C01 - JnA CTC Server Infrastructure Installation.pdf

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 1701 Directors Blvd.

Austin, TX 78744

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Citrix Systems Inc. software and hardware.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) William S. Middleton Memorial Hospital has a requirement for brand name Citrix software and hardware to be utilized with a new comprehensive system for a Radiation Oncology prpgram. The system will include full redundancy, virtualized servers, common storage, backup utilities and storage, internal domain controllers, and dual Citrix application servers. This system will host all of the necessary software for the William S. Middleton Memorial Hospital Cancer Center (Madison VA Cancer Center) to include a Varian TrueBeam radiation delivery system, Varian Aria/Eclipse applications (EHR), Varian Identify & RGSC applications (positioning verification), RaySearch Laboratories RayStation applications (treatment planning), MIM Maestro applications (Treatment Planning QA), and Sun Nuclear SunCheck applications (Beam QA) as key tools in the program, all hosted in a Citrix environment. VA requires the environment to be accessible by clinical users in a single workstation, without the requirement to deploy multiple thick-client based workstations for each application. The design of this system will meet the upcoming standards being developed by the VHA Offices of Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) and National Radiation Oncology Program (NROP).

Overall, this acquisition is for design, creation, and implementation of this system, software, and hardware in addition to what has already been purchased and on-going management and servicing. All hardware shall be delivered within 30 days from contract award. The total estimated value of the proposed action is .

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 implemented by FAR Subpart 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: Citrix licenses have already been purchased for this comprehensive system. To ensure that this purchase will be fully utilized, it is required that the contractor use these licenses already purchased.

The licenses were purchased at a total of , which VA cannot recover through competition since it has already been spent in a previous fiscal year based on previous

CTC Server Infrastructure Install and Maintenance VA-21-00051836 design. Upon doing an Enterprise Risk Assessment the design was rejected, therefore, VA requires hardware and software in order to salvage the existing Citrix licenses.

Software is a key element of the standardized design plan by the VHA HTM and NROP offices to ensure overall clinical use of the systems. Citrix software is currently in use by VA staff for remote access to desktops, softwares, and applications. Citrix hardware and software are the only environments that the existing Varian, Raystation, Sun Nuclear, and MIM applications can run on, without the additional requirements for a thick-client. Based on market research, using a thick client would not meet the VA’s requirements and would cause VA to purchase additional dedicated workstations with high-end processesors, large amounts of memory, and high-end video cards, for each system with out the capability to run on a single workstation. This would create undue burden for VA to maintain and replace equipment as software upgrades come out.

Each workstation would be at an estimated cost of . A workstation would be required for each staff member and each type of software that they are using, totaling or . When software upgrades are needed there will be additional costs due to additional hardware needs as well as additonal technicians needed to do the installs. Citrix hardware and software is the only solution that can support the existing applications on a single workstation.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are 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 authorized resellers. 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 SAM 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 market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research by reviewing product details with subject matter experts on radiation oncology systems and software. This market research is an ongoing process starting in 2019 and has been continuously conducted and revalidated, as recently as March 2021. William S.

Middleton Memorial Hospital contated other VA hospitals with radiation oncology clinics to inquire on their setup and how successful their design and softwares have been. VA technical experts also researched other solutions to include VMware, V2, and Amazon WorkSpaces; however these solutions are not supported nor compatible with the software that the clinic is currently utilizing. In addition, the previously mentioned software cannot access the clinic’s software as they contain intellectual property rights and access to the software code that can only be accessed by or is compatible with the Citrix software. Based on the market research efforts, the Government’s technical

CTC Server Infrastructure Install and Maintenance VA-21-00051836 experts have determined that only Citrix or thick client are the only environment’s that Varian, Raystation, Sun Nuclear and MIM support.

The Contract Specialist (CS) conducted market research in March 2020 by using the NASA SEWP V GWAC market research tools to determine what vendors can meet the requirement. Based on this market research, the CS found multiple resellers capable of meeting the full requirement.

9. Other Facts: None.