Aspera JA.doc

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

TO PROCURE USING OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as the Procuring Competition Advocate, hereby approve the use of other than full and open competition of the proposed contractual action pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), FAR 6.302-1(c) as a Name Brand requirement.

JUSTIFICATION

1. Agency and Contracting Activity: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(1)).

Requiring Agency:

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), PEO-MA/IA32, Columbia Pike Room 632G, P.O. BOX 4502 ARLINGTON, VA 22204-4502 Contracting Agency:

Defense Information Systems Agency/Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, PLD/PL8313, Bldg 3600, Room A-82, Scott AFB, IL 62225-5406

2. Nature/Description of Action(s): (FAR 6.303-2(a)(2)).

The nature of this is action is to procure Aspera software products and related incidental services to support DISA’s Cross Domain Enterprise Service (CDES). The purchase of this proprietary software is required to improve the CDES by providing a scalable, software product to satisfy IA32’s Highly Available and Reliable File Transfer (HART) initiative. The software is available from Aspera, Inc., and their resellers. The resellers are i3 ICS, Computer Security Solutions, Inc. (CompSec) and Connected WorkPlace Solutions, Inc. (CWPS).

3. Description of Supplies/Services: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(3)).

a. At the start of this effort DISA IA32 organized discussions aimed at identifying capability gaps with our existing CDES, as well as those that were likely to arise in the future given our upcoming deployment and expansion plans. With these gaps in mind, IA32 developed a list of minimum requirements with the goal of improving the throughput, robustness, and manageability of the CDES. These requirements are discussed in detail in the market research section below.

b. Aspera software was the only product that managed to fulfill these requirements, providing numerous enhancements to both the client and server side of our existing CDES. Among these are a reduction in the effects of transfer latency, enhanced throughput via theoretically optimal utilization of existing bandwidth, prioritization of data transfers, data capping and throttling, a homogeneous enterprise-wide implementation of server and client software, ensured data delivery, centralized monitoring and management of incoming and outgoing data transfers in real time, and the ability to seamlessly integrate these features into our existing architecture without customer downtime.

c. Premium support is provided for each product through Aspera. This includes telephone, e-mail, and web support M-F 8AM to 12AM Pacific, priority access to senior technicians, as well as emergency after-hours support and escalation procedures 24/7 with a guaranteed 4-hour response time for critical issues, and free copies of all major software upgrades.

The table below summarizes the items for the software procurement.

5 Additional Users (for Aspera Console

Application)

Additional Single Node (for Aspera Console

Application)

Premium Support for all products

d. The total life-cycle cost estimate is $1,4M.

4. Identification of Statutory Authority: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(4);

Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, 10 U.S.C.2304(c)(1). (FAR 6.302-1/DFAR 206.302-1) this acquisition requires the brand name Aspera.

5. Demonstration of Contractor’s Unique Qualifications: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(5)).

a. Aspera was the only product which satisfied our minimum baseline requirements for Highly Available and Reliable File Transfer as discussed below in the market research section.

b. Presently, with over 40 operational Combatant Commands, Services and Agencies (CC/S/A) programs utilizing the CDES 24/7 it is crucial that the product integrate directly with the existing CDES architecture, allowing customer accounts to remain unchanged and deployment to be performed in parallel while sustaining production operation. Many vendor products were unable to satisfy this requirement, but Aspera integrates directly, allowing us to reuse our existing public key-based secure shell (SSH) authentication and lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) accounts database without modification.

c. With our customers running on a wide variety of platforms, it is important that capabilities offered by a product support Windows, UNIX, and Linux at a minimum. It was also important that the software offer enhanced effective bandwidth utilization through means other than compression, and with minimal overhead. Furthermore, any software needs to be resilient against both high levels of latency and packet loss to provide value in many different operational scenarios. Some vendors were entirely unable to support file transfers with enhanced effective throughput, and of those that could, some were unable to do so across all necessary operating systems. The fasp protocol that forms the backbone of Aspera’s product offers reliable, robust, congestion-aware file transfers, and more effective bandwidth utilization than any other vendor’s product. A complete implementation of all functionality is critical to support the warfighter in geographic areas with extremely limited bandwidth that must be shared by a large user base. Software products failing to provide capability in any of these areas risk denying service to high-priority mission-critical data, or in the worst case choking the network entirely and leaving our forces completely blind.

d. Aspera is the only software product which could meet our requirement for enhanced bandwidth utilization, full real-time bandwidth flow control, throttling, and prioritization across all platforms. IA32 must have the ability to prioritize customer data flows, ensuring mission critical data takes precedence, and throttling capability is necessary to enforce IA32’s business model based on the amount of bandwidth a customer uses. Because of the unique implementation of Aspera’s fasp protocol, Aspera is able to offer all the aforementioned advantages while also meeting our needs of ensuring that both sides of a transfer are always cognizant of the transfer progress and any failures, and providing the ability to resume broken transfers. This is important to provide validation on both ends of a connection that data actually transfers successfully, as well as to better facilitate troubleshooting of any operational issues.

