J A_DIAMONDS_Next_Gen_System_FINAL_Redacted.pdf

Defense Threat Reduction Agency 8725 John J. Kingman Road, Stop 6201

Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6201

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Nature and/or Description of Action The Defense Threat Reduction Agency contracting activity proposes to procure without using full and open competition, hardware and software for an initiative to develop a testbed to evaluate technologies, capabilities and products for the eventual modernization of the Defense Integration and Management of Nuclear Data Services (DIAMONDS) with a cloud-like system.

2. Description of the Supplies/Services Required The DIAMONDS program will be procuring name brand items (Cisco, EMC and VMware, see Specifications List) to build a test bed to determine the feasibility of concept and accessibility of classified data at forward operating units.

This includes the initial cost of the hardware/software and the annual fees for licenses and warranties for the hardware. Because the DIAMONDS architecture was developed in 2001, the test bed is important to ensure it remains viable. Findings from research and development activities using this testbed will enable J10NLS to effectively develop specifications for the next generation DIAMONDS system architecture, define performance characteristics to more effectively and efficiently manage the operating environment unique to DIAMONDS, and permit the DIAMONDS program to evaluate alternative technologies and approaches for a solid foundation for future program success. The testbed will also serve as the baseline development environment for the DIAMONDS Next Generation system.

3. Statutory Authority The statutory authority for this non-competitive action is Section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996.

4. Applicability of Authority In determining our cloud computing commercial of the shelf (COTS) needs, we researched hardware platforms in the market place to determine what our needs actually were and how we can capitalize some savings from current software/hardware and experience. From this initial research we developed our requirements:

• Must comply with Industry standard x86 architecture compatibility for cost competitive hardware, and maximum availability of COTS software products, precluding the currently employed Oracle SPARC or other proprietary architecture servers.

• All systems must work together as a whole integrated environment

• Must be compatible with milCloud

• Must be 100% remotely supportable

• Must maximize configurability of replacement systems to match existing ones, down to individual network component hardware addresses (MAC address), as well as the ability to fully manage, diagnose problems, and reconfigure new systems identically match previous ones,

• Must provide capabilities that are particularly well suited for cloud-based architectures, and provide significant cost savings in terms of initial purchase cost, setup and configuration, and ongoing operations costs.

5. Effort to Solicit Potential Sources

A notice of intent to restrict competition to specific brands (Virtual Computing Environment (VCE), LLC. is a collaborative partnership between VMware (software), Cisco (hardware), and EMC (storage)) was posted to Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) on 02 November 2015 through 17 November 2015 as required by FAR 5.2. Three contractors provided a capabilities statement stating they were interested in this opportunity with the Government (HMS Technologies, IT Navigation and V3Gate) and were capable to delivery of the desired product.

6. Fair and Reasonable Costs The anticipated cost/price of this contract action to the Government will be determined to be fair and reasonable based on competitive pricing from multiple offers, a comparison to the IGCE, and any available price lists or previous invoices from suppliers.

7. Market Research Extensive market research (to include demonstrations and briefings from International Business Machines (IBM), Hewlett Packard (HP), Dell, Oracle / Sun, and Cisco, as well as “engineered” servers built up from these hardware offerings, from IBM PureApplication, HP ConvergedSystem, Dell, Oracle, Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) company partnership Vblock, NetApp FlexPod, and Nutanix) was accomplished We evaluated current and projected options, analyzed alternatives and industry trends, and developed a strategy to re-architect DIAMONDS to provide a solid foundation for continued operations.

From our research we determined the Vblock engineered servers from VCE (VMware (software), Cisco (hardware) and EMC (storage)) was the best option in meeting the DIAMONDS program requirements for a COTS cloud infrastructure.

Requirement - Must comply with Industry standard x86 architecture compatibility for cost competitive hardware, and maximum availability of COTS software products, precluding the currently employed Oracle SPARC architecture servers. Utilizing industry standard x86 hardware maximizes availability of competitive product vendors for the future. There are limited competitive vendor alternatives for Oracle SPARC and other proprietary hardware architectures, as well as a limited selection of COTS software tools compared to the x86-based product offerings. The VMware vCloud software suite used as the basis for milCloud is only available for the x86 architecture.

