FOE Elastic FTE REDACTION.pdf

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity or to Use Brand-Name Restriction v 18 Jan 2024 Page 2 of 9v 18 Jan 2024 Page 2 of 9

Elastic tooling is currently the ADCP approved Observability Platform (reference FOE for Task Order FA873024FB006). Elastic is a Commercial Off The Shelf technology that is being integrated into the entire ADCP Technology Offering. If successful in integrating this Observability Tooling, it will provide a significant differentiator when compared to other DoD Platforms and more importantly improve the capability resiliency of the platform. Integration success relies on OEM Elastic engineer Subject Matter Experts.

Obtaining an ElasticSearch SME Engineer for SRE will enable the SRE team to deliver Enterprise Observability via Elastic which is becoming increasingly complex as ADCP expands its support to more platforms & tenants. The required ElasticSearch SME for SRE is needed to assist in this integration, offer expertise and to guide the team towards best practices in integration.

The subject modification will increase the FFP quantity for this line item on the existing task order. The Task order complied with Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) Procedures, Guidance and Information (PGI) 208.7403 which directs software buyers and requiring officials to check the Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) website for the DoD inventory before using another method of procuring software licenses.

Upon review of the DoD ESI website, the PCO determined the brand name items identified are within the DoD inventory and available to order through NASA SEWP. This requirement is within the scope of the NASA SEWP contract and DoD ESI BPA product and service catalogs. NASA SEWP is a multiple award IDIQ contract. The task order was competed amongst the vendors on the NASA SEWP contract with the DoD ESI Elastic BPA. This additional quantity will be added via modification to the existing task order.

It has been verified that the catalog item required is on the NASA SEWP contract vehicle and the catalog SKUs are included. There is sufficient ceiling on the SEWP contract. The NASA SEWP V contracts go through v 18 Jan 2024 Page 3 of 9v 18 Jan 2024 Page 3 of 9

April 30, 2025. The ordering procedures state that orders issued within the Catalog Ordering Period that include options can exercise the options after the Catalog ordering end date provided that: 1) the initial order that includes the option was issued during the Catalog ordering period and does not exceed 60 months past the expiration date of the NASA SEWP contract and 2) the ordering office satisfies all other applicable regulations for exercise of the options. Both of these conditions will be met.

(3) Description of the supplies/services required to meet the agency's needs:

AFLCMC/C3CP intends to procure engineering support for the purpose of assisting the SRE Platform Observability Team in refining the implementation and scaling of general observability functions to allow monitoring as well as analysis of the platform and its applications. This will be a modification to the existing contract which provides FTE to assist Cyber Surety Team with the buildout, implementation, and scaling of the SIEM. The existing order has a contract line item for this service. The modification will increase the quantity in order to support additional implementation requirements. The modification is performance based and will include a Performance Work Statement for the embedded engineer line item.

The Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) is $ with a period of performance of 1 year after contract award. See attached IGCE for detailed line items costs. The FTE is to be identified within 14 days after receipt of order (DARO).

The catalog items to be purchased include:

0003 - SV-ADV-6P: Services: Advisory - six or more months - per month (12 Units)

(4) Identification of the exception to fair opportunity and the supporting rationale:

FAR16.505(b)(1)(i) states that the Contracting Officer is required to provide each awardee under a multiple award contract, a fair opportunity to be v 18 Jan 2024 Page 4 of 9v 18 Jan 2024 Page 4 of 9 considered for each order exceeding $3,000 unless a statutory exception applies. IAW FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(G), "For DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, the order satisfies one of the exceptions permitting the use of other than full and open competition listed in 6.302 ( 10 U.S.C. 3406(c)(5)). " IAW FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii), For DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, 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- (A) Substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition; or (B) Unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements. (See 10 U.S.C. 3204(b)(B)).

This requirement is for a brand name Elastic, which has an approved FOE at the task order level (See Attachment 1). The current prime contractor has been working with the ADCP Security and went through significant onboarding at the beginning of the task order.

