J_A SAM Contract Opp.pdf

Control Number VA-21-00039670

JA Template - FAR Part 16.5 _OCT_30_2020

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), for the procurement of brand name Aternity software maintenance and technical support for 20,000 existing VA-owned perpetual Aternity End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM) Platform software licenses.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information and Technology (OI&T), Information Technology Operations and Services (ITOPS), Infrastructure Operations requires software maintenance for the Aternity EUEM Platform software and products currently in use at VA. Aternity EUEM Agent installs on each user’s workstation and provides an overview of users’ satisfaction with overall workstation and enterprise application performance. For each workstation, it detects and reports hardware and Operating System software performance and errors. The hardware and software data are combined to provide a direct view of each user Information Technology experience. It further coalesces this data at the master console to provide statistical overarching picture of application performance, usage, lost productivity, and user experience across the enterprise. Once an application is profiled on one desktop it monitors performance of that application on all desktops. Due to its unique method to profile an application, it monitors almost any modern or legacy application with a user interface. The Aternity EUEM Platform software provides precise insights into how applications are used, enabling organizations to understand the usage trends and trails of their users, the number of business processes executed, and the details of any usability issues. The software updates and technical assistance will ensure the software licenses remain up-to-date and operational by providing product updates and bug fixes. The Contractor shall provide one (1) telephone number and/or a point of contact for VA to contact and opening maintenance service calls. The Contractor shall provide secure connection capabilities for the downloading of software updates and/or the uploading of diagnostic information. The preferred protocol for transfer is Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

This requirement is for Original Equipment Manufacturer software maintenance support.

This effort is for software maintenance and technical support only. No software will be procured or renewed under this proposed action. The period of performance for the software maintenance and support is September 1, 2021 through April 26, 2022 with four 12-month option periods.

Aternity Software Maintenance VA-21-00039670

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 Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the 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 extensive market research, as described in paragraph 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for Aternity EUEM Platform software maintenance and technical support. VA currently owns and utilizes Aternity EUEM Platform software which allows VA to monitor any web-based activity generated by a desktop user, a VA requirement for generic web applications. Aternity EUEM Platform software requires maintenance to include updates and patches that are compatible with the existing infrastructure protocols and functionality to ensure continued operational availability. Only Aternity, or an authorized reseller, has the proprietary rights and access to the proprietary source code that is necessary to provide the required Aternity EUEM Platform software maintenance for the existing licenses. No other firm has the capability of developing and issuing software updates and fixes for Aternity EUEM Platform software due to the proprietary nature of the source code. Any other source would need access to this code to ensure all services provided are properly configured.

Therefore, only Aternity brand software maintenance and technical support can meet the Government’s requirements. The use of any alternative support would require a complete replacement of the existing Aternity EUEM infrastructure in place. Such a replacement would result in the eventual atrophy of the currently viable licenses and capability, need of purchasing new software licenses at an estimated cost of approximately $4.2M. This estimate is based on previous acquisition history and would not be expected to be recovered through competition. Additionally, the replacement software licenses would also need to be maintained and a re-instrumentation of enterprise applications currently using Aternity EUM would need to occur at an additional significant cost in human resources which would produce no operational gain.

During which time VA would need to duplicate all existing code in an alternative product to replace exiting capabilities that have been developed over the last eight years.

Failure to procure the required Aternity software maintenance and technical support would create a lack of visibility into Veteran Facing IT performance and consequently would negatively impact the level of service and care that VA currently extends to Veterans. Specifically, software performance issues of software installed at all levels of VA would not be observed and directly impact Veteran Care provided by Veterans Health Administration (VHA) as well as services performed by Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) & VA Cemetery.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among

Aternity Software Maintenance VA-21-00039670 authorized resellers for brand name Aternity software maintenance. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by VA technical experts in March 2021 which included extensive internet research of maintenance support services available from similar software product manufacturers. The Government’s technical experts utilized numerous publications, to include Forrester Research and Gartner Research, and conducted web-based research on technical monitoring websites and forums related to desktop and user side monitoring to identify potential maintenance providers for the Aternity FPI Platform software. This market research identified only two products and services in the desktop monitoring space, Aternity and KNOA. Of these two products, only Aternity or an authorized reseller, can provide the required support and software updates and patches for the existing FPI software maintenance for its own proprietary constraints discussed above. While KNOA provides software maintenance for its own proprietary product, KNOA is incapable of providing updates, patches, and support on the proprietary Aternity FPI software.

9. Other Facts: None

Aternity Software Maintenance VA-21-00039670