A3. FAR Subpart 16.5 Justification or Exception to Fair Opportunity (V1.3 10-01-2025)_Redacted.pdf

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

MARINE CORPS INSTALLATIONS NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO

2010 HENDERSON ROAD

QUANTICO VIRGINIA 22134 5001

FAR Subpart 16.5 Justification for Exception to Fair Opportunity

V 1.3 (01 October 2025)

DISTRIBUTION: DoD COMMUNITY ONLY

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

(Acquisition Under the Simplified Acquisition Threshold)

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity.

Requesting Agency: Marine Corps, Technology Services Organization

Contracting Activity: Marine Corps Installations, National Capital Region, Regional Contracting Office (MCINCR-RCO) 2010 Henderson Road Quantico, VA 22134.

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

The action being approved is a justification for an exception to fair opportunity to use items peculiar to one manufacturer. The Government intends to issue a Delivery Order containing Firm Fixed Price Contract Line Items (CLINs) on a brand name basis for Atlassian Confluence & associated product licenses.

The Government will issue an award on a sole-source basis to a Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) in accordance with (IAW) FAR 19.107-3. The award will be to a mandatory source via the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) via the Department of Defense Enterprise Software Initiative (DoD ESI) Blanket Purchasing Agreement (BPA) for Atlassian products, in accordance with DFARS 208.74, Enterprise Software Agreements and DFARS PGI 208.7403, Acquisition procedures.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).

The United States Marine Corps Technology Services Organization (TSO) has a requirement for renewal of Atlassian software. Confluence is a suite of agile work management solutions that powers collaboration across all teams from concept to customer, empowering customers to do the best work, together. Confluence offers several products and deployment options that are purpose-built for Software, IT, Business, Ops teams, and more. It can be used with other collaboration tools to service multiple agencies with ease.

Atlassian Confluence will provide TSO a management and organizational software that has the following capabilities:

• Version tracking documentation.

• Issue and Testing software.

• Ability to generate and export reports and diagrams.

• Built in connectivity to Atlassian Jira and Crowd.

• Software managed internal Audit log.

• Ability to operate multiple internal and external service desks that interoperate with other projects

• Automated workflows

FAR Subpart 16.5 Justification for Exception to Fair Opportunity

Atlassian User Switcher for Confluence Data Center for Confluence (Data Center) 2000 Users:

Commercial Term License Atlassian Inc. - ATL-MP-USERSWITCH-2000

ATL-MP-

USERSWITCH-

Atlassian Common Access Card/Personal Identity Verification (CAC/PIV) Authenticator for the Atlassian Suite Annual Subscription - Confluence - 1-2000 users - Tier 5 Goldfinger Holdings, Inc. - CACCON-T5

CACCON-T5-2 1

Atlassian Common Access Card/Personal Identity Verification (CAC/PIV) Authenticator for the Atlassian Suite Annual Subscription - Jira Software

- 1-2000 users - Tier 5 Goldfinger Holdings, Inc. - CACJS-T5

CACJS-T5-2 1

a) Source or Brand Name: Atlassian/Approved Distributor of their products

b) The total estimated value of this requirement is

c) The requested period of performance/license coverage period or delivery date is _06

February 2026 – 06 February 2027

4. Identification of the exception to fair opportunity and the supporting rationale.

FAR 16.507-6(b)(6), “For DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, the order satisfies one of the exemptions permitting the use of other than full and open competition listed in part 6.103 (10 U.S.C. 3406(c)(5)).

FAR 6.103-1(b) states, “Agencies may contract without providing for full and open competition when the supplies or services required by the agency are available from only one responsible source and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. For DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, this authority extends to situations where only a limited number of responsible sources can satisfy agency requirements.”

