Amazon Web Services-J and A-Redacted.pdf

BRAND NAME JUSTIFICATION

SECTION 1: IDENTIFICATION OF THE AGENCY AND THE CONTRACTING ACTIVITY

Department of State Contracting Activity ☒ Office of Acquisitions Management

Requiring Activity Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, Business Management & Planning, Office of IT Acquisitions (DT/BMP/ITA)

SECTION 2: NATURE AND/OR DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION BEING APPROVED

Approval is requested to limit the number of sources for soliciting and awarding an enterprise Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Amazon Web Services (AWS) products and supporting services under a Federal Supply Schedule contract for the supplies and/or services described in Section 3 on behalf of the Requiring Activity.

This requirement will be awarded on a firm fixed unit price (FFUP) basis under the General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) government-wide acquisition contracts (GWAC).

SECTION 3: DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES OR SERVICES REQUIRED TO MEET THE AGENCY’S

NEEDS

The Department of State (State) uses AWS as a unified cloud management platform and the enterprise-wide solution for web hosting and web applications that support all overseas missions and domestic bureaus. The AWS platform supports numerous mission-critical operations and business processes across over 40 customer organizations including, but not limited to, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), and Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO).

These customers manage critical State systems, applications, and workflows that rely on access to the full suite of AWS products and support services to maintain operations. Additionally, State requires continued access to the full catalog of AWS offerings to support ongoing implementation, modernization, and capability enhancement to enable State to adapt to the dynamic and constantly evolving nature of its public diplomacy mission.

To support State’s ability to maximize the value of their cloud-based web hosting and web application implementations, State requires access to maintenance and provisioning infrastructure to maximize performance across its numerous AWS instances. Establishing a BPA for AWS’s full product suite will provide State offices and bureaus the ability to issue Call Orders to maintain mission-specific cloud solutions and access to critical solution support services that can enable customers to quickly and flexibly adapt to evolving requirements driven by global events, including those driven by contingency and emergency response (e.g., war in Ukraine, Afghan refugee assistance, etc.).

SECTION 4: AUTHORITY AND SUPPORTING RATIONALE

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program (41 U.S.C. 152(3) and 40 U.S.C. 501), as implemented in FAR 8.405.6 by the following:

☒ FAR 8.405-6(b) - Items peculiar to one manufacturer.

State’s existing cloud-based solutions and business processes rely on access to the full AWS product suite, maintenance, and supporting services provided by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), AWS.

This acquisition is critical to ensure State offices and bureaus can maintain continuity of operations for critical systems relying on AWS’s commercial off the shelf (COTS) solution and access to market-leading Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions to support future needs and react quickly and flexibly to dynamic changes in State’s national security and diplomacy missions. The BPA will increase the efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars by ensuring State offices and bureaus are able to continue to execute their multi-year IT strategic plans and implementation roadmaps and realize the expected return on investment (ROI) from their prior investments.

Market research was conducted, and potential alternative solutions were analyzed. As part of its market research effort, State issued a Request for Information (RFI) in February 2025 to better understand commercially available offerings that can meet State’s complete set of cloud platform requirements.

State received a total of twelve (12) responses to the RFI and of those, three (3) were non-responsive to the RFI technical requirements (e.g., submitting marketing materials or other documents that did not address the specific requirements in the RFI). An additional 5 responses were either incomplete or failed to meet all of the noted mandatory requirements (i.e., they were unable to fully meet all of State’s most critical functional requirements).

The remaining four (4) responses proposed AWS-branded solutions that met State’s full breadth of functional requirements. Based on these results, State determined that AWS is the only cloud management platform (CMP) provider, at this time, that can fully meet all of State’s core functional requirements across all State mission-specific use cases. After careful comparison, the AWS solution was determined to offer levels of storage and instance capacity, CMP capability, versatility and expansiveness at a scale that meets State’s global needs. Furthermore, the result of State’s market research RFI demonstrated the AWS solution meets essential functional and core technical requirements that other alternative solutions are unable to meet at this time.

The AWS solution offers a few notable features and capabilities that address State’s current requirements such as an all-encompassing CMP with stand-alone, turn-key solutions that incorporate essential services.

Only AWS demonstrated the capability to offer a native, fully managed search service built on Apache Solr. Additionally, only AWS offers Oracle licenses with its relational database service. Lastly, AWS’ solution offers contact center as a service (CCaaS) which currently supports the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) managed by State. Only AWS provides CCaaS capability complete with stand-alone calling and video, chat, SMS and email functionalities that seamlessly and fully integrates with all other cloud services within its cloud environment. State programs need to coordinate across multiple intercountry and intercontinental parties, as well as collect, review, and validate the vast amounts of documentation, all of which requires reliable modes of communication capable of operating under incredibly high demand. AWS’ CMP solution includes an essential CCaaS capability State customers must access to deliver on various mission objectives.

