A38_JEFO_-_NPS_CDN_140D0423Q0874_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)

SOLITICATION #140D0423Q0874

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 1/Branch 2, Division 1 for National Park Service (NPS), National Information Services Center (NISC).

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

This is a logical follow-on requirement for NPS Content Delivery Network (CDN) cloud services in accordance with FAR Part 16, to maintain the continuity of services previously competed and procured under the DOI Foundation Cloud Hosting Services (FCHS) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract D13PC00029, task order D15PD01389. This requirement will be sole sourced to Smartronix, LLC, 44150 Smartronix Way, Hollywood, MD 20636-3172.

Currently, these services are provided to NPS by Smartronix through the DOI FCHS. The current FCHS is due to expire October 30, 2023, however allowing performance under orders to continue until October 30, 2024. The new FCHS2 contract will not be available before the end of the current contract with Smartronix. The NPS needs to continue services with the existing vendor until FCHS2 is available and a transition can occur without interruption to essential services.

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

The NPS requires a FedRAMP authorized commercially available 1) elastic Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Virtual Machine (VM) solution with 2) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Structured Query Language (SQL) Server and PostgreSQL back ends to virtually host multiple environments which integrates with 3) a Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Services must be integrated resulting in seamless interaction between the IaaS virtual hosting environment, SQL Server instances, and CDN. The FISMA categorization for all these environments is “moderate”.

The period of performance is 09/24/2023 through 09/23/2024. The total estimated dollar value for this action is $ .

4. Identification of the exception to fair opportunity (see 16.505(b)(2)) 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. If the contracting officer uses the logical follow-on exception, the rationale shall describe why the relationship between the initial order and the follow-on is logical (e.g., in terms of scope, period of performance, or value).

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C) – The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

The National Park Service has several digital platforms that operate in and depend upon an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment procured through Federal Cloud Hosting Services (FCHS). One of those platforms, NPS.gov, is a designated High Impact Service Provider (HISP) with more than 100 million visitors and half a billion pageviews each year.

The vendor for the NPS cloud hosting services through the FCHS is Smartronix, with a period of performance ending on September 23, 2023. This contract would move to the new FCHS2, but that contracting option has been delayed and will not be available before the end of the current period of performance. Continuing services with the existing vendor, which was issued under the original FCHS, is necessary for continued functionality of NPS digital systems until FCHS2 is available and a transition of services can occur without interruption of essential services.

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

This requirement is being procured under the DOI FCHS IDIQ. A price analysis was done for the base awards in accordance with the FAR 15.305(a)(1) to ensure that a fair and reasonable price is paid by the Government. Reasonableness of proposed prices was established in accordance with FAR 15.403-1(c)(1)(i)(B). The AQD Contracting Officer will seek further discounts and use historical pricing, along with making a separate determination as to the reasonableness of the price quote prior to establishing the task order. In addition, pricing will be compared to market pricing in accordance with DOI-AAAP-0024, when only one quote is received.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification.

The NPS is committed to the goals of the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy and DOI’s FCHS IDIQ, which was created to expedite that strategy. Unfortunately, the NPS’s current FCHS cloud services contract is due to expire and DOI’s FCHS2 is not yet available.

Putting out a competitive contract for these services and managing a transition to another vendor simply to bridge the gap between FCHS and FCHS2 would result in an unnecessary expenditure of resources. To avoid this loss of resources and the risk to the systems that depend on the AWS cloud environment, it is prudent to continue the existing services with the current contractor for 12 months in order to have FCHS2 available and prepare systems for the transition.

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.

The DOI FCHS2 IDIQ, like the original FCHS, will provide approved contractors the opportunity to prepare quotes that will be competed among the other FCHS2 contractors. The NPS, as a customer, not the owner, of the IDIQ, was unable to avoid the delays in FCHS2.

This has resulted in a gap during which the NPS contract for AWS services expires before FCHS2 is available. NPS will continue to work with DOI to best leverage the benefits of and make the transition to FCHS2.