JA E-Discovery_Storage Final - Redacted.pdf

Dell EMC Unity E-Discovery Storage Upgrade VA-21-00053174

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: This 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 Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Dell EMC Unity storage arrays.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is for the acquisition of Dell EMC Unity storage arrays for the VA, Office of Information and Technology, Information Technology Operations and Services, Solution Delivery, Enterprise Messaging, Collaboration, Authentication and Office 365 (O365) Services to expand the storage capacity of the existing Dell EMC unity storage solution, which is currently running Virtual Machines (VM) on a Microsoft Hyper-V platform. The Microsoft Hyper-V platform provides functionality for all VA users to connect to O365 for cloud services. In addition, the additional storage capacity is required due to the ever growing e-Discovery requests VA receives on a daily basis. e-Discovery requests are submitted to VA in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations or Freedom of Information Act requests where the information sought is in electronic format. These requests typically involve a large amount of data, so as the requests increase, VA’s storage capacity needs also increase. The acquisition includes delivery, installation, configuration, and implementation of the equipment at the following contractor-owned datacenter facilities:

VA TIC Gateway North Chicago Cyxtera ORD1 Datacenter

VA TIC Gateway East Sterling Cyxtera IAD2-B Datacenter

VA TIC Gateway South Dallas Evoque Datacenter

VA TIC Gateway West San Jose Evoque Datacenter

The period of performance is 90 days, inclusive of delivery and installation of the equipment. The total estimated price of the proposed action is $293,687.28.

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 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 extensive market research, as described in section 8 of this document, it was determined that competition is available among resellers for the brand name Dell EMC Unity storage arrays. VA is currently utilizing a Dell EMC Unity storage solution and this solution is only compatible with Dell EMC Unity storage arrays. No other brand name storage upgrade components are interoperable or compatible with VA’s existing Dell EMC storage environment. Another vendor’s storage arrays would be unable to physically connect to the existing Dell EMC infrastructure, and even if a physical connection was possible, the proprietary software in the existing Dell EMC Unity storage solution would not allow the existing solution to communicate with another vendor’s storage arrays. Dell would also be unable to monitor or control the storage arrays from another vendor. Only Dell EMC Unity storage components can interconnect with VA’s current Dell EMC storage environment that is currently running VMs on a Microsoft Hyper-V platform. VA cannot add more storage disks, disk shelfs, or storage controllers from another vendor into the current Dell EMC storage infrastructure. Purchasing brand name Dell EMC storage components will allow VA to reinforce its existing Hyper-V Storage Platform. If the Dell EMC Unity storage arrays aren’t purchased, the Hyper-V Storage platform will be unable to provide sufficient storage for VMs that are critical for VA’s Active Directory Federation

Service as well as other applications that need to communicate with O365 and other cloud vendors. Additionally, the additional Dell EMC Unity storage arrays will allow VA to accommodate the increase in e-Discovery requests. Without the additional storage arrays, VA will be unable to process the requests under the required timeline.

Furthermore, procurement of another vendor’s storage arrays would require VA to replace the currently fielded Dell EMC Unity storage solution with a solution that’s compatible with the new storage arrays. Replacement of the current Dell EMC Unity storage solution would result in duplicated costs of approximately $3 million and delays of up to a year based upon previous procurements.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 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 resellers for brand name Dell EMC storage components as well as the installation, delivery, configuration, and implementation of the equipment. 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 at sam.gov 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 marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research in March 2021 which consisted of a review of similar products through internet searches which identified Hewlett Packard and International Business Machine storage components. As discussed in section 5 above, the Government’s technical experts determined that no other storage vendor’s components can be utilized to interconnect to VA’s current Dell EMC storage environment.

In addition, a Request for Information (RFI) was issued on April 7, 2021 via the NASA SEWP V website to ascertain if there were sources that could meet the Government’s requirements for brand name Dell EMC Unity storage arrays. The

RFI closed on April 12, 2021 and there were seven valid responses received, to include three responses from Vendor Information Pages Verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, all of which the technical evaluator found to propose quotes that technically conform to the Product Description. Based on the information provided, the Government Program Manager determined that there are multiple authorized resellers under the NASA SEWP V GWAC capable of meeting the Government’s requirements.

9. Other Facts: None.