3008.405-6a2_LSJ_Exceeding_SAT_Redacted.pdf

OPOAM 3008.405-6(a)(2)

Limited-Sources Justification (LSJ) For Enterprise Platform Software and Services (EPSS) Technical Support

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LSJ No:

LSJ No.:

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program, 41

U.S.C. 152(3), Competitive Procedures, and 40 U.S.C. 501, Services for Executive Agencies, in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a), Limiting Sources.

1. Agency and Contracting Activity. Identification of the agency, contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Limited-Sources Justification.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Procurement Operations (OPO), Information Technology Acquisition Center (ITAC) proposes to award an order pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(a), Limiting Sources to Blackstone Technology Group, under General

Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 70 Contract # 47QTCA18D00EP.

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved. Describe the action being approved, and include the name and address of the proposed contractor(s).

DHS OPO intends to limit the number of sources solicited pursuant to FAR Part 8.405-

6(a) for the procurement of Enterprise Platform Software and Services (EPSS)

Technical Support Services for various customers within the DHS Office of the Chief

Information Officer (OCIO). The proposed contractor is: Blackstone Technology Group, 455 Market St. Suite 620 San Francisco, CA, 94105-2449

3. Description of Supplies/Services. Describe the supplies or services to be acquired. Provide the estimated total value (including options, if any).

EPSS Platform Services Division (PSD) is seeking a Cloud-based service solution to support the full application development and deployment lifecycle for all EPSS cloud integrated services based on Agile methodologies. EPSS provides services to a broad customer base throughout DHS. The customer base consists of a large and diverse user base that requires customer centric support and delivery. Current cloud services include

Operations and Maintenance for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to include Database and MS Windows support services, Development/Test as a Service (DTaaS), Business

Intelligence and Analytics, Customer Relationship Management as a Service (CRMaaS) and SharePoint as a Service (SPTaaS). The estimated total cost is for 12 months. There will be no options on this order.

Period Total

Base Year: 12 months (Sept. 1, 2019- August 31, 2020) http://uscode.house.gov/

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4. Authority and supporting rationale.

FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B): Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized.

A gap in service cannot be endured because this work is critical to the DHS mission.

Any lapse would cause irreparable damage. This requirement supports various mission critical information system platforms such as SharePoint as a Service, Customer

Relationship Management as a Service, ongoing migration efforts to the cloud, and

Business Intelligence as a Service. Additionally, the current Data Center 2 (DC2)

Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) and corresponding task orders expire in

June 2020, and OCIO has been directed to migrate all systems hosted in DC2 to the cloud.

Blackstone Technology Group is a critical part of establishing and developing the cloud environment for these migrations. There is a large risk to compete this because of the custom development built into the services and the instutional expertise needed to manage the time constrained migration efforts. SharePoint as a Service supports 225,000 users across the DHS enterprise The program office can not afford downtime or challenges with knowledge transfers. Blackstone Technology Group has been an integral part of planning, operations, and maintenance of the EPSS applications mandated migration to a cloud solution.

Blackstone Technology Group currently is the only vendor that works directly with CGI

Federal, which allows EPSS to purchase services to manage all of the DHS.gov sites for

Management and the DHS components. In addition to purchasing support and licenses from CGI Federal, Blackstone Technology Group currently possesses the unique expertise to manage the DHS Connect custom site which supports 225,000 users.

Additionally, Customer Relationship Management as a Service is the backbone of the

Secretary’s routing and tracking applications.

5. Determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that the anticipated order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

The Contracting Officer has determined that issuing the proposed Task Order against

GSA Schedule to Blackstone Technology Group for EPSS technical support services provides the best value and will result in the lowest overall cost, considering price and administrative costs, to meet the Government’s needs.

This order will be placed in accordance with FAR 8.404, “Use of Federal Supply

Schedules.” The General Services Administration (GSA) has already negotiated fair and reasonable pricing rates. Discounts to these GSA schedule rates will be requested.

