Brand Name Justification Redacted.pdf

OFFICE OF ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT

ICE Acquisition Manual 3016.505-90

ITEMS PARTICULAR TO ONE MANUFACTURER (BRAND-NAME)

WHEN PLACED UNDER AN INDEFINITE DELIVERY INDEFINITE QUANTITY (IDIQ) CONTRACT

FAR 16.505(a)(4) and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)

J&A-24-0131

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Acquisition Management (OAQ) proposes to award an IDIQ Delivery Order on behalf of the ICE/Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO)/Systems Engineering Division (SED) resulting from a solicitation containing a brand-name specification.

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

(a) Name of the ICE, DHS, or Multiple-Agency Multiple Award Contract that the delivery/task order or modification is being placed under. (Example: NITAAC CIO- SP3): DHS IDIQ - FirstSource II (FSII)

(b) This procurement will be open to competition among qualified First Source II vendors within the Small Business Social Economic categories. Authorized FSII resellers must be able to provide the required name brand.

(c) Identify contract type and whether new action or modification:

Firm Fixed Price, New Action under FAR 16.505

(d) Dollar amount for this justification:

(e) Title of the required brand-name manufacturer and product:

Brand Name Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Operating System (OS) software entitlements Manufacturer: Red Hat, Inc.

3. Description of Supplies/Services.

ICE requires software entitlements and maintenance support, which include 24-hour on-call support and patching for security and enhancements. These entitlements enable users to manage access control, provision resources, deploy applications, and ensure security and compliance.

(a) The period of performance will consist of a 12-month Base period of June 24, 2024 through June 23, 2025.

ITEMS PARTICULAR TO ONE MANUFACTURER (BRAND-NAME)

WHEN PLACED UNDER AN INDEFINITE DELIVERY INDEFINITE QUANTITY (IDIQ) CONTRACT

(b) Include a table like the following for all actions:

Period Time Price Total Base 12mos.

4. Statutory Exception and Rationale.

Exception:

The specific exception for providing for brand-name awards under multiple award contracts is Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 16.505(a)(4). An item peculiar to one manufacturer can be a particular brand-name, product, or a feature of a product peculiar to one manufacturer. A brand-name item, even if available on more than one contract, is an item peculiar to one manufacturer.

Rationale:

(a) Describe the recent (no older than 18 months) market research that was conducted to support the brand-name requirement. Include the dates the market research was conducted.

Market research was carried out between 2/6/2024 and 5/4/2024. This research involved internet research of products from various software vendors. OCIO assessed competing products such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) OS, Ansible Tower Software, OpenShift Container Platform, Ubuntu, Kali, Puppet, and Chef. Also, OCIO contacted the 14 DHS First Source II contract holders who are authorized resellers of the brand Red Hat and were contacted via email to provide market research quotes. This was aimed at determining which vendor would be most capable of providing the required products. The market research results indicate that although there are other Linux products available, they lack the necessary features required by the Government and are unable to meet the needs of ICE OCIO. The research has shown that there are currently no other similar products that meet these requirements, which are essential in providing technical support for hosted applications such as secure operating systems, automated delivery, and integration of containerized infrastructure. Using other Operating System and Automation Management software products could potentially result in inoperability, compatibility issues, and interface problems that would compromise the applications supporting ICE’s missions.

(b) The following Red Hat, Inc. software products are currently the only ones compatible with the management infrastructure deployed at ICE. The ICE Cloud server management utility that supports our Red Hat implementation has been automated and interfaces with key infrastructure at Red Hat to provide software and support for product and licensing related issues.

Market research results indicate that although there are other Linux products available, ITEMS PARTICULAR TO ONE MANUFACTURER (BRAND-NAME)

WHEN PLACED UNDER AN INDEFINITE DELIVERY INDEFINITE QUANTITY (IDIQ) CONTRACT

they lack the features required by the Government and do not meet the needs of ICE OCIO. These products also cannot be modified to meet these needs. Furthermore, other competitors are unable to provide key technical support elements for hosted applications, such as secure operating systems, automated delivery, and integration of containerized infrastructure, as required by ICE OCIO.

Each of the Linux distributions uses a different package manager, leading to compatibility issues. The tools needed to manage the operating system are unique to each product and would require application modifications to rewrite and redeploy, making them incompatible with the current infrastructure. For example, RHEL uses the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), while Kali and Ubuntu use the Apt-Get package manager. These differences in packaging create additional incompatibility in the usage of the Kali and Ubuntu OSs by ICE applications and utilities. This incompatibility extends to the application architecture, maintenance platforms, and support tools employed by ICE OCIO.

ICE cannot tolerate outages or sustained performance issues of any magnitude on this platform, as it supports critical law enforcement activities. Procuring an alternate product other than Red Hat Inc. would require a complete redesign and/or replacement of the OS and other supporting products. It would also necessitate a redesign of all applications that run on the RHEL OS and a redesign and recoding of all automation and containerization scripts and pipelines.

The estimated cost for implementing this level of change for a single application is $2,202,496.00. The cost for supporting 75 applications is $165,187,200.00. This cost does not include the 50 plus 3rd party applications also affected by this level of change.

It also does not take into consideration the impact on ICE mission activities resulting from the changes to Linux-based applications.

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

The contracting officer determines that the anticipated price(s) will be fair and reasonable based on adequate price competition. Multiple DHS First Source II contract holders provide this brand name software. The government has a reasonable expectation that at least 3 quotes will be received.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification. Not applicable

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.

ITEMS PARTICULAR TO ONE MANUFACTURER (BRAND-NAME)

WHEN PLACED UNDER AN INDEFINITE DELIVERY INDEFINITE QUANTITY (IDIQ) CONTRACT

As ICE continues to be proactive in integration and modernization of its information systems, and as improvements are made to technology, ICE will continuously update its market research to determine if other competitors will offer the features needed to fulfill the requirement.

8. If the total dollar value of this action exceeds $30,000, OAQ intends to provide the justification and supporting documentation along with the solicitation to all (IDIQ) contract awardees under the DHS First Source II IDIQ under the SB Socio-Economic Category in accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A).

9. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification.

I certify that this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which form a basis for the Brand-Name Justification, are accurate and complete.

10. Contracting Officer Certification.

I hereby certify that the Brand-Name Justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

11. Approval: