FINAL - JA25-124 852572940_redacted_Redacted.pdf

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Controlled by: ARMY Controlled By: CEIT-PMO CUI Category: SSEL

JUSTIFICATION & APPROVAL FOR FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION

SUBPART 16.5 ACQUISITIONS

EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

Multiple Award Contract

Orders under Fair Opportunity Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b), Defense FAR Supplement 216.505(b), Procedures, Guidance, and Information 216.505(b)

Military Interdepartmental Purchase Request Number: W91WPT52249896 Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) Contract Number: HC105023D0005 Task Order (TO) Number: HC105025F0052 Procurement Title: Hybrid Cloud 01 Estimated Value:

Statutory and Regulatory Authority: 10 United States Code (U.S.C.) 3204(a) and FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B)

EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

Number: JA25-124

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as the Procuring Activity Competition Advocate (PACA), hereby approve this exception to fair opportunity pursuant to the Statutory Authority of 10 U.S.C. 3204(a) and Regulatory Authority of FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B).

1. REQUESTING AGENCY AND CONTRACTING OFFICE:

Requesting Agency:

U.S. Army (ARMY) / US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) 4155 Clay Steet Vicksburg, MS 39183

Contracting Activity:

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) / Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) / Cloud Capabilities Section (PS8511)

2300 East Drive Scott Air Force Base, IL 62225-5406

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S):

This action is to issue a firm-fixed-price TO against the JWCC Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Contract for USACE Hybrid Cloud 01. This TO will be issued directly to Amazon Web Services, Inc (AWS). The anticipated period of performance (PoP) is for a 12-month base period, plus two, 12-month option periods. The total estimated value is which will be funded by Working Capital funds.

USACE AWS Hybrid Cloud

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3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES:

The scope of this requirement is for the USACE to establish a landing zone which will allow the onboarding of other already established USACE accounts. This landing zone will allow USACE to leverage all existing environments and establish a Transit Network which enables seamless onboarding of existing USACE accounts.

4. SUPPORTING RATIONALE, INCLUDING A DEMONSTRATION THAT THE

PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE

ACQUISITION REQUIRES USE OF AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

(a) Exception to Fair Opportunity.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) - 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.

(b) Description of the Justification.

In order to ensure continued critical mission operations, USACE requires Amazon EC2, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon CloudTrail, Amazon Route 53, Amazon Direct Connect, AWS Landing Zone, Amazon GaurdDuty that cannot be replicated or operated natively within other cloud service providers (CSP) environments due to fundamental differences in infrastructure, service integration, and compliance boundaries. Without the use of these services that currently exist within AWS’s environment, the USACE Hybrid Cloud program would be unable to provide critical mission capability. These services are tightly coupled with USACE’s current operational architecture and cannot be replicated in an identical, accredited form by other JWCC CSPs. AWS is the only CSP capable of sustaining existing USACE Hybrid Cloud mission capabilities without re-architecture or loss of operational effectiveness. USACE Hybrid Cloud was developed as a fit-for-purpose designated environment to address specific operational, security, and data sovereignty requirements for the Department of the Army. Other CSPs may provide similar functionality, but the USACE Hybrid Cloud architecture and mission owner environments cannot be integrated into another cloud environment.

USACE currently has AWS accounts which have a Virtual Private Network tunnel over a Joint Regional Security Stack (JRSS) connection, and without getting a dedicated AWS Account to establish a Landing Zone and AWS Direct Connect, USACE will not be able to transition the required AWS accounts to the USACE Hybrid Cloud Boundary Cloud Access Point (BCAP). USACE is currently moving away from JRSS and will not be able to close legacy Data Centers until the hybrid cloud is implemented. This direct connectivity is critical for ensuring low-latency, high-bandwidth, and secure data transfer between on-premises infrastructure and AWS, supporting mission-critical applications and sensitive data subject to regulatory controls. AWS Direct Connect also bypasses the public internet, significantly reducing exposure to common cyber threats and ensuring

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compliance and security mandates that require private, non-internet-facing connectivity.

No other CSP can provide a native direct connection into AWS environments, which is essential for USACE’s current and future cloud operations. Equally important, AWS Landing Zones provides a secure, automated, scalable multi-account AWS environment, forming the foundation for USACE’s hybrid cloud. The AWS Landing Zone framework, enhanced by AWS Control Tower, automates account provisioning, establishes baseline security controls, and enforces governance policies across all AWS accounts. This enables USACE to rapidly deploy workloads while maintaining strong resource isolation, centralized security monitoring, and compliance with internal and external requirements.

AWS Landing Zone integrations with AWS Direct Connect ensures that all account and workloads benefit from consistent security, networking, and compliance configurations.

The other CSPs do not offer an equivalent, natively integrated solution that combines direct connectivity with automated, multi-account governance and security at this scale.

The current operating systems and infrastructure have been implemented using AWS tools and services which are required to support and maintain operations. Only the existing AWS Cloud infrastructure meets the required need for operational support and compatibility with existing architecture at this time. Introducing a different CSP would not meet the Government’s need for interoperability and functionality within the USACE operational environment.)

(c) Justification.

(1) Minimum Government requirements.

The cloud service offerings must continue at their current level in order to support the uninterrupted delivery of services such as account provisioning, establishing baseline security controls, and enforcing governance policies across all AWS accounts. The CSP offerings must be compatible with the USACE’s existing architecture. USACE’s BCAP needs to establish an AWS Direct Connect to ensure the monitoring and control of the AWS traffic coming into the USACE network.

(2) Proposed sole source contractor. AWS

(3) Discussion regarding the cause of the sole source situation.

