Attachment B Redacted Precisely Syncsort J and A FINAL Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATIONFOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price Delivery Order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Precisely Software License and Maintenance.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services:

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information Technology (OIT), Infrastructure Operations (IO) requires Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) software license and maintenance renewal for the following Precisely software products, Syncsort license and maintenance, currently in use at the VA. SyncSort is a high-speed replacement for the IBM SORT program. The SORT program is used to sort data into a certain sequence or to merge from two to sixteen previously sorted input data sets into one output data set. Syncsort will allow IO to receive license renewal, software upgrades and updates to include major, point, service, and security releases of applicable software on a quarterly basis. The proposed action is to provide software maintenance that will consist of patches, software updates, point release, service, and security releases of applicable software on a quarterly basis and/or within 48 hours for high-risk vulnerabilities that require a fix. This software maintenance will ensure the software remains fully operational and functional allowing the application to operate effectively. The Contractor shall provide one (1) telephone number and/or a point of contact for VA to contact and opening maintenance service calls. The contractor shall provide the necessary support 24x7x365 phone, online, and email. Vendor shall provide secure connection capabilities for the downloading of software updates and/or the uploading of diagnostic information. The preferred protocol for transfer is Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Maintenance is required to ensure the previously procured software remains operational.

The period of performance (PoP) for this effort shall be for a 12-month base period, July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, with two, 12-month options periods. The total estimated price for this proposed action, inclusive with all options, is

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “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.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The current IO infrastructure is based on existing Precisely software. Replacing this infrastructure would require significant human resources (five to six people working for one year). The process would involve migrating data, changing existing processes, testing, and stabilizing the new software, which will disrupt services and delay benefit correspondence and payment delivery to Veterans for at least a year. Training personnel and customers on the new software would take approximately twelve (12) months. Extensive preproduction testing on both customer and maintenance sides is required, with customer approval needed before moving to production. Switching vendors would result in duplicate costs: expenditures for the existing software and purchasing new software, costing around $2.5 million in total including $1.5 million for labor and $1 million for licensing. Additional efforts in terms of time and resources to transfer existing data to new software or build a new database ensuring data integrity. The new software must be compatible with the existing mainframe hardware, requiring significant re-engineering efforts. Possible service disruption and failures in payment delivery to Veterans during the transition period are concerns. Precisely software is proprietary, and only Precisely or authorized resellers have access to the required proprietary source code database structures, protocols, and APIs. No other vendor can provide the necessary maintenance and updates due to these proprietary constraints. Using outdated and unsupportable software would reduce the functionality, particularly impacting VBA’s ability to deliver benefits to Veterans. Only Precisely’s software maintenance can meet the Government's requirements due to the proprietary nature of the existing infrastructure. Replacement would be costly, time-consuming, and risk service disruption, thus maintaining the current infrastructure with Precisely is deemed necessary for continued operational stability and effectiveness.

The overall conclusion underscores that while updating or switching the current IO infrastructure might initially seem beneficial, the proprietary nature of Precisely software and the extensive costs and time associated with migration and re-engineering make continuing with Precisely the most feasible option for ensuring uninterrupted services and benefits delivery to Veterans as the brand name Precisely software maintenance is the only software maintenance that meets the Government's requirements.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are provided in Section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among resellers for brand name Precisely software license and maintenance support. Additionally, in accordance with (IAW) FAR 5.301, FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1) and FAR 16.505(b) (2)(ii)(D), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. Specifically, OIT will continue to monitor market trends, new/emerging products, looking for compatible and more advanced technologies to meet VA needs.

8. Market Research: VA technical experts have conducted thorough market research and found alternative software from manufacturers such as Quintessential Mailing Software Incorporated (QSMI) and Quadient. However, these alternatives are not compatible with the VA's current mainframe systems and hardware. QSMI and Quadient require a Windows-based server environment, whereas Precisely requires OS Linux.

This fundamental incompatibility renders these alternatives unfeasible without significant modification to the existing infrastructure. Also, the financial implications of switching to a new product are substantial. Specifically, the estimated cost to purchase a new product and rewrite hundreds of thousands of lines of code is approximately $2.5 million. This estimate does not cover potential unforeseen issues that could further escalate costs. Transferring data from the current system to the new one is projected to take approximately one year, under ideal conditions with no issues. In addition to the data transfer, there would be several months required to train IT personnel on the new system before any data migration could commence.

Precisely, or its authorized resellers, retain exclusive access to the proprietary database structures, protocols, and software application programming interfaces (APIs), which are specific to their software. This exclusivity further reduces the feasibility of adopting alternative solutions that cannot utilize these proprietary components, leading to increased technical complexity and cost. Based on the extensive market research performed by the VA technical experts, it has been determined that only Precisely name software licenses and maintenance can meet the VA’s requirements effectively. The evaluated alternatives do not satisfy the critical needs because they are not mainframe compatible and would demand extensive—and costly—modifications to the VA’s existing systems, along with extensive retraining and extended data migration periods.

In conclusion, the precise needs of the VA's system, combined with Precisely’s proprietary constraints, make it not only impractical but also prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to consider alternatives to Precisely's software. The market research and analysis clearly suggest that maintaining the current solution with Precisely is the only viable and cost-effective approach.

9. Other Facts: N/A