JA ESIP Extension P00045 - REDACTED.pdf

Enterprise Services Integrated Platform and System Administration Services Extension

Control Number: VA-25-00023582

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 sole source action is for a modification to the Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) Task Order (TO) 36C10B20N10020015 issued under Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG) Contract VA118-16-D-1002 with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), 12010 Sunset Hills Road, Reston, VA 20190. The purpose of this modification is to extend the period of performance (PoP) of Option Period Four and Optional Tasks Two through Seven for two months and incorporate two additional one-month option periods. This extension will serve as a bridge of support for Enterprise Services Integrated Platform (ESIP) Development, Sustainment, Data Management, and System Administration Services support until a new competitive TO is awarded.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: On January 22, 2020, The TO was awarded to Halfaker and Associated on a competitive basis under Service-Disabled Veteran- Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) set-aside procedures on the T4NG contract vehicle with a total value of $188,953,297.46. Subsequently, Halfaker and Associates was acquired by SAIC on October 15, 2021 and on April 22, 2022, the TO was novated to reflect the change. On June 28, 2023, the Modification P00029 subsequently descoped excess unused ceiling due to ceiling realignment of the total number of months transferred to reflect only whole months transferred. As a result, the TO total value decreased from $188,953,297.46 by $89,079.53 to $188,864,217.93. The scope of the ESIP Development, Sustainment, Data Management, and System Administration Services TO is to provide development and sustainment scrum teams for Data and Analytics products: VA Profile, Repositories (Administrative Data Repository)/Health Data Repository (HDR)/ VA/DoD Identity Repository (VADIR)), Veteran Information /Eligibility Records Services VIERS and Data Access Services (DAS). Agile scrum teams provide system administration (monitoring, system backups, patches, performing installations, etc.), Capacity/Availability planning, help desk support, data analysis, issue remediation, technical analysis, architectural guidance, development, feature testing, maintaining partner interfaces and associated support, performance testing, performance tuning, regression testing, quality assurance testing, defect corrections, build assembly, maintaining the continuous integration / continuous deployment pipeline, database administration, reporting and security management. VA Profile enhancements will include improving data quality to reduce undelivered or returned prescription mailings, developing the Customer Interaction History data domain, expanding Application Programming Interface APIs to include Identity data, adding tribal demographic data and supporting various VA system integrations with authoritative

Extension

Veteran data. The VIERS system is considered sustainment steady state maintenance middleware and is executing an optional Operations and Maintenance task on this TO.

The DAS product teams will provide software sustainment services for the 22+ dataflows in production including 24/7 monitoring and incident response along with managing and safeguarding the 80+ TB of Veteran data stored in the DAS datastore.

HDR will be maintained to support pharmacy, labs, vitals and allergy data that clinicians depend on to treat patients. HDR teams will enable the Veterans Exposure Team- Health Outcomes Military Exposures and Veterans Benefits Administration Automation Platform to continue to meet PACT Act mandates. The VADIR and Veteran Information Solution will remain operational in the Veteran Affairs Enterprise Cloud providing authoritative Veteran military data to the necessary lines of business which utilize the data products for benefit and healthcare eligibility determinations. VADIR data products will be updated to improve the quality and accessibility of Veteran military information.

ESIP focuses on the consolidation of data sources across programs, centralization of APIs and data, and utilization of data analytics platforms to streamline access to information and improve its utility. This allows customers to spend more time serving Veterans and less time looking for data. Consequently, enhancing enterprise APIs with key Identity and demographic data will allow the Office of Information and Technology to accelerate access from systems to authoritative data from a single API call.

The overall support for ESIP is critical to ensure continued project and program management support, help desk support, system administration services, data management services, software development & sustainment support, along with monitoring, technical analysis, architectural guidance and maintaining partner interfaces. ESIP requires that the current services outlined above for Option Period Four and Optional Task Two through Seven, under TO 36C10B20N10020015 continue without interruption to ensure continued access to the ESIP storage, server, and the following services: provisioning, infrastructure and network installation and maintenance, hardware and software upgrades, help desk support, program management, applications support, development and statistical analytics system support. This proposed action will provide for continuity of these critical support services without interruption to prevent a negative impact to ESIP until a new TO is awarded in the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2025. The PoP for this proposed action shall be January 23, 2025, through March 22, 2025. In addition, VA requires two one-month option periods for continued support through May 22, 2025, if exercised, to provide a seamless transition. The total estimated value of the proposed action is $14,998,644.49, inclusive of options and optional tasks. However, there are unused months in Optional Tasks Two through Seven from the original TO award that will cover the cost of the overall four-month extension in the amount of $14,341,793.28. As such, the overall TO value is estimated to only increase by $656,851.21 to $189,521,069.14.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the

Extension 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: The proposed source for this action is SAIC, 1120 Vermont Ave NW, Washington, DC 20005. SAIC was awarded the ESIP TO on January 23, 2020, on a competitive basis under Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) set-aside procedures on the T4NG contract vehicle. The PoP for VA's current TO with SAIC ends on January 22, 2025.

