EXECUTED IDAM JA2_Redacted-22Oct20.pdf

Control Number 2020-13

Justification Review Document

Description of Acquisition: DCMAIT requires a short term delivery order for continuing Professional Consulting for the proprietary F5 Network Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Global Traffic Manager (GTM) network equipment and technology installed in its enterprise network. LTM and GTM devices help manage enterprise network traffic, both internal and external, facilitates Domain Name System resolution, load balances application and web server environments, and enhances overall protection of DCMA’s mission critical data. DCMA will require consulting support with DCMA’s Low Code No Code F5 Authentication and Authorization project, which leverages F5 technology.

Statutory Authority: 41 U.S.C. 1901, as prescribed in FAR Part 13.106-1(b), Sole Source including Brand Name) and FAR Part 16.505(a)(4)(ii)

Estimated Contract Amount: $16,440.00

Period of Performance: 9/30/2020 - 12/23/2020

Prepared By: Contracting Officer:

Digitally signed by

JACKSON.RITA.W.

Date: 2020.09.1710:33:47 -04'00'

Rita W. Jackson Date:

Required Review Signatures: The below have reviewed this J&A and find the justification adequate to support other than full and open competition.

1. DCMA Program Manager Networking:

TAYLOR.COREY.C

D.

Date: 2020.09.17 08:17:59 -04'00'

Corey Taylor Date:

2. Procurement Center FANIEL.DEWEY.R.111

Director: Date: 2020.09.21 08:22:33 -04'00'

Dewey Faniel Date:

3. Policy

TOMBERLIN.DAISY.LEE.

Date: 2020.09.21 11:04:07 -04'00'

Procurement Analyst: Lee Tomberlin Date:

4. Procurement Division Director: Kathleen Lemming Date:

5. Competition Advocate: Wendy D. Laughlin Date:

9/17/202

LAUGHLIN.WENDY.D Digitally signed by

Date: 2020.09.25 06:40:18 -04'00'

LAUGHLIN.WENDY.D. Digitally signed by

Date: 2020.09.25 06:40:53 -04'00'

Justification and Approval (J&A) For Other than Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Office: Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). ProcurementCenter.

Fort Lee, Virginia.

2. Type of Contract Action: This is firm fixed priced delivery order (DO). The DO will use current year (FY20) Operations and Maintenance Reimbursable (O&M-R) funds.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: DCMA Information Technology Directorate (IT) requires ongoing Professional Consulting (High Level Technical) Support Services for its F5 Software and hardware on DCMA’s existing environments.

Estimated Cost of Requirement: $16,440.00 dollars

ITEM #

MFG NAME

MFG PART NUMBER

DESCRIPTION - BASE PERIOD

QTY

UNIT

OF

ISSUE

0001 F5 F5-CST-S - Consulting 48 Hours of consulting (High Level Technical

Support) services provided by F5. Consulting hours will be utilized to assist DCMA IT with F5 hardware and software support and Common Access Card Authentication and Authorization.

3 Months

4. Authority Cited: 41 U.S.C. 152 (3), as prescribed in FAR 13.106-1(b), Sole Source (including Brand Name)

5. Reason for Authority Cited: DCMA owns and manages F5 software and hardware products and equipment operating on the DCMA environments. F5 products and services are proprietary; as such, only F5 brand name Professional Support Services purchased from an F5 authorized reseller can provide the services required to support their equipment. The F5 infrastructure is currently being used to provide Virtual Private Network (VPN) access, Application Authentication & Authorization (Access Management) and Domain Name System (DNS) architectures. If the support services are not continued, significant risk would be accepted by the agency that could allow known security vulnerabilities to impact the network. Without this coverage there would be no support services to assist with advance system failure warnings and no new F5 initiatives could be deployed if they become available. Therefore, it is prudent to continue these support services with an authorized f5 reseller to ensure continuity of support and services.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Initial market research was conducted to determine whether or not the support services were available through an approved Enterprise Solution Initiative (ESI) contract vehicle, a preferred source for Department of Defense Agencies (DoD). While GSA has one vendor with the capability of providing these support services, the NASA SEWP (SEWP) venue has nine known vendors with the capability to provide these services. Both GSA and SEWP are preferred methods of obtaining Information Technology products and support services after first considering DoD vehicles. A Request for Information (RFI) was submitted through the SEWP portal to ascertain whether or not the agency would receive competition through the SEWP venue. Based on replies from the RFI we received one affirmative reply from the incumbent contractor, Force3 and three no bids from additional vendors. The remainder of the five resellers did not participatein the inquiry process. Since this is a short term order consisting of only three months, it is cost prohibitive at this time to re-compete this action, as it would cause significant operational disruption in transitioning to new products and the potential for the known vulnerabilities would be exponentially raised. Additionally, it is doubtful that competition would be received based on the short performance period and the SEWP RFI responses.

7. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: The price will be determined fair and reasonable based on a comparison of market prices for like and similar technical support services which includes historical contract pricing. A memorandum detailing the Fair and Reasonable Price Determination will be included in the contract documentation.

8. Market Research Conducted: Under the market research identified in item 6 above, the manufacturer (f5) did state that while there are a number of resellers on different contract vehicles, it is not uncommon for them to pick one venue or another with whichto provide pricing i.e. some may prefer GSA over SEWP and vice versa.

9. Other Supporting Facts: DCMA is moving to the Defense Information Approved Products Listing for its network capabilities which predates even 4ENO transitions. The Department of Defense Information Network (DoDIN) which is managed by the Defense Information System’s Agency’s (DISA) will allow the agency to align itself with other defense agencies and interoperability then becomes seamless between DoDorganizations.

10. Sources: There are nine known NASA SEWP resellers who have the capability of providing these services; however, only one, the incumbent contractor, Force2 (Cage# 0TC84) of Crofton, MD was the only vendor that provided pricing for this requirement.

Three additional vendors provided a no bid response and the remainder did not reply at all.

The short performance period (3-months) could be a key factor in their not wanting to participate in this competitive process.

11. Actions Taken to Remove Barriers: DCMAIT has already begun preparing the follow-on package and will utilize a DISA solution in accordance with the DoDIN and it will move the agency away from the older more common proprietary systems.

Contracting Officer Certification & Approval

Justification Approval

Based on the foregoing information, I hereby approve the procurement of the F5 Professional Consulting (High Level Technical Support) Services on an other than full and open competition basis, pursuant to the authority of 41 U.S.C. 1901 as prescribed in FAR 13.106-1(b), Sole Source (including Brand Name) and 16.505(a)(4)(ii), provided that funds are available, or will be available and that the services and products herein described have been authorized for acquisition.

APPROVED:

Date: 2020.09.17 10:34:27 -04'00'

Rita W. Jackson Contracting Officer

Technical/Requirements Certification

I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included within this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

TAYLOR.COREY.

C D. Date: 2020.09.21 08:06:50 -04'00'

Corey Taylor Program Manager

DCMAIT-O

JACKSON.RITA.W