Requirement - All systems must work together as a whole integrated environment. We found the only wholly integrated environment meeting our needs was from VCE. The nearest competing product, the FlexPod architecture from NetApp, provides similar capabilities, but as a reference architecture provides lesser integration of components, increased system administrator requirements for initial setup and ongoing operations, and does not provide a single vendor for support necessary for this testbed. Other products were not actually wholly integrated but systems that worked together but without support, and/or requiring additional software/hardware and providing less integration between products.

Requirement - Must be compatible with milCloud. As the DoD standard for hosted cloud services, milCloud, is based on COTS cloud technology software products from VMware, the DIAMONDS testbed cloud needs to maximize operational compatibility with milCloud. Other options will present compatibility issues and result in redundant and wasted effort to rehost to milCloud in the future

Requirement – Systems must be 100% remotely supportable. Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) architecture provided the only viable option and offered the greatest potential benefit in terms of cost performance and ability to seamlessly manage all servers remotely from a single location, rather than the requiring an on-site presence for many general system support tasks. For the DIAMONDS Next Generation testbed evaluation, the management tools and vendor support for initial configuration and ongoing system management provided by VCE provides the strongest capability for remote system management.

Requirement - Must maximize configurability of replacement systems to match existing ones, down to individual network component hardware addresses (MAC address), as well as the ability to fully manage, diagnose problems, and reconfigure new systems identically match previous ones. Cisco is currently ahead of other vendors in several areas, such as: being able to configure systems based on templates; specify detailed system information normally fixed by system vendors, such as MAC addresses, and providing the ability to remotely manage all aspects of a system, down to the hardware level, over a single network connection. None of the other architectures used in integrated systems could meet this requirement.

Requirement - Must provide capabilities that are particularly well suited for cloud-based architectures, and provide significant cost savings in terms of initial purchase cost, setup and configuration, and ongoing operations costs. Based on the previous Requirements and VCE providing fully preconfigured systems with single vendor support, this capability will significantly reduce the DIAMONDS program resource requirements for new system setup and ongoing system support and operations during the testbed evaluation phase. Cisco UCS capabilities, such as being able to specify detailed system information normally fixed by system vendors, such as MAC addresses, which will potentially simplify maintaining system integrity for system certification and accreditation; and providing the ability to remotely manage all aspects of a system, down to the hardware level, over a single network connection, drastically enhancing the timeliness and reducing the cost for maintaining fielded systems.

For the DIAMONDS operational environment testbed, Cisco specifications and stated capabilities offered benefits and provided services no other offeror provides. During the evaluation of the DIAMONDS COTS cloud infrastructure testbed, we will evaluate these specific features to quantify program benefit for the full DIAMONDS equipment replacement following the testbed R&D phase. At that time when we define the full scale target replacement DIAMONDS production environment, we anticipate many vendors offering similar or comparable capabilities as their next generation hardware becomes available.

As stated in part 5 of this justification, a Notice of Intent to restrict competition to specific brands was posted on FBO.gov from 02 November 2015 through 17 November 2015 and received 3 responses of vendors who are authorized resellers of the 3 specific brands.

8. Other Facts Specifications have been developed for this procurement, however, after thoroughly researching our options, we have determined to limit our procurement to specific brand name items that were fully explained, understood what their function/capabilities were, and compatible with other components within the test bed. This procurement is only for a limited scale R&D testbed for technology and product analysis and evaluation. Findings from this analysis will be used to develop specifications for the DIAMONDS Next Generation production environment. At this time, there is not enough information relative to how these hardware and software products will function in the unique DIAMONDS operating environment to specify production equipment requirements.

9. Interested Sources Blue Karma Security HMS Technologies, INC IT Navigation, LLC Lofa Technologies, LLC New Tech Solutions, Inc V3Gate

10. Subsequent Actions As with any procurement of this nature, the DIAMONDS program spends an extraordinary effort doing market research with vendors of all brands to design a system that will work for the DIAMONDS program. The program is not beholden to any specific vendor/manufacture but we do take due diligence determining our needs, conveying that to industry prior to procuring any products for the DIAMONDS systems. Vendors are aware this procurement is for a limited scale testbed environment and does not represent any final determination for the DIAMONDS Next Generation hardware and software.