Brand_Name_Justification_PWC049_Redacted_RFQ_PWC049.pdf

PR #21-17-G37PWC049

Riverbed SteelCentral Hardware and Software Maintenance Support Brand Name Justification

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of Title III of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (41 U.S.C. 251) and is justified by the following facts and rationale required under FAR 16.505(a)(4)(i).

(1) Agency and Contracting Activity.

The United States Coast Guard (USCG), Operations Systems Center (OSC) competed the Riverbed SteelCentral Hardware and Software maintenance support requirement utilizing the DHS First Source II contract. FirstSource II is a multiple-award Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle. FirstSource II is mandatory for use by all components within DHS in accordance with DHS Directive 060-01, Development and Use of Strategic Sourcing Contracting Vehicles.

(2) Background, Nature and/or Description of the Action Being Approved.

The OSC is requesting the use of other than full and open competition for the purchase of the Riverbed SteelCentral Hardware and Software Maintenance support. Riverbed SteelCentral hardware and software are used at the OSC to perform network and application performance monitoring, and this purchase will allow for these required activities to continue. Without these products OSC would be more vulnerable to cyber attacks, would have a highly degraded capability to troubleshoot network and application issues, and would have a much less reliable network and would be unable to maintain as high of a level of uptime.

(3) Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency's needs.

The estimated cost of this Riverbed SteelCentral Hardware and Software Maintenance support purchase is $280,476.00. This includes 2-Netshark packet capture appliances, 6-ARX packet capture appliances, 1-NetProfiler/Flow Gateway network performance and analytics appliance, and associated software programs.

(4) Identification of the justification and the rationale.

In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(i), the Contracting Officer must justify restricting consideration to an item peculiar to one manufacturer. The particular brand name, product, or feature is essential to the Government’s requirements, and market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the particular feature, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency’s needs.

OSC currently performs network and application performance monitoring functions on the OSC Local Area Network (LAN) and at the Finance Center (FINCEN DR) utilizing Riverbed SteelCentral hardware and software. These functions are necessary for successful performance and operation of the OSC data center and FINCEN DR Networks. Continuous monitoring of the network enables the network engineers to detect and fix network performance issues quickly.

Without this monitoring, some network problems will not be detected in time to avert outages, which would lead to extensive and unnecessary network downtime, which in turn will cause mission essential systems to become unavailable. Increasing emphasis on security issues in the last two years have resulted in Cyber Command mandates for increased monitoring and management of all assets on the network. Since OSC already has a sizable investment in Riverbed products, it would be cost prohibitive to consider changing to another monitoring solution to replace it prior to the end of life of these appliances. Riverbed hardware and software are proprietary, and will not work with monitoring hardware and software created by other manufacturers. Other products are not compatible with Riverbed products and cannot be modified to become compatible. When these network appliances do reach the end of their useful life, it would be appropriate to have a full and open competition to all vendors of network and application performance monitoring solutions.

(5) Determination by the ordering activity Contracting Officer that the anticipated order represents the best value consistent with FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B)(5).

The Contracting Officer has determined that issuing the proposed order through the Mandatory for Use, DHS FirstSource II contract vehicle represents the best value and will result in the lowest overall cost alternative, considering price and administrative costs, to meet the Government’s needs. The Contracting Officer will seek additional price reductions before placing the order. The Contracting Officer will also perform a price analysis to determine that the price at the time of award still represents the overall best value for the Government and is consistent with the DHS FirstSource II contract vehicle terms.

(6) A description of the market research conducted and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Previous acquisition for this hardware maintenance was solicited to the HUBZone Small Business Socio-Economic category of the Mandatory for use, DHS FirstSource II contract vehicle where it received two (2) competitive quotes and was successfully awarded. The RFQ will state the Government’s intent to award a task order for SteelCentral Hardware and Software Maintenance support on a brand name basis. OSC will accept competitive quotes from all DHS First Source II contract vendors solicited in the HUBZone Small Business Socio-Economic category.

(7) Any other facts supporting the justification.

The current infrastructure contract requires a count every month of network devices and ports in use for billing purposes. The Riverbed SteelCentral system is the current tool used to collect this data for network devices on the OSC LAN and at FINCEN DR. Without this capability, collecting these metrics becomes extremely problematic. Utilizing Riverbed tools, device and port usage metric collection can be scripted, allowing for relatively automatic collection of this data. The alternative is to manually log into each and every network device, of which there are hundreds, and make note of device and port usage. Performing these tasks manually is not a

Brand Name Justification viable alternative due to the level of effort required and would pull network engineers from crucial security and operations tasks, at the expense of the safety and reliability of the network.

(8) A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made.

OSC will continue to need the Riverbed SteelCentral Hardware and Software Maintenance support for network monitoring to ensure 100% integration and compatibility at OSC. There are no other actions the agency can take at this time to prevent barriers to the use of Riverbed SteelCentral for this existing need. However, when these network appliances do reach the end of their useful life, it would be appropriate to have a full and open competition to all vendors of network monitoring solutions.

(9) Contracting Officer’s Certification.

I certify that the data supporting the recommended use of other than full and open competition is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Craig E. Anderson Date Contracting Officer

(10) Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification.

I certify that this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which form a basis for the justification, are accurate and complete.

Brian G. Helm Date

(11) Additional Reviews and Concurrence.

I have reviewed this justification and deemed it legally sufficient.

Legal Review and Concurrence Date

11/29/2016