Should award go to any other vendor, there would be a duplication of cost in program management/contract oversight to the government. If another contract is required to obtain the additional FTE, there would be two prime contractors providing the same service and administrative oversight via the same Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) sub-contractor, Elastic, that is not anticipated to be recovered through competition.

In addition, the recent task order was competitively awarded to the lowest technically acceptable offeror. As a result, an additional competition for the required FTE is not likely to provide any cost savings to the government.

Finally, the government will experience duplication of government administrative costs to award and manage two separate contract actions for the same service.

Award to any other vendor would cause unacceptable delays. As proven in the original contract order (#: FA873024FB006) the government experienced almost a three month delay in processing the DD254 with the v 18 Jan 2024 Page 5 of 9v 18 Jan 2024 Page 5 of 9

66th ABG and AFLCMC/C3C’s security office. It is anticipated that if a different prime contractor was providing these brand name requirements the Government would experience a 2-3 month delay to process a separate DD254 for the Prime Contractor as well as approval down to the original equipment manufacturer (Elastic), before work can begin. A modification will allow the additional FTE to begin onboarding immediately since the existing DD254 will cover this requirement.

The SRE team has been tasked with increased scope of operations to onboard observability for all of the Kubernetes (K8s) platforms and business applications in KR.

This project is in production and needs the observability functions elastic provides as soon as possible to reduce downtime on critical applications.

Currently, the team does not have observability and must manually contact other teams and pull logs from 18 hosts and then look through the logs for a particular transaction in order to identify the root cause and resolve issues. The applications are used daily by all KR to deliver software and push updates to applications in production. Depending on priority, resolution times could be cut by 66%. Currently outages take days when they could be resolved in hours. For low priority issues they could take days while they currently take months.

This task is tied a Command, Control, Communication and Battle Management (C3BM) strategic objective to accelerate secure and resilient capabilities for the indo pacfic. Specifically, this commitment to complete the transitioning and staging in a Kubernetes environment is expected by March 2025. Elastic SME support being readily available for FY2025 Q2 is imperative for meeting this deadline. In addition, the SRE team is required to implement alerting integration for IL6 and to enable anomaly detection for all software ADCP supports. If there is a delay with onboarding, pushing that support out past March 2025, there will be unacceptable delays on the critical path to deliver operational capabilities to the warfighter.

It is important to note that operational and strategic milestones are at risk.

v 18 Jan 2024 Page 6 of 9v 18 Jan 2024 Page 6 of 9

The command and ADCP milestones have been restructured after missing the original commitment of December 2024 due to lack of subject matter expert support in the transition. A delay would result in continued overtasking of resources and unacceptable down time in critical applications we use to deliver software to the AOC.

(5) Contracting Officer's determination that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The action for this effort will result in a modification to a task order that was competitively awarded against the NASA SEWP contract vehicle. Multiple quotes were received and adequate price competition existed at the task order level to ensure fair and reasonable pricing. This modification is increasing the quantity provided at prices that were already determined fair and reasonable. Market conditions have not changed significantly and the Government does not expect to realize any cost savings from competition.

The option was recently exercised for this action making the determination that this contract vehicle is still in the best interest of the Government.

(6) Other facts supporting the justification:

(7) Actions the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to increasing fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services:

In order to remove or overcome any barriers that may lead to a restricted environment, the Program Management Office will continue to monitor the usefulness of the above listed ElasticSearch products and the performance of the integration support services. Continuous market research is being conducted to identify other solutions or brand names to meet our requirement as commercial technologies continue to emerge to address SIEM solutions at scale in multi level environments.

(8) Program Manager's certification that supporting data is accurate and complete:

As evidenced by my signature below, I certify that any supporting data contained herein, which is my responsibility, is both accurate and complete.