The only CSP capable of providing the hybrid cloud environment at the required level of quality is AWS. The AWS Landing Zones provide a secure, automated, scalable multi-account environment, forming the foundation for USACE’s hybrid cloud. The AWS Landing Zone framework, enhanced by AWS Control Tower, automates account provisioning, establishes baseline security controls, and enforces governance policies across all AWS accounts. This enables USACE to rapidly deploy workloads while maintaining strong resource isolation, centralized security monitoring, and interoperability with internal and external requirements. Any re-architecting, re-engineering, and refactoring of any of the critical cloud offerings from AWS to any other CSP would not meet the Government’s need for compatibility. In addition, there would

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be a duplication of costs by having to keep the solution running on one platform while refactoring it on another platform, none of which would meet the Government’s current need.

(4) Demonstration of unique source.

AWS possesses the knowledge, skills, capabilities, certification, clearance, and experience required to successfully continue the USACE mission objectives without a break or degradation in critical mission services. AWS Landing Zone integrations within AWS Direct Connect ensure that all account and workloads benefit from consistent security, networking, and compliance configurations. Other CSPs do not offer an equivalent, natively integrated solution that combines direct connectivity with automated, multi-account governance and security at this scale. Given these critical mission requirements, AWS is the only CSP that is capable of performing the necessary services for the Department of Defense within the current required timeline.

(5) Procurement discussion.

Based on the outreach to the four JWCC CSPs in May 2025, the only CSP that is currently capable of meeting the minimum needs of the Government is AWS. Using another CSP would require substantial re-architecture of the USACE workloads and governance model, resulting in unacceptable risk, increased costs, and operational disruption. AWS is capable of meeting the full scope of technical, security, and operational requirements. AWS provides system integration and operational continuity, security and compliance requirements, proprietary, architecture and configurations, standardization and enterprise policy, cost avoidance and technical risk, and time constraints and urgency.

(6) Impact.

Transitioning to another CSP from AWS is not feasible based on the inability of any other CSP to seamlessly integrate within the existing architecture. The impact of not utilizing the existing AWS infrastructure would result in USACE being unable to complete a successful and timely transition to JWCC resulting in mission failure. To meet mission requirements, USACE’s compliance obligations of data residency, auditability, and private network requirements can only be met with AWS Direct Connect and AWS Landing Zone. These services uniquely enable USACE to maintain regulatory compliance while ensuring mission continuity and operational efficiency to the warfighter.

5. COST/PRICE FAIR AND REASONABLE DETERMINATION:

A determination that the price is fair and reasonable will be based on a comparison of the contractor’s proposal to the Independent Government Cost Estimate and the JWCC Catalog pricing, including any discounts, which was previously found to be fair and reasonable and based on the contractor’s commercial pricing.

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6. MARKET RESEARCH:

Market research for the basic JWCC Contracts was conducted and resulted in a signed market research report on November 9, 2021, that was revalidated and recertified on July 29, 2024.

After a survey of the market, it was concluded that the JWCC Contract is in the Government’s best interest due to technical feasibility and cost to the Government.

Additional research was conducted February 2, 2025 - April 5, 2025, by reviewing the specific capabilities in the JWCC CSP’s catalogs to determine if other similar offerings meet or can be modified to satisfy the Government’s requirement. USACE also requested Additional Research to Support Fair Opportunity from the other three JWCC CSPs in May 2025. USACE received responses from Microsoft, Google, and Oracle. All three CSPs indicated in their responses they only deliver connectivity to their own cloud platforms. USACE determined through market research discussions that this was due to IP copyright constraints.

AWS is the only CSP that meets all of the Government’s requirements and can be seamlessly integrated within the USACE workload hosted in the AWS infrastructure. Market research indicates the other three CSP’s similar services, or services lacking specific features, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the Agency’s needs. None of the other three CSPs are capable of integrating into the AWS environment and, thus, do not meet the Government’s minimum requirements.

7. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS: None.

8. ACTIONS THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE OR OVERCOME BARRIERS

THAT LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

(a) Procurement History:

USACE Information Technology operates in an AWS tenant space provided by USACE- Civil Works Business Intelligence (CWBI). The USACE-CWBI AWS instance was awarded though the Enterprise Cloud Management Agency (ECMA) implementation of the Cloud Account Management Optimization (CAMO) contract which now is under a JWCC contract vehicle. In 2019, the U.S. Army stood up the ECMA to kickstart cloud migration. ECMA identified and satisfied the requirement for a prototype process to help the Army effectively plan, budget, and consume commercial cloud services. In March 2021, ECMA awarded the CAMO Agreement to begin the Army’s cloud journey by providing CSP reselling services to the Army. CAMO was initiated as an Other Transaction Authority to experiment with industry partners to bring multi-cloud products and services with best possible pricing to the Army. CAMO demonstrates the value of an enterprise solution which incentivizes appropriate behaviors, provides tangible value to the Army, creates visibility of utilization and investments, and creates long term cost avoidance when compared to alternatives.

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(b) To overcome future barriers to competition, USACE Cloud Program team will conduct market research expansion, requirement standardization, acquisition planning improvements, technical data ownership, modular design and lessons learned reviews to determine if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future competitive actions.

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TECHNICAL CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: SIGNATURE:

TITLE/AGENCY:

PHONE: DATE:

REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: SIGNATURE:

TITLE/AGENCY:

PHONE: DATE:

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: SIGNATURE:

TITLE/AGENCY/ORGANIZATION:

PROCURING ACTIVITY COMPETITION ADVOCATE APPROVAL: I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Since this justification does not exceed $15M, this review serves as approval and my written determination that the aforementioned FAR circumstances apply.

NAME: SIGNATURE:

TITLE/AGENCY/ORGANIZATION: PACA/DISA/DITCO

ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS JUSTIFICATION ARE TO BE REFERRED TO