JA for F5 Networks Inc. Hardware Maintenance Final Signed Redacted_Redacted.pdf

F5 Networks, Inc. Hardware Maintenance Control Number: VA-21-00055672

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-priced delivery order, issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise- Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name F5 Networks, Incorporated (Inc.) (F5) BIG-IP global and local load balancer (traffic manager) premium hardware maintenance with upgrade and hard disk/memory retention services for F5 equipment located at five VA data centers.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology, Information Technology Operations and Services, Service Operations, Infrastructure Operations (IO), Network Operations has a requirement for brand name F5 BIG-IP traffic manager services for: (1) 1-year hardware maintenance premium support (QTY 26), (2) 1-year premium support upgraded to expedited 4-hour hardware replacement/return material authorization (RMA) for hardware failures (QTY 26), and (3) hard disk retention services (QTY 26). These three coverages (hardware maintenance) shall provide continued support for 22 F5 Local Traffic Managers (LTM) (10350V-F, QTY 18 and 5250V-F, QTY 4); and four

(4) F5 Global Traffic Managers (DNS I-2800) that are currently in use.

The F5 hardware maintenance premium support coverage includes all services included under the F5 standard warranty plus technical 24x7x365 telephone support, a 2-hour response on technical support and equipment repair or advanced replacement (replacement in advance of equipment return). The premium support upgrade is to receive expedited 4-hour advanced replacement of failed equipment. Hard disk retention service allows the Government to retain any hard drive and/or memory contained within failed equipment before it is returned.

This action is for hardware maintenance only. No hardware or software will be procured as a result of this action. This procurement shall include F5 traffic manager hardware maintenance to be provided from September 26, 2021 through September 25, 2022, with two 12-month option periods.

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 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 section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available among resellers of the brand name F5 hardware maintenance described above.

The IO F5 traffic managers require F5 hardware maintenance because the appliances are proprietary hardware. Therefore, only F5 or its authorized resellers can provide the required hardware maintenance as only they have access to and knowledge of the hardware’s firmware and configurations. Accordingly, other OEMs cannot provide the hardware maintenance, including proprietary F5 operating system and firmware updates, for F5 traffic manager appliances. The existing IO F5 traffic managers support traffic redirection between the IO data center’s current traffic managers and the existing VA Network Security Operations Center’s (NSOC) F5 traffic managers. This is a mission critical function and therefore, brand name F5 hardware maintenance is required to continue operations of these F5 traffic manager appliances. Also, the currently used F5 traffic managers are not end-of-life, or end-of support, and there are no other traffic manager products, aside from F5, that are interoperable and compatible with the existing F5 traffic managers at NSOC. This is because one brand of traffic manager will not communicate with traffic managers from a different OEM. Therefore, only the F5 brand traffic manager hardware maintenance can meet IO’s requirement to support and enable traffic redirection between the IO data centers and the existing NSOC’s F5 traffic managers.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research paragraph of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that could meet the Government’s requirements. However, it was determined that limited competition is viable among resellers for these brand name items. 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. In accordance with FAR

5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities Page 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 marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: Government technical experts conducted market research in March and April 2021 to confirm that F5 traffic manager operating systems remain proprietary and that only F5 can provide the required hardware maintenance. Specifically, the Government’s technical experts conducted web-based research of industry websites, technical specifications, and analyzed network traffic manager product offerings. This included a review of similar products offered by Barracuda and Kemp Technologies. This review confirmed that only F5 can fulfill the continuing need for F5 hardware maintenance because F5 traffic manager operating systems continue to be proprietary and cannot be updated or maintained by other OEMs. Additionally, F5 traffic managers do not communicate with traffic managers from other OEMs as they use different proprietary operating systems. Based on the above, only the brand name F5 hardware maintenance for F5 traffic managers meet all the Government’s requirements.

Additional market research was conducted by the Contract Specialist in April 2021 via a search on the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool which yielded several resellers of F5 Networks, Inc. brand name products. Furthermore, NASA SEWP V GWAC has a dynamic catalog where line items can be added based on customer requests; therefore, as long as the required item or service is within scope of the NASA SEWP V contracts, items and services can be added to the catalog.

9. Other Facts:

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name F5 Networks, Inc. (F5) BIG-IP global and local load balancer (traffic manager) premium hardware maintenance with upgrade and hard disk/memory retention services for F5 equipment located at five data centers on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.