(9) Contracting Officer's certification that the justification is accurate and complete:

As evidenced by my signature below, I certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

v 18 Jan 2024 Page 8 of 9v 18 Jan 2024 Page 8 of 9

Instructions for Completing the Template IAW FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B)

(2) State whether the action is a new order or a modification to an existing order. Identify the basic multiple award contract number and the order number for the current action. Also identify the type of the order/line items on the order (e.g., Firm Fixed price, Cost Plus Fixed Fee, etc.).

(3) Specifically describe the supplies/services to be acquired including the price/cost and quantity of each item in the order and the total estimated value of the order. For services, state whether services are performance-based, and if not, provide rationale for not being performance based. State the delivery/performance schedule/period for the items under the order. Explain how the requirement/order fits under the scope of the basic multiple award contracts.

(Note: The Contracting Officer must ensure that the order is issued within the period of performance and within the maximum value of the contract).

(4) Include the appropriate exception from FAR 16.505 (b)(2) and the supporting rationale. FAR16.505(b)(1)(i) requires the Contracting Officer to provide each awardee under a multiple award contract, a fair opportunity to be considered for each order exceeding $3,000 unless a statutory exception applies. The specific exception that precludes the fair opportunity process for this acquisition is FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(__) [Insert A,B, C, D, or E]. If a brand name product description is being justified, use this section to explain why the particular brand name, product, or feature is essential to the Government's requirements and why other companies' similar products/services do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency's needs.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(A): “The agency need for the supplies or services is so urgent that providing a fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays”. When using this exception provide a detailed justification with supporting documentation that explains the exact urgency of the requirement and the mission impact if awarded to any other contractor. The user/customer typically provides this supporting information. Recommend attaching supporting documentation to the back of the document. General statements of urgency are not acceptable.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B): “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized”. When using this exception provide a detailed justification, with supporting documentation, as evidence of the “unique or highly specialized” nature of the procurement. The user/customer typically provides this supporting information.

Supporting documentation may be attached to the back of the document. General statements are not acceptable.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C): “The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency as a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order”. When using this exception provide information on the previously competed order under this contract and detail the economies and efficiencies that will be obtained by going sole source for the follow-on order. The user/customer typically provides this supporting information.

General statements are not acceptable.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(D): “It is necessary to place an order to satisfy a minimum guarantee.”

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(E): “For orders exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold, a statute expressly authorizes or requires that the purchase be made from a specified source.”

Discuss the market research that was conducted by the user/technical team/contracting officer among the supplies/services of all awardees that resulted in the conclusion that a fair opportunity exception applied. The narrative in this section should provide a high level of confidence that the requirements of FAR 16.505(b)(1) and DFARS 216.505-70 could not be met. If no market research was conducted, state so and provide the rationale. If any other awardee expressed interest in fulfilling the requirement, but was not considered a potential source, explain why that awardee cannot provide the required supplies/perform the service.

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If the use of a brand name purchase description is being justified, the market research should include an analysis of any industry proposed alternative products or approaches to meeting the requirements. Additionally, the Government's efforts to identify as many potential sources as practicable offering the required brand name item(s) should be addressed.

(5) This paragraph needs to be tailored based on the types of CLINs in the order and the pricing arrangements on the basic multiple award contract. If the contract did not establish the price for the supply or service, the Contracting Officer must establish prices for each order IAW FAR 15.4. The paragraph needs to describe the steps that will ensure that the prices/estimated cost of the order will be fair and reasonable. For example, even if firm-fixed prices were obtained under adequate price competition in the award of the multiple award contract, the Contracting Officer still needs to consider market conditions and other factors that may have changed since contract award and explain the basis in the determination that prices/costs are fair and reasonable prior to award of the order.

(6) Provide any other facts supporting the use of exceptions to the fair opportunity process.

(7) Include a statement of the actions, if any, to be to be taken to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the exception to fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made. If no actions are planned, so state and provide reasons.