Based on market research, DoD ESI has established agreements for the purchase of Atlassian software licenses, software maintenance, and professional services through the NASA Solutions for Enterprise- Wide Procurement (SEWP) Agency, which is a Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) managed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The NASA SEWP catalog is open for ordering by all DoD Departments and Agencies world-wide, which is defined by Title 48 - Code of Federal Regulations, Section 202.101 and includes the Intelligence Community (IC) and the U.S. Coast Guard.

DFARS 208.7402(a) states, “Departments and agencies shall fulfill requirements for commercial software and commercial software services, such as software maintenance, in accordance with the DoD Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) (see https://www.esi.mil/).”

DFARS PGI 208.7403(1) states, “If the software or services are available, the requiring official shall fulfill the requirement from the DoD inventory (e.g., DoD-wide software maintenance agreements).”

As ESI is a mandatory source, IAW with the aforementioned references, the required supply is only available from one responsible source and shall be procured via this avenue.

Atlassian Confluence Data Center is vital as an incident management tool. It provides a single ticketing, testing and support system. As a single facet of the Atlassian suite of tools it has integrations within the existing Government-owned Atlassian Suite such as, Crowd, Bitbucket, and Jira. Confluence is a commercial-off-the-shelf software component of the Atlassian application suite designed to integrate seamlessly with other Atlassian software. TSO has invested in two other Atlassian software tools: Jira (Team workspace for knowledge and collaboration) and Bitbucket (GIT tool for DevOps). C o n f l u e n c e i s t h e o n l y s o f t w a r e t h a t can integrate and optimize with Jira or BitBucket. The option of switching from Atlassian Confluence to another software tool would require the TSO to procure replacements for Jira and Bitcucket simultaneously so there is no operation disruption. In addition, TSO has developed user and agency specific customizations that would need to be recreated in any new option considered.

Procuring a different software other than Atlassian would negatively affect TSO’s mission as there has been a ten-year integration to better align with the application. The following factors demonstrate the potential negative effects to procuring a different brand:

a.) Technological factors: To implement a similar software suite would require significant reengineering of server architecture, whitelisting of application/ports with MCCOG and throughout MCEN network. This will require applying through the TSC and MSC, take several months to achieve which is not feasible within the current license expiration of less than thirty (30) days for the current product.

b.) Situational factors: Not renewing the current vendor software license will nullify the ability to download security patches, putting the entire organization and its external partners in risk of the system/application being isolated/shutdown by security.

c.) Functional factors: There is currently no comparable software suite that integrates with other highly dependent operational software (JIRA) for functionality that is required by TSO; and Training consideration: Any new product will require significant training time for technical administration and user interaction with the software. This would result in loss of business efficacy as well as cost to acquire training for users and administrators. A change to a different name brand would cause a burden due to increased time, resources, cost and training required to integrate a completely new type of software into TSO’s operations, assuming another acceptable software could be sourced.

5. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer will determine the anticipated price covered by this justification to be fair and reasonable by ensuring quoted pricing is consistent with or lower than pricing on the contractor’s NASA SEWP contract and anticipated adequate price competition. Obtaining adequate competition is expected to result in a price that is fair and reasonable. Prior to award, the Contracting Officer will conduct a price analysis in order to determine that the price is fair and reasonable.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification.

Atlassian Confluence has been previously approved for the Marine Corps in the Department of Defense (DoD) Information Technology Portfolio Repository (DITPR)/Department of Navy (DON) Application and Database Management System (DADMS) which are the DoD and DON Information Technology Portfolio Management Systems; TSO Project Managements Services TSO-PjMS #IDs: 140998, 134769, 140178.

7. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the exception to fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made.

At this time, Atlassian is the only effective and efficient software source to meet TSO’s requirements.

However, TSO will continue monitoring the market and conduct continuous market research in an effort to identify any emerging technologies that may satisfy future requirements. Should such technologies become available, TSO will seek competition to the maximum extent practicable and the contracting office will assess competition for future requirements.

CERTIFICATIONS AND APPROVAL

TECHNICAL/REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION

I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance which are included in this Justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION

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