A10 Exception to Fair Opportunity Justification_Final_signed.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505-(b)(2)(i)

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

This justification is prepared by the Small Business Administration (SBA), as follows:

Contracting Activity. SBA, Denver Finance Center – Acquisition 13221 Woodland Park Road, 5th Floor Herndon, VA 20171 POC: Roger Henriquez

Program Office . SBA, Office of Disaster Assistance (ODA) 409 3rd St SW, 6th Floor Washington, DC 20024 POC: Eric Myers

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The SBA anticipates award of a sole source Task Order for the Performance Work Statement entitled, “Data Warehouse, and Reports, and Analytics.” The Purchase Request (Requisition) # is 73351022Q0052. The anticipated Task Order type is a Time-and-Material. This acquisition is restricted to the following source:

Firm: Intuitive Information Systems Technologies, LLC DBA: Chainbridge Technologies “referred hereafter as “Chainbridge” 8229 Boone Blvd, Suite 600 Vienna, VA 22182 POC: Cathy Doyle

3. Description of Supplies or Services.

This justification and approval (J&A) document the permission for utilizing this sole source vendor.

The ODA lends funds to individuals and businesses affected by natural and man-made disaster events to help them get up on their feet. Responding to the needs of the disaster victims quickly is one of its primary goals. As part of responding to those needs, the ODA has a diverse portfolio of software applications that support that core mission. The ODA strives to support the mission by always equipping its staff with the best tools and technical support. These tools and technical support are supported by both internal staff and external contractor support staff. It is critical that the SBA supports and maintains the current systems and IT infrastructure so there is not an interruption in the services that the SBA provides to the public.

Data Warehouse and SBA Tracking and Reporting System (STARS) is the system used to import, consolidate, aggregate, and enhance the existing Disaster Credit Management System (DCMS) grant and loan data into a single system. STARS was used to create reports in both tabular form and via dashboard utilities to ensure unified data analysis and integration approach across ODA’s disaster loan, and grant portfolios. The following applications are included in the DCMS portfolio which provide data input:

• Disaster Credit Management System 2.0 – DCMS 2.0 was developed to support the mission of the ODA in being used to process loan applications and determinations for the disaster loan program.

• Disaster Loan Application Portal (DLAP) – The online portal used by customers and disaster survivors to manage loan applications.

• Electronic Loan Application (ELA) – A system used by customers to submit their initial applications from the field.

• Loan Information and Reporting Application (LIRA) – The transactional processing system for DCMS 1.0 loans.

Disaster Field Activity Report (DFAR) tool – The Application used by the ODA Field Operations team to report field activity from the Disaster Recover Center Locations. In addition to the tools listed, ODA has numerous home-grown utilities that support ODA’s Processing and Disbursement Center, Resource Management, Disaster Management, and various other back-end support applications that were developed over many years across ODA field offices.

Chainbridge is the contractor supporting ODA with the Data Warehouse and STARS system.

The total potential value of the Task Order is $3,372,824.58; with a total performance period of 6-months.

4. Authority and Supporting Rationale.

The contracting officer has determined the circumstances of the contract action to meet the following statutory exceptions under FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i):

(B) 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.

Chainbridge supports the ODA with the current Task Order 73351021F0045 with Data Warehousing and the STARS reporting and Dashboard service. This Task Order ends on March 31, 2022. It is vital to continue to have Chainbridge perform the services. They are the only vendor that has the expertise and knowledge to be able to transition-in seamlessly given the time-frame restriction.

Continuation of services by this source is needed for the following reasons:

Highly Specialized Services: Chainbridge is the only vendor that has the expertise of with the SBA/ODA custom Data Warehouse Configuration. The data in the Warehouse is continuously updated from 11 custom created data sources comprising 26 terabytes of data across more than 2900 relational database tables as well as several terabytes of unstructured data and documents.The Data Integration and Consolidation services of the full data feed ingestion, orchestration, ETL processing of the data from the data feeds including the custom created Chainbridge/Rapid Finance log shipping process data feed into the SBA Azure Blob Storage and SBA Azure Data Lake and Data warehouse. Data Warehouse is the storage location for the ingestion of the 11 current data feeds (Rapid Finance, OCFO, DCMS2/DLAP2, DFAR, Call Center, Lira/DCMS1, SVOG, RM, DLAP1 (ELAPROD), Google Analytics (DLAP), ALCS).

