CAO-21-0341 CUI JA - PD ALTESS 3-Month Bridge Approved (Redacted).pdf

Control No: CAO-21-0341 Contractor: International Business Machines Corporation

Program/Equipment: PD ALTESS Information Technology Support Services

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Activity: United States Army Contracting Command – New Jersey

2. Description of Action: The Program Executive Office (PEO) Enterprise Information System, Product Director Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Enterprise Systems and Services (PD ALTESS) intends to award a Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee bridge modification to Contract Number W15QKN-21-C-0033 with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), 6710 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, Maryland, 20817-1834, for the continuation of Information Technology Services and Support (ITSS). The Government projects award for the competitive effort by 13 September 2021 and fiscal year 2021 Operations and Maintenance, Army type funds are available and will be utilized for this effort.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: PD ALTESS provides enterprise class data center services to include business systems hosting, software design, systems engineering, service-level management, information assurance, cloud support, cyber support, financial and business management, and enterprise service desk operations for PD ALTESS hosted customers and associated users throughout the Department of Defense (DoD). The proposed modification will provide for a continuation of ITSS from the current action being conducted under Contract Number W15QKN-21-C-0033, to prevent a break in service. These support requirements include PD ALTESS core Information Technology (IT) mission, customer reimbursable services operations, and sustainment operations. Task areas include Systems Engineering Operations, Financial and Acquisition Operations and Application Modernization and Sustainment, Service Desk Operations, Cloud Support, Continuous Network Security Monitoring and Intrusion Detection, Incident Response Analysis and Operations, Attack Sensing and Warning, Service-Level Business Operations, and Network Operations for two major data centers located at Radford, Virginia, and Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.

The proposed bridge modification will have a Period of Performance of three months.

The dates and estimated value are provided in the table below.

Bridge Period of Performance Start Date End Date Value

14 July 2021 13 October 2021

A three-month bridge is required due to the complexity of the PD ALTESS ITSS requirement, for which the Government received from interested sources. In accordance with the Government’s basis for award as detailed in Request for Task Order Proposal (RTOP) W15QKN-21-R-0015, Attachment 0002 – Evaluation Plan, the Government intended to evaluate proposals and award a Task Order without discussions. The Government completed its initial round of evaluations on 26 May 2021.

Based upon the Government’s findings, the Contracting Officer made the determination that is in the Government’s best interest to conduct discussions in support of the

Program/Equipment: PD ALTESS Information Technology Support Services competitive follow-on action, thereby requiring additional time to complete the best value source selection in accordance with the criteria set forth in the competitive solicitation. It is anticipated that an additional three months should be sufficient time to conduct discussions and make award, allowing for the required 30-day transition-in period.

4. Authority Cited: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1) as implemented by FAR Part 6.302- 1(a)(2)(iii)(B) – Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements. Services may be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of follow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source would result in unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: W15QKN-21-C-0033 was awarded to IBM on 13 April 2021, on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(2) as implemented by FAR Part 6.302-2 – Unusual and Compelling Urgency. The contract was executed as a three-month bridge with a period of performance of 14 April 2021 through 13 July 2021 for the continuation of ITSS services previously provided under Computer Hardware Enterprise Software and Solutions (CHESS) Information Technology Enterprise Solutions – 2 Services (ITES-2S) Contract Number W91QUZ-06-D-0010, Task Order 2T01. Due to the expiration in validity of the underlying CHESS ITES-2S Contract, the award of a temporary stand-alone effort was required to continue these mission critical services, while the Government continued to conduct evaluations under the competitive, best value trade-off, follow-on effort conducted under RTOP number W15QKN-21-R-0015 that provides for fair opportunity to all CHESS ITES-3S contract holders. This was the first time that this authority has been used for this contract.

PD ALTESS has a mission to keep systems up and running and serving customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year (24x7x365). Data centers supported through the provision of ITSS are expansive and integrated across multiple geographical locations, consisting of both physical and virtual architectures, supporting hundreds of programs, thousands of virtual servers and millions of users worldwide. The Government requires the continuation of ITSS to meet PD ALTESS’ mission critical requirements. Failure to provide continuity of these services will jeopardize successful mission accomplishment in significant portions of PD ALTESS’ mission to include Service Delivery, Service Operations, Service Desk, Business Management, and Application Services Divisions throughout the Army. Service Delivery provides full system lifecycle support, to include establishment of Service-Level Agreements, Requirements Definition, and process management. Service Operations provide engineering, cybersecurity, network design and management, system administration, and Continuity of Operations support for data centers located across multiple geographical locations. Service Desk operations provide 24x7x365 call center support for over users. The Business Management Division provides full budgeting and acquisition support and executes over in customer-reimbursable funds each year. The Applications Services Division provides management and sustainment to multiple unclassified and classified systems. In this

Program/Equipment: PD ALTESS Information Technology Support Services

(5) Task Order 2T01 provided for fair opportunity to all CHESS ITES-2S contract holders with award made to IBM, on 2 September 2016, against Contract Number W91QUZ-06- D-0010, which represented the best value to the Government based upon the criteria set forth in the Government’s Request for Task Order Proposal number W15QKN16R0017.

Efforts are currently underway for the competitive follow-on award.

(6) Unusual patterns: N/A

(7) Circumstances Justifying the Procurement in the Justification and Approval of contract action W15QKN-21-C-0033: The justification prepared to support the procurement made before this one was Unusual and Compelling Urgency due to the critical nature of these services for which only IBM was capable of providing services without subjecting the Government to undue harm.

b. There are no other facts that are not already addressed in this justification.