BRAND NAME REDACT.pdf

BRAND NAME JUSTIFICATION

FOR SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITIONS

From: 104

To: Simplified Acquisition Section

Subject: Brand Name Justification for NetBrain Network Automation Management Software

1. DESCRIPTION OF REQUIRED SUPPLIES/SERVICES, ESTIMATED VALUE, AND DELIVERY

REQUIREMENTS

This purchase is for NetBrain network automation management software to enhance NSWC’s network operations by implementing NetBrain R12’s automation, monitoring, and visualization capabilities. The platform will enable proactive network management through no‐code automation, AI‐driven troubleshooting, real‐time monitoring, and digital twin technology. These features will significantly improve operational efficiency, reduce downtime, support safe and automated network changes, and enhance overall network performance, reliability, security and asset management per CISA BOD 23‐01.

The subject purchase request provides for NetBrain network automation management software licenses, related documentation and technical support________________________________.

2. SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION FOR BRAND NAME BASED ON CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE

QUALIFICATIONS OR NATURE OF THE ACQUISITION

This hardware purchase is required to be compliant with CISA (Binding Operational Directive) BOD 23‐01 for “Improving Asset Visibility and Vulnerability Detection on Federal Networks”. BODs are a compulsory direction to federal, executive branch, departments and agencies for purposes of safeguarding federal information and information systems under the authority of the Secretary of the Department of

Homeland Security (DHS).

________ focuses on two core activities essential to improving operational visibility for a successful cybersecurity program: asset discovery and vulnerability enumeration. Through market research and review, NSWC’s RDT&E Security Operations Team was able to identify the NetBrain network automation platform as having met all of the technical and security requirements of a CISA BOD 23‐01 compliant product.

NetBrain’s network auto‐discovery feature produces a live Digital Twin of the network, including device details (hostname, properties, configurations), Topology for Layer 2 and Layer 3 neighbors, and Path analysis for ACL, QoS, Multicast, and Network address translation (NAT). The digital twin provides a comprehensive view of devices, topology, and traffic flows and helps network teams avoid outages from config drift or firmware changes and simulates and tests policy and architecture changes with AI‐driven large language models

(LLMs). NetBrain allows fully automated asset discovery and verification and identifies devices that should be on the network but are missing and devices that are on the network but should not be, thus satisfying the first objective of BOD 23‐01 for asset discovery.

NetBrain also offers Just‐In‐Time Automation, an API‐triggered NetBrain diagnosis that triggers if a monitoring alert or a helpdesk ticket is created thus reducing the Mean Time to Restoration (MTTR) for problems that occur on the network. NetBrain also performs several data collection tasks to verify that the target network functions within acceptable security parameters and actively tracks compliance, security and incidents thus fulfilling the vulnerability enumeration requirements of CISA BOD 23‐01

3. MARKET SURVEY

Results of market research undertaken to identify similar or identical requirements through source lists of like items obtained through online resources, peer review and research has failed to identify any comparable alternative that matches or exceeds the government’s technical requirements and at better cost

4. ADDITIONAL FACTS

NA

5. APPROVALS: