IR 141 JnA Test Automation Tools ALM -Final Signed 8.5.21_Redacted.pdf

Control Number: VA-21-00074071

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way.

Eatontown, NJ 0 7 7 2 4

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price (FFP) Delivery

Order (DO) to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand-name Micro Focus Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Global software licenses, associated business support, updates, and technical support services.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM), Test and Evaluation (TE) requires brand name Micro Focus ALM Global software licenses, software maintenance, and technical support services. The base requirement is to procure a quantity of 50 Micro Focus ALM Global software licenses and associated ALM Global 24X7 business support updates that may include major or minor version updates, service packs, patches, hotfixes or security updates and problem resolution assistance using online self-service support or Micro Focus support based on determined issue severity levels, in accordance with the Micro Focus Business Support Agreement. Additionally, there is a requirement for optional tasks to procure two sets of 25 Micro Focus ALM Global software licenses, and 25 business support updates, , which may include patches, bug fixes, and/or an updated version, to go with the licenses that would be exercised at the Government’s discretion to cover future surges in requirements. The software will be procured and managed by VA to supplement existing Micro Focus ALM Global software licenses and will be used to support test automation services within the Cerner data enclave in support of Electronic Health Record (EHR) development efforts. Micro Focus ALM is a software test management tool that provides a centralized platform for application management and supports test and defect management, software development lifecycle (SDLC) requirements management, test plan and test execution management, defect tracking and reporting in one easy-to-use tool. The tool will enable more relevant and accurate results and improved quality in agile environments, improved team collaboration and will provide a central storage location for communication and documentation. OEHRM Test and Evaluation (TE) and Enterprise Testing Service (ETS) will provide oversight of Cerner’s use of these software products. This procurement will support cross-organizational collaboration and improve the overall testing capability in support of EHR development. This effort will be for a 12-month base period with remote installation within 30 days after effective award date. This effort will also include three 12-month option periods for the renewal of the software maintenance and technical support services and include the aforementioned optional tasks for additional licenses. The total estimated value of the proposed effort including a base period and three 12-month option periods is

, inclusive of all options and optional tasks.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C.

4106(c)(2) as implemented by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “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”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in Section 8 of this document, the Government has determined that limited competition is available among resellers for the required brand name Micro Focus ALM Global software licenses, software maintenance, and technical support services. ALM is the production system of record for all testing within OEHRM and is utilized for reporting to the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG), Government Accounting Office (GAO), and Congress. In order to ensure the effective exchange of information between offices, it is critical that each stakeholder use the same application, namely, ALM. Additionally, ALM is used by Enterprise Testing Service, OEHRM-TE, and Cerner-in the execution of required test and test support activities in support of VA’s adoption of the EHR. The requested licenses will be provided by VA to Cerner, as they are the prime contractor for the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM), to support their development of automated testing services. Cerner will host the requested software in the Cerner Data Enclave, of which they have sole control. Cerner has stated that due to proprietary constraints, ALM Global is the only software application that will fully integrate with existing ALM licenses used by OEHRM, ETS, and other major stakeholders, and is the only application that will provide the functionality required to provide Test Automation services. As Cerner will provide the services and control the enclave, in order to comply with the technical requirements of their testing services, ALM and Eggplant (supported under a separate procurement) have been identified as the only applications that can meet their requirements to operate within the Cerner Enclave and Cerner named them as the only applications that can provide seamless interoperability with the existing ALM instances that ETS and OEHRM-TE currently use. Further, VA has already invested over in licenses and maintenance costs associated with existing ALM licenses, in two separate existing contracts, which would be wasted should ALM be abandoned for a new application. Pursuing a replacement for ALM is cost prohibitive with an estimated overall cost of and an estimated timeframe of between 6-12 months to complete. These estimates are based on previous acquisition history and account for the current amount already expended, cost of acquiring new licenses, cost to fully decommission existing licenses, setup and configuration of new licenses, data migration efforts to the new system, and VA contractor end-user training and additional labor costs associated with implementing a new system. It would involve and technical support services. Market Research revealed ten resellers who can meet the Government’s needs. Of the ten responses, two responses were from Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs), and one was from a HUBZone Business. It was also determined that there are numerous other NASA SEWP V GWAC holders that are authorized resellers of the required software and maintenance and technical support services.

Additional market research was conducted by the Contract Specialist in June 2021 via a search on the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool which yielded several resellers of Micro Focus brand name products. It was determined that there are numerous NASA SEWP V GWAC holders that are authorized resellers of the required software and maintenance and technical support services. Additional market research was conducted in June 2021 utilizing the NASA SEWP V Provider Lookup Tool to seek resellers of the brand name Micro Focus. This search identified a total of 158 resellers of Micro Focus brand name products, of which 24 of which are Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business contract holders in Group B-S. Of the 24 SDVOSBs Twenty (20) vendors are verified in the Vendor Information Pages (VIP). Given this market research, there is an expectation that limited competition exists among verified SDVOSBs. Furthermore, NASA SEWP V GWAC has a dynamic catalog where line items can be added based on customer requests; therefore, as long as the required item or service is within scope of the NASA SEWP V contracts, items and services can be added to the catalog.

9. Other Facts: None.

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand-name Micro Focus ALM Global software licenses, associated business support, updates, and technical support services on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.