VA is in the process of competitively awarding a new TO for Data Analytics Integrated Modernization and Operations (DAIMO), which encompasses the ESIP TO services. In August/September 2023, VA leadership determined it would be best to consolidate two current TOs into one effort, TO 36C10B20N10020015 which provides ESIP Sustainment, Data Management, and System Administration Services for VA facilities located in Salt Lake City, UT; Washington, DC; and/or Austin, TX and TO 36C10B20N10020015, which provides ESIP services for Austin, TX and various remote sites. Previously, with the data analytics work being spread across multiple portfolios and pillars, there were numerous contracts that all had similar and/or redundant scope. This dispersion of Data Analytics project work created challenges in ensuring effective oversight and created unnecessary cost inefficiencies. To address these shortcomings, leverage economies of scale, produce tangible and intangible cost savings and to improve management oversight of all data analytics work, the Data Analytics Pillar has made the strategic decision to consolidate all data analytics efforts into one standalone TO, called DAIMO. The requirement development for the competitive TO began in the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2024, however, solicitation release date was not until October 28, 2024, with award currently projected in February 2025. This projection is at a minimum of one month beyond the current TO expiration date. The delay in solicitation release is due to the significant number of responses to VA’s market research efforts, which had led to additional questions to industry, Performance Work Statement (PWS) revisions, extensive revisions to the Consolidation memo and the source selection approach of the follow-on DAIMO effort This projection is a best-case scenario which assumes a manageable number of proposals being received, no significant additional questions on the solicitation requirements, no proposal extension requests, limited or no discussions, etc. Once the competitive TO is awarded, there is also a need for at least 30- 60 days of overlap due to SAIC possessing significant institutional knowledge of the technical environment, operational processes, and historical challenges. This knowledge includes a thorough understanding of the system architecture, existing workflows, and stakeholder relationships critical to maintaining continuity of operations to support a seamless transition of the services to a new vendor. For these reasons, ESIP requires support provided by SAIC beyond its current end date of January 22, 2025, until the DAIMO TO is awarded.

Under this TO, SAIC is currently providing and meeting the programmatic and technical support requirements as described in Section 3 above for ESIP. The ESIP environment is complex and unique. The platform and services needed to operate the environment

Extension include an infrastructure composed of multiple models of storage and servers, Extract Transform, and Load services, cohort development and provisioning services, Windows and Linux administrative services, SAS expertise, Software development along with many other products and services are required to support the SAIC environment.

Extending the current TO with SAIC enables continuity of operations, sustainment, and knowledgeable resources to address outages or other service needs. Without this continuation of services, VA faces a gap in service which would significantly inhibit the many projects provided under the current TO, 36C10B20N10020015, which would negatively impact VA’s ability to provide high-quality data, openly extensible IT, and support services to consolidation of data sources across programs, centralization of APIs and data, and utilization of data analytics platforms to streamline access to information and improve its utility.

A Request for Information (RFI) was posted on the Contract Opportunities site via SAM.gov on November 23, 2023. On December 6, 2023, 36 responses were received.

As a result, it was determined internally by VA that there were numerous changes required to better refine the Government’s requirements to maximize potential competition. As such, on February 28, 2024, further market research was conducted, which resulted in sending additional questions to seven SDVOSB vendors that responded to the RFI. On March 5, 2024, five SDVOSBs provided responses. The Government technical experts then had to complete a thorough technical analysis of the RFI responses. Additionally, since the intent of the DAIMO TO is to consolidate two current TOs, there has been major rework/revisions to the requirements documentation due to in-depth analysis of the complex services being consolidated. The combination of requirements for the two TOs, and the receipt of 36 responses to the RFI prompted a thoughtful revision of the requirements. This in turn, necessitated additional market research and documentation refinement to ensure alignment with industry capabilities.

These proactive efforts were integral to fostering a highly competitive environment and ensuring the requirements were clear and achievable, reflecting a deliberate approach to maximize competition. Lastly, because of market research, the DAIMO Program Manager decided to revise the Technical Factor evaluation approach in the source selection evaluation plan and resultant solicitation. The Technical Factor was revised from a two-phase approach (Written and Demonstration) to a three-phase approach, to demonstrate Contractor capability to execute the required tasks with a degree of proficiency. The purpose of this approach is to obtain the best technical solutions and reduce proposal costs for Offerors that do not pass the first phase. Therefore, due to the PWS revisions, extensive revisions to the Consolidation memo (needed to get Executive Director and Senior Procurement Executive approval on the acquisition strategy), and the source selection approach of the DAIMO effort, further market research was conducted through additional questions to the small businesses to ensure they were capable of performing the stated requirements. On July 1, 2024, those vendor responses were received. The Government technical experts then completed another thorough technical analysis of the responses received and determined that small businesses were capable. As such, the recompete TO will not be awarded prior to the current TO ending, which would result in a gap of critically required services. Therefore, Extension

VA requires continued support to ensure uninterrupted operation of the ESIP environment. VA anticipates award of a competitive TO in February 2025 which would encompass the services detailed in Section 3.

Any source other than SAIC would require significant ramp up time of approximately 30- 60 days, which would cause significant delays in VA’s ability to provide the level of technical support necessary to continue support of all SAIC operations including the continuous operation and availability of the aforementioned infrastructure, application, and software. While some of the support needed is industry standard (e.g., break/fix, license upgrades, new installs, upgrades, and patches), other sustainment and operations are unique to the SAIC environment. This would have very real and dire consequences to researchers and clinicians who continue to require uninterrupted access to the SAIC environment they depend upon to conduct critical healthcare information. Further, additional time would be necessary to account for the onboarding process which is, under normal circumstances, estimated to take approximately 30-60 days.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section 8 of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition.

In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities Page and the justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: No barriers to future competition are anticipated.

The follow-on TO is anticipated to be awarded in second quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 under competitive procedures. All Future actions are anticipated to be competitively awarded, ensuring transparency, promoting fair and open competition, and providing opportunities for a diverse range of qualified vendors to participate.

8. Market Research: This requirement is leveraging market research conducted in November 2023 as part of the competitive procurement, which includes support for the same services. On November 23, 2023, the Government released an RFI for DAIMO on the Contract Opportunities site via SAM.gov. The RFI included a draft PWS and requested that interested parties provide indication of their respective capabilities to perform the aforementioned services. On December 6, 2023, the RFI closed and 36 responses were received to include; 15 Large Businesses: Accenture Federal Services LLC, Ampcus Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (BAH), Carahsoft Technology Corporation, Cloudera(Government Solutions), Inc., International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Dell Technologies Inc., Huron Consulting Services LLC, InterSystems Corporation, SAIC, TISTA Science and Technology Corporation (TISTA), Leidos Inc., Acumen Solutions Inc., and CGI Federal Inc.; seven SDVOSBs: Castillo Technologies LLC (doing business as (dba) Cloud Computing Technologies), Andrew Morgan Consulting LLC, ClearCore LLC, HPC Solutions, Mind Computing Inc., Rios Partners LLC, Veterans EZ Info Inc.; 10 Small Businesses: RV

Extension

Global Solutions Inc, BPM Advisors LLC, Amida Technology Solutions Inc., Burntcow MediaWorks LLC, Cogitativo Inc., Initiate Government Solutions LLC, Federal Management Partners LLC. (dba FMP Consulting), OmniSync Incorporated, Vega Management Consulting LLC joint venture with Mahaaya, Vidya LLC; and four HUBZone, SBA 8(a), & Women-Owned Small Businesses: 6e Technologies, Diaconia LLC, Judit Inc. and RCI, Choksi Inc. (dba Proksi Systems). The Government technical experts completed a thorough technical analysis of the RFI responses, which resulted in the Government deeming nine of the above vendors capable of meeting the requirement.

In November 2024, the Government technical experts reviewed the above-mentioned vendors and found that only SAIC would be able to start on day one providing the ESIP services. While there are nine vendors deemed capable of meeting the requirements due to its similar general capabilities, most of the vendors would be unable to provide the seamless support needed for ESIP. Additionally, specifically for this action, the Government technical experts conducted market research in November 2024 by reviewing the T4NG Prime contract holder’s websites. As a result of that market research, it was determined that at least four T4NG Prime contract holders are capable of performing the effort; BAH, IBM, TISTA, and Cognosante MVH, LLC; however, only SAIC is capable of providing seamless ESIP support until award of the competitive TO.

Only SAIC has the technical expertise and experience that can meet VA’s needs in the required timeframe for seamless continuation of cybersecurity services for VA consisting of all technical activities described in Sections 3 and 5 above until the new TO is awarded. The competitive TO is currently projected to be awarded in the March timeframe. This extension will provide for the timely continuance of this critically needed support in order to ensure there is no gap in service.

9. Other Facts: None.