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Additionally, prior to issuance of the task order, the ordering activity will analyze the published labor rates under the GSA Schedule 70 Contract # 47QTCA18D00EP to determine that the total price is fair and reasonable when analyzing the proposed breakdown in price. The contractor’s proposed price will also be compared to the

Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) and historic price information.

6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results, or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 10 requires that market research be conducted in a manner that is appropriate to the circumstances. Much of the market research is based on the original ADaPTS BPA since the requirements are within scope of the yet to be awarded BPA, and future awards will be made against the ADaPTS BPA once it’s awarded. The ADaPTS BPA market research identified multiple vendors that are capable of providing services similar to EPSS technical support services, however as mentioned previously, only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services at the level of quality required. Market research was done to identify which contract vehicles could be used to order from. Through market research, it was identified that Blackstone

Technology Group has a GSA Schedule that could be used.

7. Any other facts supporting the limited-sources justification. Additional facts may be stated in this section. If there are no additional facts, you must state that here.

In the past, these EPSS services were ordered against the multiple-award Enterprise

Service Delivery Office (ESDO) Technical Support Services Blanket Purchase

Agreement (BPA). This BPA expired 03/31/2019 and is no longer available to order from. The acquisition strategy for the upcoming requirement was to issue a competitive

BPA call against the newly awarded Architecture, Development, and Platform Technical

Services (ADaPTS) BPA. The ADaPTS BPA is the preferred contract vehicle for EPSS services to support the DHS OCIO as the purpose of the ADaPTS BPA is to obtain highly specialized technical support services to assist the DHS OCIO in executing and accomplishing its mission objectives. The BPA was expected to be awarded by June

2019, but has gone through delays and, as of July 18, 2019 has not been awarded. Due to the timing of the fiscal year end, there is no longer time left to compete a solicitation against the new ADaPTS BPA, even if it were awarded next week.

In addition, the program office no longer has the time to compete this work via another strategy since the end of the fiscal year is quickly approaching (as a result of expecting the ADaPTS BPA to be an available contract vehicle to order from). The Government cannot pursue a competition against another contract vehicle (e.g. GSA Schedule, Information Sharing Environment Office (ISEO) BPA, or Enterprise Acquisition

Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions (EAGLE) Next-Gen), other than ADaPTS for a one

LSJ Template > SAT Rev. 2.5.2016 2- 4 -year period of performance because this would result in additional transitions between vendors. These transitions would cost the Government approximately $1.6 million for data center costs alone as well as cause delays with onboarding which are taking between

2-3 months to complete, lose time spent on actual mission-critical work (e.g. up to 6 months in just transition), and increase the risk of knowledge loss through each transition.

While transition is normal in federal contracting, the costs mentioned previously would be duplicated unnecessarily. In other words, if a competition against the ISEO BPA, GSA, or EAGLE Next-Gen occurred now, there would likely be a transition to a new vendor (i.e. from Blackstone Technology Group to new vendor), but then another transition from the new vendor to a vendor on ADaPTS once that BPA was available.

Finally, the program office has approximately in Fiscal Year 2019 funds to use for these services. Not awarding this fiscal year would cause the Program Office to lose not only these critical services, but also the money associated.

8. A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to restricted consideration (i.e., limited-sources) before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made. Include a statement of actions taken or that will be taken to increase competition for future acquisitions of the same item/service (e.g., the government intends to revise overly restrictive technical specifications, acquire data rights, or pursue some other means to increase future competition).

The program office intends to compete future task orders against the DHS ADaPTS BPA once it is awarded.

9. DHS intends to post this requirement on e-buy pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(a)(2)(i).

10. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification.

Pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(x), I certify that this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which form a basis for the Limited-Sources

Justification, are accurate and complete.

Technical Representative Date

11. Contracting Officer Certification and/or Approval

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Pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(ix), I certify that the Limited-Sources Justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief:

Contracting Officer Date

12. Approval.

I hereby determine that the circumstance in FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(xi), “for justifications under

8.405-6(a)(1), a written determination by the approving official identifying the circumstance that applies” is applicable.

Procuring Activity Advocate for Competition Date