

The total estimated value for the labor, travel, tools, and ODCs associated with this task order is $9,756,630 and is allocated as follows.

Cost Element Total

Labor

Travel

Tools and ODCs

Contract Access Fee

Total $9,756,630

The above contractor services are essential to NAVAIR’s ability to fulfill its mission.

Failing to continue to provide the required support to sustain data center operations and cloud migration efforts already underway will jeopardize delivery of capabilities to Naval aviation missions. It is imperative that NAVAIR continue to both sustain daily operations of hosting environments, and reach the ATO milestone while a competitive action is in progress. It is in the Government’s best interest to award a sole source TO while the

Government prepares and conducts a competitive procurement for the requirements represented above.

d. Identification of the Exception to Fair Opportunity and Rationale:

This Task Order Justification is being prepared as required by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), which states the contracting officer shall give every awardee a fair opportunity to be considered for a TO unless only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or

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1. NAWCAD 7.2 requires continued support at this time because ongoing data center operations are crucial to sustain mission and business systems that collect, process, store and secure business and intelligence data. Any interruption to these

IT services and cloud migration services would degrade NAVAIR’s capacity to receive critically important data that enables the Command to support essential

Naval fleet readiness and rapid delivery of products to the fleet. The five cloud migration pilot activities underway have committed to deliver operational capabilities to Navy program offices in support of warfighters, field operators and end users. The aforementioned systems directly support fleet readiness, artisans, fabrication, flight systems development, and business systems that enable Naval

Aviation. Any interruption of service will negatively impact IT services that support Naval missions. For example, one of the systems that NAWCAD 7.2 supports contains the Flight Clearance/Airworthiness information for NAVAIR.

Without access to this information, Ground Flight Representatives would be unable to determine the airworthiness of an aircraft and would need to ground all aircraft supporting the Command. In addition, this data center hosts the Navy

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system which is the Department of the Navy financial system of record. ERP has over 120,000 users and supports financial and supply management, enabling timekeeping for the Navy and enabling the

Department to obtain supplies to equip combat-ready Naval forces. This data center also hosts Decision Knowledge Programming for Logistics Analysis and

Technical Evaluation (DECKPLATE), a system that hosts all information related to fleet readiness including aircraft, flying missions, and supporting the logistical systems to determine the causes of why airframes are not ready for operation.

The diagnostic data hosted on DECKPLATE is critical to enabling the Navy to improve its fleet’s readiness.

2. Smartronix is the only contractor capable of performing the NAWCAD 7.2

Enterprise Hosting work required at this time. Smartronix was issued a TDL for this work as part of a larger body of work supporting C4ISR requirements for

NAVAIR sponsors through NAVAIR’s Rapid Response Project Office (RRPO).

Smartronix is currently engaged and providing this support to NAWCAD 7.2 under TDL 2018-53, but due to the GAO sustainment of protest against the issuance of TDL 2018-53, NAWCAD 7.2 is no longer able to receive support through the existing RRTS TO. Using another contractor at this time would result in duplication of work, cost inefficiencies, and mission delays due to significant progress with NAWCAD 7.2’s cloud services development effort.

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The contractor has worked through design, build, testing and staging activities at an accelerated pace in order to support compliance with Navy direction to migrate enterprise hosting services away from traditional on premise data centers and into commercial cloud environments. Smartronix is currently in the middle of cloud migration of five pilot programs to establish a stable, reliable, and cost effective cloud hosting environment. NAVAIR is committed to reaching FOC by

October 1, 2018 by defining, developing and operationalizing technical, financial, and business processes required to successfully deploy the pilot programs.

A minimum of a 30-day transition-in period will be required for the successful awardee of the competitive TO in order to fully resume IT server hosting, computing and storage environments encompassing the data center operations and management. Smartronix’s approach to NAWCAD 7.2 Cloud Architecture and implementation plans is specific and unique to the overall IT enterprise environment of NAVAIR and Navy sponsors. Cloud security, cloud management and cloud migration are also highly specialized skillsets. Given the complexity of

NAWCAD 7.2’s ongoing hosting and cloud migration activities, disrupting the established relationship would be detrimental to the NAWCAD 7.2 mission and cause a gap in service as the new vendor would require time to obtain personnel with the appropriate skillset, understand the complex operational environment, and become operational.

e. Determination That the Anticipated Cost is Fair and Reasonable:

The Government has prepared an Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE).

FEDSIM will be soliciting a cost/price proposal from Smartronix and will perform the analysis for fair and reasonableness determination.

f. Other Facts Supporting the Justification:

All supporting rationale is provided above.

g. Statement of Actions:

To ensure that the circumstances that led the Government taking exception to fair opportunity for this requirement are limited to this action only, the Government has implemented and is executing a competitive acquisition schedule that will complete all the necessary pre-solicitation and pre-award actions.

h. Certification by Technical or Requirements Personnel:

I hereby certify that the supporting data is accurate and complete.