J_A_Storage_Compute_ Augmentation_Redacted.pdf

V10 EHRM Storage Compute Augmentation Control Number: VA-21-00055033

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics

Technology Acquisition Center 1701 Directors Blvd.

Austin, TX 78744

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-priced delivery order under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Cisco Unified Computing System (USC) servers, and brand name NetApp Disk Array Enclosures (DAE) equipment, NetApp Common Internet File System (CIFS) software licenses, and associated maintenance and technical support services.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 10 as supported by the Office of Information and Technology has a requirement to augment its existing biomedical FlexPod Converged Virtualization Infrastructure (CVI) with additional storage and computing capacity with brand name NetApp DAE equipment (quantity of 6), Cisco UCS server equipment (quantity of 14), and NetApp IntelliSnap and NetApp CIFS licenses.

This effort will expand existing storage system capabilities, allowing Biomedical Engineering subdivisions in seven locations within VISN 10 to store patient care information in redundant High Available (HA) systems capable of fault tolerance that are compliant with existing contingency planning regulations. The VISN 10 locations are Ann Arbor, Michigan VA Medical Center (VAMC); Battle Creek, Michigan VAMC;

Cleveland, Ohio VAMC; Detroit, Michigan VAMC; Dayton, Ohio VAMC; Indianapolis, Indiana VAMC; and the Orlando, Florida Non-VistA Data Center (NVDC). The requirement is for delivery, installation, configuration, initial setup, operational testing, and verification to be completed within 120 days after contract award. The required NetApp Premium Enterprise hardware and software maintenance support shall include remote assistance, patches, bug fixes, and minor and major software upgrades. In order to ensure that the Cisco USC servers remain operational, the Cisco USC servers come with a 12-month warranty, after which the warranty support will be covered under the national Smartnet contract. Additionally, there will be 12-months of NetApp liaison support, for all seven locations to provide NetApp FlexPod converged solution storage;

virtualization, switching, and fabric interconnect troubleshooting. Four 12-month option periods are included for continued NetApp Liaison support as the CVI is anticipated to be in use for a minimum of five years. All hardware and software will be procured in the base period only. Option periods are structured for support only. The total estimated value for this proposed effort, inclusive of option periods is

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 Subpart 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 paragraph 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition is available for this procurement. This procurement allows VA to modify existing systems to virtualize storage and computing space required for use by existing and future planned biomedical applications in direct support of patient care throughout VISN 10, in order to be compliant with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-53, Contingency Planning and Media Protection requirements. The required Cisco UCS servers and NetApp DAE hardware and software must be fully compatible with existing Cisco and NetApp infrastructure currently utilized throughout VISN 10 facilities, so there is full interoperability and compatibility between existing CVIs. A CVI is an integrated virtualization, computing, and storage proprietary solution composed of VMWare, NetApp and Cisco products. Specifically, the current CVI environments at each VAMC and the NVDC specific in section 3 consists of Cisco UCS servers; NetApp data storage systems; disk shelves; storage arrays; and interconnection hardware, software, and firmware. The FlexPod platform within CVIs is configured and certified using the Cisco Validated Design methodology and the components are designed to work together and seamlessly integrate with each other and the existing infrastructure. The configuration of this additional storage must be done by a single vendor so that the additional Cisco and NetApp components remain compatible and interoperable providing a turn key solution and remain in compliance with this Cisco Validated Design methodology. Failure to utilize one source to provide the Cisco and NetApp items and services will result in configuration and installation issues since these efforts must be done at the same time to ensure full interoperability and compatibility with the new items and the currently fielded Cisco and NetApp infrastructure.

Only brand name NetApp products can meet the Government’s technical requirements. They are required to augment the existing install base of CVI systems at each VISN 10 VAMC and the NVDC for the respective Biomedical Engineering subdivision to reduce capital expenditure, operational, and maintenance costs, while establishing, managing, and maintaining separate and diverse storage environments. These augmentations will ensure significant reduction of risk of patient care data being corrupted or lost. For example, the Disaster Recovery design architecture within CVI utilizes NetApp hardware and IntelliSnap for NetApp software at VISN 10 Tier I and Tier III facilities. The IntelliSnap for NetApp is an array-based snapshot management solution, providing the ability to create a single backup and recovery solution. The proprietary source code of the NetApp arrays allow the NetApp software to perform high-speed copies at the array level of the data, which can be replicated to a similar array running the same source code. The IntelliSnap for NetApp proprietary console allows the IntelliSnap copies to be moved across multiple arrays. The Disaster Recovery design, as well as all others within the CVI environment, must utilize NetApp hardware and software as part of the end-to-end solution in order to satisfy NIST Special Publication 800-53 Contingency Planning and Media Protection requirements. Currently, none of the VISN 10 locations specified in paragraph 3 above meet this requirement for their Biomedical Engineering subdivisions, greatly increasing the risk of network outages, data transfer issues, and project implementation impediments. The use of another brand name product other than NetApp will not be interoperable or compatible with the existing infrastructure currently in place and would introduce an unacceptable level of risk to the VA network infrastructure and associated support processes which rely on seamless CVI hardware and software infrastructure.

