Informal Sole Source Justification.docx

Informal Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition

Requisition: 3365-20-2245

In accordance with FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)(i), Social Security Administration (SSA) intends to fulfill this requisition with a sole source item. SSA is refreshing some of its IBM iSeries servers. As such, Assure Mimix Pro Edition software requires SSA to purchase additional licenses in order to stay in license compliance once the new iSeries servers are delivered and placed into production. This procurement is a one-time purchase of new licenses.

Assure MIMIX Pro Edition is software that replicates data from the National Support Center (NSC) iSeries to the Second Support Center (SSC) iSeries system. This software was acquired in support of the IT Operations Assurance (ITOA) business objective, which provided guidelines to have a replicated iSeries environment in the event of a disaster recovery scenario with a recovery time objective (RTO) of 24 hours or less and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 1 hour or less. The software is run on both the NSC iSeries system and the SSC iSeries system. MIMIX is managed by the Mainframe Web and Content Engineering Branch (MWCEB) in the Division of Mainframe Systems Software (DMSS). In the event of a disaster of the NSC iSeries LPARS, production workload could fail over to the SSC iSeries LPARS and users could continue processing their workloads without large data loss or without long downtime while the failover occurs.

Syncsort/Vision Solutions changed the name of its software to Assure MIMIX Pro Edition software between 2019 and 2020.

This software is proprietary. Only Syncsort has access to the source code necessary to provide the required licenses and subscription, which are comprised of updates, upgrades, fixes and telephone support.

The basis for this justification is within the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13.106-1(b)(1)—“ … Soliciting from a single source. For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold. Contracting officers may solicit from one source if the contracting officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available (e.g., urgency, exclusive licensing agreements, brand-name or industrial mobilization).”