JA_IBM Middleware UpgradeREDACTED.pdf

Middleware Upgrade Control Number: VA-21-00054805

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, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The 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 IBM middleware platform software and support services.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The VA Financial Services Center (FSC) has a requirement for a brand name IBM middleware platform software and support services to replace the current Electronic Commerce Branch (ECB) middleware platform.

The middleware platform is a suite of services that allows for the data extraction, transformation, and loading of specific business-related electronic documents of different types and formats with its business partner community for the FSC and its customer base. There are several disparate products that are being used for the current ECB middleware platform. The current products being leveraged lack the complete features the Government requires to satisfy all of the ECB needs for its long-term success. Additionally, the current ECB middleware platform operates ineffectively and requires a substantial amount of effort to develop and sustain all of the solutions/products currently comprising the platform. Accordingly, the Government has a requirement to move towards a single integrated solution which will allow it to retire older and ineffective components and allow the ECB to move to a single Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) solution. The platform must be cloud-ready from the first day of operation, with a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)-certified solution that is certified “High Impact level” ready. The Contractor shall also provide maintenance support to include product updates, patches, and bug fixes for the IBM middleware platform software and technical support inclusive of solution delivery, solution and design support, deployment support, and Training. The period of performance shall be 12 months from date of award. The order will also include Four 12-month option years for continued maintenance and technical support of the IBM middleware platform software. The total estimated price of the proposed brand name portion of the effort including options is $2,298,125.28

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 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 justification, VA has determined that limited competition is viable among resellers of the brand name IBM middleware platform and services. IBM’s Middleware Platform is the only single unified middleware platform capable of meeting all of the Government’s functional requirements. Specifically, only the IBM middleware platform is capable of providing Connect:Direct (C:D)/Network Data Mover (NDM) due to IBM proprietary protocols. Connect:Direct (C:D)/NDM is a required and secured communications protocol that is needed for communications with IBM mainframes and several financial institutions that VA must utilize. Currently (C:D)/NDM is being procured separately and is not inherent to the current ECB middleware platform or any other platform. The current ECB platform consists of 5 unaligned products and several dozen scripts and minor programs that are often unavailable for use as there is no overall mechanism that works on securing and orchestrating the data through the platform. These programs act as silos where data sits and waits until picked up by another process. Some data is processed through uo to 35 different processing steps from start to finish in the current environment. Only through use of the brand name IBM middleware platform can this process become simplified and provide an overarching orchestration layer to move data from step to step until it is out of VA domain. As IBM owns C:D, there is no other platform capable of meeting this requirement. Only through use of the brand name IBM middleware platform can VA develop a solution where VA maintains security of data until it reaches its destination. As the Government currently lacks certain end to end controls of data flow, this can only be eliminated through use of the brand name IBM middleware platform. Additionally, the IBM middleware platform is also the only middleware platform that supports National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP), Health Level 7 (HL7), Fast Healthcare Interoperability Recourses (FHIR) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Validation, and Strategic National Implementation Process (SNIP) levels 1-7. These standards are required to be supported to validate the financial transactions are accurate. The IBM middleware platform uniquely provides Low-Code/No-Code capabilities for its functionality/features which are natively available in its product rather than requiring complex logic, extensive configuration, and development. This allows the Government to configure the middleware platform without substantial effort and potential complications which could present risk to the platform operations. The IBM middleware platform also is the only platform capable of the following functionalities. Application Programming Interface (API) Development and Support; Complete End to End Orchestrated Services; True Any to Any Translation; Java, JavaScript, and .Net support;

Create New Services and Features Natively; and Data Encryption at Rest Features.

Furthermore, only IBM can provide the maintenance and support services for the IBM middleware platform as only IBM has the proprietary rights to the data required to provide the technical implementation support as well software maintenance and updates such as fixes, patches, corrections, releases, updates, and upgrades to the middleware platform. IBM’s middleware platform is the only single unified middleware platform capable of meeting all of the Government’s functional requirements. If the brand name IBM middleware platform and support services are not procured, VA FSC will be left without an efficient, effective and secure solution necessary to support critical financial and operational functions and VA data for VA organizations and Veterans.

More specifically, without this solution, VA FSC cannot meet its requirement for a more efficient and secure platform that can resolve issues with delayed payment on Veterans medical claims, payments to the Veterans, and other transactions that impact VA in being able to provide health services to Veterans and their families in the medical center community.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 of this document. Although the Government is limiting competition as a result of specifying brand name IBM Software which integrates with the IBM Middleware platform, there are multiple value-added resellers of this product that hold NASA SEWP V contracts. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), this action will be synopsized, and the justification will be made publicly available on the Contracting Opportunities Page within 14 days after award. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A), the justification will be posted with the Request for Quote on the NASA SEWP V website.

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. Specifically, the Government will continue to monitor market trends, new/emerging products, looking for compatible and more advanced technologies to meet VA needs.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research in February 2021 by reviewing similar products from Informatica, MuleSoft, OpenText and Tibco and determined that there were no other alternative vendors capable of providing a unified product that met all of the Governments functional requirements outlined in Section 5 of this document. Additionally, as a result of the market research, the technical experts confirmed that due to the proprietary nature of the source code, only IBM can provide the technical and maintenance support required to deploy and maintain the IBM middleware platform. Based on market research, the Government’s technical experts have determined that the IBM’s middleware platform is the only single unified middleware platform capable of meeting all of the Government’s functional and support requirements.

Additional market research was conducted by the Contract Specialist in April 2021 via the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool. The Contract Specialist identified multiple NASA SEWP V GWAC holders who are IBM resellers

9. Other Facts: None

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Jeremy Trammel Date: ________________________________

Program Manager Signature: ____________________________

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable.

Prices contained in contracts awarded on NASA SEWP V GWAC have already been determined to be fair and reasonable. Finally, the successful quote will be compared to the Independent Government Cost Estimate

Juan Quinones Date: ________________________________

Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Juan Quinones Date: ________________________________

Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name IBM middleware platform software and support services 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 property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________

Philip Weckesser Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics