C01 IR089c DSM Hardware Servers JA v9_Redacted.pdf

Control Number VA-21-00044763

JUSTIFICATION

FOR 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: This proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order issued under a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) servers, management appliances upgrade and warranty maintenance service/installation on Non Volatile Memory express (NVMe) solid state drives (SSDs).

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM), has a requirement for brand name HPE servers including cables/connectors server warranty maintenance service/installation as well as management appliances upgrade and NVMe SSDs for existing servers. Specifically, the required two HPE servers will be populated with compute modules and Composer2 management appliances. Defective media retention (DMR) warranty maintenance service shall include 24/7 technical support both online and over the phone with a five year period of performance. Two HPE Synergy 1200 server frames will be upgraded from HPE Composer1 management appliances to HPE Composer2 management appliances. Additionally, HPE NVMe SSDs are required to augment existing servers to support an enterprise scale patient chart search application. The HPE NVMe SSDs equipment shall include all software and remote installation and configuration, startup and system performance verification services, and 3 years of warranty service support.

The Government requires this equipment to expand and strengthen the Data Syndication server environment at the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) to provide the computing resources necessary to support the large scale and high performance required to support data transformation and analysis efforts. As an ever increasing volume of patient data is syndicated back to VA from Cerner, and other external partners, more data must be extracted to support cutover migration activities prior to Cerner Electronic Health Record (EHR) Go Lives.

The delivery of hardware, installation and configuration of hardware shall be within 30 days after receipt and processing of the delivery order. The five year DMR warranty and three year warranty service support shall not commence until all hardware is successfully installed and operational. The total estimated price of the proposed action is

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as

Data Syndication Hardware - Servers Control Number VA-21-00044763 implemented by 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: Based on market research, as described in section eight of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for the required brand name HPE servers, management appliances, and NVMe SSDs. The Government requires this equipment to expand and strengthen the Data Syndication server environment at AITC to provide the computing resources necessary to support the large scale and high performance required to support data transformation and analysis efforts. As an ever-increasing volume of patient data is syndicated back to VA from Cerner, and other external partners, more data must be extracted to support cutover migration activities prior to Cerner EHR Go Lives. The servers, management appliances, and NVMe SSDs will be deployed within an existing server environment that is comprised of only HPE hardware and software. Therefore, only HPE brand equipment can be fully compatible within the existing HPE-based infrastructure, which includes dozens of HPE servers and storage devices.

The existing HP servers are proprietary to HPE and, due to the included proprietary HPE code, no other brand of servers is compatible with the current server infrastructure.

Only HPE servers can interoperate within VA’s existing HPE server environment at AITC. Specifically, no other brand name servers will communicate and function within the current infrastructure due to the aforementioned proprietary constraints. Due to technical compatibility requirements and the proprietary constraints of HPE servers, expanding the computing resources to support Data Syndication activities requires the same hardware as what is currently in used in the AITC server environment. Any additional server and associated components are required to fit and have 100 percent compatibility in an already existing HPE environment; therefore, HPE and its authorized resellers are the only providers that can provide servers, management appliances, and NVMe SSDs that are fully compatible within the HPE-based infrastructure at AITC.

Furthermore, use of any other brand name server would require VA to replace the existing HP server environment. Since the current HP server environment consists of dozens of existing servers and storage devices, the replacement cost would be approximately $5.3M dollars, which accounts for the associated hardware, labor, and government resources required to implement the replacement infrastructure which would result in several months of downtime for the environment and would negatively impact VA’s ability to support data transformation and analysis efforts. These estimated costs, which are based on similar previous efforts, would not be recovered through competition. Additionally, since a stable, running environment is required to sustain OEHRM’s Data Syndication efforts, this cost and delay would be prohibitive.

Finally, the aforementioned servers, management appliances, and NVMe SSDs are proprietary HPE products; therefore, only HPE or its authorized resellers has the access to the proprietary data and source code necessary to provide warranty services, inclusive of service/installation, for the hardware and software within the servers. The proprietary code is required to ensure the servers are properly operational and defects properly resolved. Access to HPE proprietary data and source code is required to provide the required warranty installation/services on the server and ensure all the services provided are properly configured. Failure to procure the brand name warranty services would hamper VA’s ability to maintain the operational status of the servers.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section eight 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 viable among resellers for these brand name HPE products. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), 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, the Government will continue to research whether non-HPE parts can interoperate with the current environment without performance degradation or violating warranties of other HPE equipment that is currently in use in the Data Syndication server and storage environments, which must interoperate with the HPE equipment for which maintenance coverage is being procured under this action.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research in December 2020 via web-based research. The Government’s technical experts reviewed solutions from alternative vendors of server equipment including Dell, Acer, and IBM. After review, it was determined these vendors’ products could not meet the Government’s requirement to integrate seamlessly with the current environment. As described in paragraph 5, VA requires servers, management appliances, and NVMe SSDs that will be deployed within an existing server environment that is comprised of only HPE hardware and software. Therefore, only HPE brand equipment can be fully compatible within the existing HPE-based infrastructure. Further, only HPE or its authorized resellers has the access to the proprietary data and source code necessary to provide warranty services, inclusive of service/installation, for the existing server environment that is comprised of only HPE hardware. The results of the market research confirmed that only HPE or an authorized reseller has the capability of providing servers that are compatible with the existing infrastructure and provide warranty on the HPE servers as no other manufacturer has the required access to HPE proprietary data and source code.

Additional market research was conducted in March 2021 utilizing the Provider Lookup tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website which identified multiple Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) Value Added Reseller GWAC holders in

Group B(2) that provide the brand name HPE products. Therefore, limited competition is anticipated on NASA SEWP V among SDVOSBs for this proposed action.

9. Other Facts: None.

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on anticipated competition and discounts among multiple value-added resellers of the required brand name HPE products described herein. Additionally, further price analysis of quotes received will be conducted to determine fair and reasonable price.

Finally, pricing of products awarded under NASA SEWP V GWAC have already been determined to be fair and reasonable.

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name HPE servers, management appliances upgrade and NVMe) SSDs on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.