6. FedBizOpps Announcement/Potential Sources: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(6)).

A synopsis of this action will be published on the FedBizOpps website as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The synopsis will completely identify the Government’s minimum mandatory requirements.

7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(7)).

The government will determine the price fair and reasonable based on adequate price competition and comparison to the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE). Award will be made to the offeror who presents the overall best value to the Government using lowest price technically acceptable evaluation process.

8. Description of Market Research: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(8)).

a. DISA IA32’s HART initiative began with organized discussions aimed at identifying capability gaps with our existing CDES, as well as those that were likely to arise in the future given our upcoming deployment and expansion plans. With these gaps in mind, IA32 developed a list of minimum requirements with the goal of improving the throughput, robustness, and manageability of the CDES.

b. Market research was conducted in order to identify products which would satisfy these minimum requirements. Of the products we viewed, only Aspera software was able to satisfy all requirements.

Our requirements were as follows:

· Ability to directly integrate with existing CDES infrastructure with no additional development effort to include:

· Compatibility with Windows, Linux, and UNIX operating systems

· Differentiation of user accounts through use of secure, Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliant public key authenticated SSH operating system account authorization using an LDAP database

· Server software must have ability to operate in a high availability / clustering configuration (i.e. minimally as a failover pair)

· Must be entirely software based

· Availability of both client and server software to facilitate a homogenous enterprise-wide implementation and eliminate complexities and overhead associated with managing multiple disparate software platforms

· Provide reliable/guaranteed delivery of files to include:

· Client and server awareness of file transfer issues

· Auto-retry error recovery/resume for partially transferred files without needing to retransmit the entire file

· Provide some means of enhanced effective bandwidth utilization and throughput beyond compression and optimized Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) settings such as window sizes and maximum transmission units (MTU)’s

· Capability must have some sort of safeguard to ensure it will not completely choke a network link

· Ability to effectively transfer a file under very poor network conditions including high levels of packet loss and latency as with inter-continental transfers or those using satellite links

· Ability discretely throttle and cap bandwidth/transfer speeds of individual connections in real-time

· Ability to prioritize transfers / connections

· Web-based server user interface (UI) for live, centralized monitoring and management

· Robust logging of file transfer statistics / performance metrics to MySQL database or in such a way that could be easily ported to a MySQL database

c. These minimum requirements were used to determine which products across the Managed File Transfer (MFT) space had capabilities which could potentially meet these requirements.

Aspera was the only product which met every requirement we baselined against, providing enhanced file transfers, and integrating directly with the existing CDES architecture. Additionally, their software was uniquely able to meet our requirement for real-time bandwidth flow control, throttling, and prioritization of discrete transfers. This is a crucial capability since IA32 must have the ability to prioritize customer data flows for those programs requiring MAC I or II support and because IA32 currently lacks a method of enforcement for their business model based on the amount of bandwidth a customer uses.

9. Any Other Supporting Facts: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(9)).

No other software product but Aspera was able to meet our requirements, to include support for all mandatory operating systems, protocols, and functional capabilities, as well as the ability to directly integrate into the CDES without affecting operational customers.

10. Listing of Interested Sources: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(10)).

Resellers of Apsera software, i3 ICS, CompSec, CWPS and Aspera will be solicited.

11. Actions Taken to Remove Barriers to Competition: (FAR 6.303-2(a)(11)).

This action is a one-time requirement. Future needs will be re-assessed when the current equipment becomes obsolete and needs to be replaced, to include consideration for use of other vendors’ products.

12. Statement of Period of Performance and/or Delivery Schedule: (DARS 6.303-2(a)(S-90)).

The period of performance is 25 September 2009 through 24 September 2014 (one-year base period with four one-year options). The software will be purchased in the base year, and the option years will consist of the 12-month maintenance support.

13. Reference to the Approved Acquisition Plan (AP)/Program Plan (PP): (DARS 6.303-2(a)(S-91)).

Not applicable