Only brand name Cisco products can meet the Government’s technical requirements. Within the Cisco Validated Design FlexPod CVI platform, the Cisco UCS servers communicate with the NetApp DAE storage hardware using Cisco Fabric Interconnects (FI). The use of another brand name server other than Cisco will not be interoperable or compatible with the existing infrastructure currently in place. The Cisco FI is a core part of the Cisco UCS, providing uniform access to both networks and storage as an aggregation point. No other connection methods are supported or can be implemented with full integration for the existing FlexPod CVI environment because it is a proprietary Cisco protocol. Purchase of any other brand of servers, hardware, and software would invalidate the Cisco Validated Design certification, and could potentially cause latency and stability issues to the existing systems supported by the CVI. The Cisco USC servers come with a 12-month warranty, after which the warranty support will be covered under the national Smartnet contract. Additionally, since CVI is a multi-product environment, only a single authorized vendor must install, configure, and verify the additional hardware and software in accordance with the Cisco Validated Design. Failure to install the required Cisco UCS servers and NetApp DAE hardware and software as an integrated augmentation will create a major impact on the organization due to critical performance damage from delays, possible nullification of existing warranties and maintenance agreements, and likely corruption of data.

Additionally, the required technical support services are NetApp Premium Enterprise hardware and software maintenance support, and NetApp liaison support, which include 24 x 7 x 365 remote help support, 4-hour response time, installation of minor/major software upgrades, hardware and software support, and troubleshooting. These support services are required to ensure that the required servers and DAE storage hardware run efficiently. Failure to acquire the aforementioned support will prevent the VA team from obtaining fixes and patches to identify security vulnerabilities and defect resolutions. Due to the proprietary nature of the hardware and software, only NetApp or its authorized resellers can provide the required support for the NetApp components of the CVI environment, and the licenses keys necessary for the products to operate. NetApp or its authorized resellers are the only sources available that can provide software updates, troubleshooting, patches, and version releases as well as authorize hardware replacement and remediation services. Other manufacturers do not have the proprietary source code and hardware replacement parts necessary to provide the required maintenance and support. Support services performed by parties not authorized by NetApp invalidate product warranties and remove liability for performance from the manufacturer. VA relies heavily on the data stored within the existing biomedical Flexpod CVI storage solutions for various patient care projects.

Procurement of the required maintenance and support will ensure that the augmented CVI storage systems remain operational, without interruption.

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 could meet the Government’s technical requirements. It has been determined however that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for the brand name requirements specified herein who are current NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. 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 beta.SAM.gov Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: 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. Specifically, the government will continue to research similar servers, disk array, software and maintenance services to determine if new products and services enter the marketplace that are compatible with the CVI environments described above.

8. Market Research: VA’s technical experts conducted market research to ascertain the ability of any other products other than NetApp and Cisco that can meet the Government’s requirements. VA technical experts conducted market research in March 2021 by researching other similar hardware, software, and services from EMC Corporation, International Business Machines, and Hewlett Packard. After an extensive review by VA’s technical experts, these other products and services were unable to meet the compatibility and interoperability requirements to augment the existing FlexPod CVI environments within VISN 10 facilities as outlined in section 5 of this justification. In addition, no other source was found to meet VA’s needs due to the proprietary source code specific to the maintenance and liaison support for the required NetApp and Cisco products. Therefore, unauthorized software and hardware providers do not have access to the proprietary data, source codes, and protocols of the software in order to provide the required NetApp and Cisco hardware and software for CVI modernization, as well as maintenance and liaison support in order to provide NetApp software maintenance, updates, and virtual technical support services.

On March 1, 2021 a Request for Information (RFI) was posted on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurements (SEWP) V GWAC website full and open under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541519 to determine if any GWAC holders could provide the required brand name NetApp and Cisco hardware, software licenses, and associated maintenance and technical support services. The RFI closed on March 9, 2021 and yielded three responses, all of which demonstrated the capability to meet VA’s requirements. Two of the responses were received from small businesses, which included one response from a Vendor Information Pages (VIP) verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB).

In addition, the contract specialist (CS) conducted market research in May 2021 by using the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool to determine what vendors are capable of providing the full requirement. Based on this market research, the CS identified multiple resellers within NASA SEWP able to provide the required brand name products.

9. Other Facts: None.