The system is built on the SBA Azure environment, utilizing Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Gen2 utilizing PolyBase for rapid data ingestion at scale; sharing data storage with Azure Databricks for complex ETL tasks; Azure Data Factory for orchestration. . This data powers more than 240 different reports and 450 automated subscriptions distributed to a community of 400+ SBA employees and contractors. It is also used to execute an average of 75 rapid turnaround data calls a month. These data calls are often sensitive, particularly in terms of their subject matter and intended audience. These SBA personnel cannot perform their work without the timely and accurate information provided by the Data Warehouse. Chainbridge also provides expertise on the SBA’s STARS – Chainbridge utilizes Azure Analytics Service for staging aggregated datasets for reporting; Power BI for visualizations and Dashboards; and SSRS to preserve existing investments in reporting products.

Ability to Transition-in Seamlessly: Chainbridge is the only vendor capable of providing the required service at this time. It would be detrimental to the SBA’s disaster loan making mission to transition this requirement at this time, due to the specialized nature of the work and the necessity to have continuity of operations. The transition of system (systems listed in section 3) and program knowledge would take up to 8 weeks and even then, all knowledge would not be transferred, and a new vendor would need several months to function independently. Chainbridge has extensive knowledge of the ODA, its policies, processes, and data reporting requirements. It would take another vendor up to 2 months to get them onboard and for them to become familiar with SBA’s policies, processes, and reporting requirements.

In 2021, SBA intended to procure this requirement competitively through a multiple award blanket purchase agreement (BPA). At that time, SBA completed acquisition planning and other pre-solicitation steps, however, the acquisition strategy has since changed. SBA is implementing the new strategy for a longer-term competitive approach to fulfilling this requirement. In the meantime, this sole source order is necessary to ensure that these highly specialized services are continuously provided for this critical disaster lending system.

It is vital that there is no lapse in services. A short-term sole source award to Chainbridge is the only option available due to the immediacy of the need and the highly specialized nature of the services. Finalizing this award to Chainbridge would allow time to compete a new procurement, which according the PALT on competitive acquisition can take at least 120 days. The competition would take at least 4 months, followed by 2 months of transition, for a total of 6 months –which is the total proposed period of performance time for this contract. Bringing a new vendor on at this point would also be costly. Bringing on a new vendor to get them onboarded and familiarized with the systems would not be cost effective or time efficient for a short-term period contract such as this.

5. Determination that the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable.

Chainbridge will utilize the proposed labor categories and hourly rates from the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Governmentwide contract vehicle, NITAAC CIO SP-3. Chainbridge is currently listed as an active 8(a) vendor NIH’s schedule contract # 75N98119D00059, which is valid through November 29, 2022. The rates established on CIO SP-3 are already determined fair and reasonably by NIH and therefore the CO has already determined the rates to be fair and reasonable for this order. In addition, the CO will seek further discounted hourly rates on top of the already established as fair and reasonable rates.

6. Other facts supporting the justification.

None.

7. Actions, if any, the agency will take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for supplies and services is made.

The ODA is in the process of establishing a new long-term competitive acquisition for the support of the data warehouse, reports and data analytics requirements. The Chainbridge SBA Task Order expires on March 31, 2022. The goal is to award a short-term sole source contract on 4/1/2022 with a 6-month performance period. This will allow SBA to begin a new, long-term, competitive procurement for these services.

8. Certification

I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance, to include but not limited to paragraphs 3 and 4 of this justification, are accurate and complete.

04/12/2022

Eric Myers Date Program Office Official

I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

04/12/2022

Roger Henriquez Date Contracting Officer

9. Approval

I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Sara Soeka Date Competition Advocate