A38_JEFO-FCHS2_FAR_16_505(b)_BOR_BARS-V1_Redacted_Redacted_1.pdf

United States Department of the Interior

INTERIOR BUSINESS CENTER

Washington, DC 20240

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

AUTHORITY: FAR 16.505(b)(2)

SOLICITATION #: 140D0425Q0026

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity.”

This document is a Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity for the Department of the Interior (DOI), Interior Business Center (IBC), Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD), Division One Branch Two (D1B2), on behalf of the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR).

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

a. The objective of this requirement is to provision BOR with continuing services for operations and maintenance of the Budget and Reporting System (BARS) for a period not-to-exceed 12 months between the expiration of the current contract ending 12/4/2024 and the full migration of the complex BARS application to a new PowerBI platform on or before 12/3/2025 to be managed internally by BOR, negating a need for a follow-on competition.

b. AQD intends to award a sole source, Time & Material (T&M) Task Order to IBM Corporation against their Foundation Cloud Hosting Services Two (FCHS2) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide operations and maintenance and hosting services to provide for the continuation of the Phase II implementation of BARS. Services to be included in the sole-source task order include IBM’s commercial Cognos TM1 Software as a Service (SaaS) that has been tailored to meet the specific requirements of BARS as well as the operation and maintenance of the same.

Also included are monthly operations and maintenance support, including but not limited to:

Soft Layer BARS Application Hosting, and Planning Analytics Licenses.

Software to support a total of 30 users with 25 concurrent users. The thirty users include three modelers and 27 users based on the proposed licensing.

Current delivery requirements from DOI BOR to maintain the BARS application in a cloud-hosted environment with additional application-specific development support provided as needed.

The ability for BOR authorized users to add, modify, and delete content and files.

b. Total estimated dollar value for this action is Not-to-Exceed (NTE) $350,000.00.

c. Identification of the limited source to be solicited:

IBM Corporation 6710 Rockledge Drive Bethesda, MD 20817-1826

SOLICITATION #: TBD

3. Identification of the exception to fair opportunity (see 16.505(b)(2)(B) and the supporting rationale, including a demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the exception cited.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(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.

Although BOR owns the IBM-developed and maintained licenses, the sole source task order is predicated on IBM’s status as the singular current source of maintenance of the licenses BOR needs to continue operation of BARS through the additional year; IBM is the proprietary owner of the code and any other company that would work on BARS would have to contract with IBM.

This is critical, based on the fact that BARS needs to be supported with minimal disruption as it is transitioned to a new platform that will ultimately result in substantially less cost to the Government.

To pursue another solution at this time, for the sake of fair opportunity, would result in the duplication of costs to the Government to redesign the software to meet the BARS requirement And transition to any other hosting service would still require IBM to provide O&M support as the sole proprietor of the licenses that BOR has purchased.

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

In accordance with FAR 15.404-1(b)(2) the Contracting Officer shall conduct a price analysis by comparing the proposed price to the independent government estimate as well as comparing the individual labor rates to the vendor’s base FCHS2 IDIQ rates that were competitively awarded in the last year and determined to be fair and reasonable at time of award.

5. Any other facts supporting the justification.

BARS is a complex system, which is to be transitioned from an external customized protocol to an internal, DOI owned and operated protocol. Once it has been transitioned, it will continue to be developed, if and as necessary, in-house, by means of the Power BI set of tools.

Reclamation has analyzed all options, including transitioning immediately and re-developing the system in its totality on an in-house platform. This option is unacceptable, both as a result of the high level of effort and cost, and because the legally required functionality must be available 24/7.

6. 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.