852675771_JA_Final_AMD01_Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR EXCEPTION TO

FAIR OPPORTUNITY OR BRAND NAME

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 16.5 Justification & Approval (J&A)

CSS Tracking Number: 852675771 Military Interdepartmental Purchase Request: F3LNPA6226GC01 Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) Contract Number: HC105023D0005 Procurement Title: North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) & USNORTHCOM United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) Estimated Value:

Regulatory Authority: FAR 16.507-6(b)(2)

J&A Exception to Fair Opportunity Number: Not Applicable

1. REQUIRING AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY:

Requiring Agency: Department of War (DoW) / NORAD and USNORTHCOM Contracting Activity: Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) / Cloud Capabilities Section (PS8511)

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S):

Type of Action: New Contract Type of Contract: Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP)

AMD01: This amendment increased the original J&A estimated value by This increase is due to the number of Pro-Serve units required to assist in the establishment of the necessary unclassified and classified environments. While the IGCE calculated the Support CLINs, the dollar amounts included a lower amount of units than what was proposed.

This action is to issue a FFP Task Order (TO) against the JWCC Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Contract for NORAD & USNORTHCOM. This TO will be issued directly to Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS).

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES:

The requirement will provide commercial cloud services at a total estimated cost of for base period of 1 year with one 1-year option period.. This will allow the DoW to meet the following agency need: NORAD and NORTHCOM require the establishment of a multi-

NORAD & USNORTHCOM AMD01

classification cloud environment operating at both Impact Level 4/5 (IL4/IL5) and IL6 with initial operational capability within six months of award.

The environment must provide a cloud-based Cybersecurity Service Provider (CSSP) capability to secure and route all network traffic. It will host a platform for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) development, a scalable service for Intelligence, Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) video ingestion, a cross-domain solution for secure data transfer between classification levels, and a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) that leverages existing enterprise licensing agreements.

4. IDENTIFICATION OF EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

FAR 16.507-6(b)(2) - 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. DEMONSTRATION THAT THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE

QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE ACQUISITION REQUIRES USE OF

THE EXCEPTION CITED:

1. UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS: To provide dedicated cloud connectivity for NORAD-

NORTHCOM (N-NC) users accessing the Maven Smart System, AWS provisions a dedicated, non-Defense Information Systems Network commercial circuit. This dedicated connection is solely owned by AWS and used exclusively by N-NC.

Depending on the environment's classification, this service is designated as AWS Direct Connect (DX) at Impact Levels 4/5 (IL4/IL5) and AWS Mission Networking at Impact Level 6 (IL6). The N-NC Cybersecurity Service Provider (CSSP) architecture leverages native AWS cloud services to establish a defense-in-depth posture across all operational baselines. By integrating managed cloud security services directly into the CSSP workflow, N-NC achieves continuous monitoring, real-time threat detection, and comprehensive vulnerability management aligned with DoW security mandates. These AWS Native tools include AWS CloudTrail for audit logging and governance, AWS GuardDuty for continues thread detection, and AWS Inspector for vulnerability and workload assessment.

The N-NC organic data science team possesses extensive, demonstrated expertise in developing, training, and deploying ML models using Amazon SageMaker. This established technical proficiency eliminates initial onboarding delays, accelerates ML Operations pipeline delivery, and allows the team to deliver operational analytics and AI capabilities to end users immediately upon environment provisioning. Additionally, Maven Smart System (MSS) and AWS are tightly coupled; therefore, signicant additional engineering would be required to integrate MSS into an ecosystem that requires a Cross Domain Solution and a virtual desktop.

2. IMPACT: Migrating the planned ecosystem to an alternative Cloud Service Provider

(CSP) presents severe financial and operational risks estimated. Such a transition would introduce critical schedule delays, substantially increase lifecycle costs due to retraining and lost institutional knowledge, directly jeopardize program performance, and risk mission failure.

6. DETERMINATION OF FAIR AND REASONABLE COST:

A determination that the price is fair and reasonable will be based on a comparison of the contractor’s proposal to the independent government cost estimate and the JWCC Catalog pricing, including any discounts, which was previously found to be fair and reasonable and based on the contractor’s commercial pricing.

7. MARKET RESEARCH:

Market research for the basic JWCC Contracts was conducted and resulted in a signed market research report on November 9, 2021. This market research was subsequently revalidated and recertified on July 29, 2024, and most recently on February 6, 2026. After a survey of the market, it was concluded that use of the JWCC Contract is in the Government’s best interest due to technical feasibility and cost to the Government.

Based on current market research, dated in February 2026, it has been determined that only the aforementioned commercial cloud services provided by AWS, can fully meet the Government’s need. The JWCC Additional Research to Support an Exception to Fair Opportunity inquiry was sent to the four JWCC CSPs and only AWS indicated that they were able to meet the necessary mission performance requirements.

8. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS: None.

9. ACTIONS THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE OR OVERCOME BARRIERS

THAT LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

This is a very technical solution that can only be provided by AWS due to the requirement of a direct connection between N-NC and the AWS Secret Region and how everything is integrated with MSS. However, N-NC will continue to monitor the JWCC offerings and other environments such as the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office for new alternatives to the solution. We are open to fair opportunities in the future provided requirements are met.

TECHNICAL CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: David McKinley SIGNATURE/DATE:

TITLE/AGENCY: Engineer, DoW

PHONE:

REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: David McKinley SIGNATURE/DATE:

TITLE/AGENCY: Engineer, DoW

PHONE:

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Since this effort exceeds the SAT but does not exceed $10M, this certification serves as APPROVAL.

NAME: Jacob R. Benhoff SIGNATURE/DATE:

TITLE/AGENCY/ORGANIZATION: DISA/DITCO/PS8511

PHONE:

ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS JUSTIFICATION ARE TO BE REFERRED TO

Jacob M. Sopiars, , jacob.m.sopiars2.civ@mail.mil