In addition to the results of the RFI, AWS offers a unified CMP that provides a broad range of supplemental applications and software integration capabilities. The AWS COTS solution provides:

• Availability and Resiliency - high availability and resiliency within its global infrastructure. Only AWS ensures every region has a minimum of three availability zones with redundant power, cooling, and connectivity. AWS separates availability zones by meaningful distances to ensure resiliency in the event of natural disasters or any other disturbances, insulating its infrastructure from unforeseen downtime, which is critical to sustaining State’s global footprint and operations.

• Global Presence - AWS has a large geographical footprint that spans nearly 111 availability zones across 34 regions. Only AWS has over 600 points of presence. AWS continuously expands its network of local zones, edge locations, and outposts.

• Breadth and Depth of Services - AWS provides over 200 services and adds new features and services annually, continuously improving in response to customer feedback. To date, Only AWS has added over 3,300 new features annually. AWS’ extensive library of services and features helps State customers simplify and expedite cloud migration and operation, ease application maintenance, and discover more cost-effective approaches to build and operate workloads.

• Classified Cloud Regions and Migrations - AWS has expanded its scope to include classified services, critical to State’s diplomatic and national security missions. Only AWS provides ability to elevate low-side data and migrate data from unclassified cloud regions to classified cloud regions.

These regions are capable of meeting strict security requirements necessitated by the United States Government (USG) to house especially sensitive data (ESD).

AWS’s solution integrates all the aforementioned core capabilities and essential services into a unified and consistent user experience on a single integrated platform, which is essential for State’s mission objectives and in-flight program office use cases. Given the importance of State’s global missions, customer offices across State require continued access to a market-leading, high-availability, integrated platform that is globally distributed and accessible for cloud management, web hosting, and provisioning and management of web applications.

SECTION 5: DETERMINATION BY THE ORDERING ACTIVITY CONTRACTING OFFICER THAT

THE CONTRACT ACTION REPRESENTS THE BEST VALUE CONSISTENT WITH FAR 8.404(D)

The Contracting Officer (CO) has determined the anticipated contract action will represent the best value based on the CO’s plan to follow the procedures in FAR 8.405. Contracts awarded under GSA schedules are already deemed fair and reasonable, and the solicitation will request Offerors’ proposed prices be discounted from their GSA schedule prices. Although approval is requested to contract with one source, the CO will not award the planned contract action unless the CO evaluates and determines that the price is fair and reasonable.

SECTION 6: DESCRIPTION OF THE MARKET RESEARCH CONDUCTED AMONG SCHEDULE

HOLDERS AND THE RESULTS OR A STATEMENT OF THE REASON MARKET RESEARCH WAS

NOT CONDUCTED

As previously discussed, State issued an RFI in February 2025 to conduct market research among GSA schedule holders to identify solutions that could address the full range of mission requirements specified by State and determined that AWS brand name products are required.

Since other best-in-class GWACs are nearing their expiration (e.g., NASA SEWP V and NITAAC CIO-CS) and recompete acquisition vehicles have not yet been awarded to replace these expiring GWACs, State determined that the GSA MAS GWAC is the best option for acquiring State’s AWS products, maintenance, and supporting services requirements. State conducted market research to determine the number of authorized resellers on GSA MAS able to meet State’s requirements to sell the full catalog of AWS products and services, as well as meet other core capability requirements. The results of this market research identified more than 25 vendors with GSA MAS schedules and a current Letter of Supply (LOS) from AWS. Of these vendors, several are designated as small businesses, which reflects this acquisition meeting the FAR 19 "rule of two."

State’s market research supports the establishment of a BPA against the GSA MAS GWAC to support State’s AWS cloud management platform requirements. The information obtained through recent market research supports competing State’s AWS cloud management platform requirements among all capable small businesses who are authorized AWS resellers and have a current/active LOS authorizing them to sell AWS through the GSA MAS GWAC.

SECTION 7: STATEMENT OF THE ACTIONS, IF ANY, THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE

OR OVERCOME ANY BARRIERS THAT LED TO THE RESTRICTED CONSIDERATION BEFORE

ANY SUBSEQUENT ACQUISITION FOR THE SUPPLIES OR SERVICES IS MADE

In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(b)(3) this justification will be posted. Any responses to the justification will be annotated and considered for use in future procurements similar to this one. In addition, State will continue to conduct market research to determine if any other alternative COTS software OEMs can provide a centralized, cloud management platform similar to and compatible with existing AWS installed base that can fulfill State’s core technical requirements.