JA _ImageWare FINAL 6.16.21.pdf

ImageWare Maintenance Support VA-21-00033501

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-price delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name ImageWare maintenance support.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA’s Office of Information and Technology

(OI&T), Enterprise Infrastructure Engineering requires the renewal of annual maintenance support for the software and hardware components of the currently fieldedImageWare Biometric solution utilized by the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) System. The existing ImageWare Biometric solution consists of 1,096,310 ImageWare Software (IWS) licenses, 305 fingerprint scanners, readers and software plug-in applications, 755 EPI builders and 530 EPI builder plug-ins. The ImageWare Biometric solution supports the PIV system which captures the fingerprints from card applicants and creates the means of storing biometric minutiae on the resulting PIV card. This solution also provides the application layer services that allow for presentation of biometric services to the peripheral devices selected by the VA for Registrar and Issuer workstations. The software and hardware maintenance support will provide troubleshooting, updates, fixes and patches, repairs and/or replacement of faulty or defective hardware components, and upgrades to the ImageWare solution, which will ensure that the existing software and hardware components remain operational. This proposed action is for hardware and software maintenance support only. No additional hardware or software will be procured as a result of this action. The period of performance shall consist of a 12-month base period of August 1, 2021 through July 31, 2022, with two 12-month option periods. The total estimated price of the proposed action, inclusive of options, is $3,266,258.44

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (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: Based on market research, as described in section 8 below, it has been determined that limited competition is available among resellers of ImageWare products and services. The ImageWare products that make up the Biometric software solution function as middleware software between biometric devices and the smart card printer for use with the PIV System. This proposed action is only to renew maintenance support on existing hardware and software components in order to maintain current functionality and ensure the ImageWare Biometric software solution remains fully operational. No other source is capable of providing the required maintenance support as only ImageWare has access to the proprietary source code required to troubleshoot and diagnose the solution and ensure the services provided to the hardware and software components are properly configured. No other source has the capability of developing and issuing software updates due to the proprietary nature of the ImageWare source code. Also, only ImageWare brand name hardware products that will be used for repairs of the existing items can meet VA form, fit, and function requirements. Further, no other software other than ImageWare can be implemented into the biometric portion of the PIV System without a complete redesign of the aforementioned component. The currently fielded PIV System can only work with ImageWare software. The current PIV solution is very tightly coupled with customized proprietary code with ImageWare. The integration of VA's Java PIV Application includes integration with ImageWare’s server for biometric services, as well as integration with ImageWare’s biometric capture client software components.

The nature of the integrated solution includes use of standard ImageWare software components, as well as the use of Application Program Interfaces, which the VA Java PIV Application has made use of in order to access the biometric service functionality. No other software, other than ImageWare can work in this environment.

In addition, the replacement of ImageWare solution with any other biometric vendor solution would result in duplicated cost to the Government and result in extensive delivery delays, as this will require total redesign, development and integration of the entire PIV system estimated at approximately $12 million. The duplicated cost estimate was calculated based on next generation PIV System Architecture developed by the VA PIV team. ImageWare software is currently the only software installed into the biometric portion of the PIV System. Only the ImageWare software can provide interoperability and compatibility with the current software being used in the biometric portion of the configuration. The current ImageWare software solution is the System of Systems (SoS) which consists of several subsystems integrated with proprietary data and source code. The current ImageWare software will not interface with nor be interoperable or compatible with any other ImageWare software solution due to proprietary source code. The use of any brand other than ImageWare software will severely degrade the ability to support and manage the current ImageWare software solution which will result in interoperability and compatibility issues. In addition, there are currently 1,096,310 ImageWare software licenses installed within VA PIV environment, and using another software product would require replacing all of these licenses. This is due to the proprietary code of the software, which does not allow any other product to communicate with it. As such, the Government's technical experts have determined that only ImageWare software can meet all of VA's requirements. Further, VA licensed and deployed a highly customized installation of a proprietary ImageWare Biometric software solution for PIV. No other brand name software, other than brand name ImageWare software, can be used on the PIV system as the Biometric subsystem component.

ImageWare is a highly configurable software suite of products that has been modified and upgraded on a regular basis to support PIV. Failure to maintain the support for this system for PIV card issuance will impact all nationwide VA employees and contractors’ ability to securely access the VA network to perform critical duties in support of the VA and Veterans.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, the details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional solutions that can meet the Government’s requirements. It was determined however that limited competition is available viable among resellers for the required ImageWare brand name software and hardware maintenance support. 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 Page at beta.sam.gov website 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 market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research in December 2020 which consisted of a review of maintenance support available from manufacturers of similar products including Cogent Systems, Inc., XTEC Incorporated, Aware Inc and SecuGen Corporation. While similar hardware and software solutions from alternative manufacturers exist, the market research confirmed that no other source can provide maintenance support for the existing ImageWare software and hardware components as they lacked access to the proprietary source code necessary to provide the required support. Due to the proprietary nature of the ImageWare products, only ImageWare can provide the required maintenance support. Further, no other brand products can provide the interoperability and compatibility with the currently fielded ImageWare software used in the biometric portion of the PIV System as outlined in Section 5 of this justification.

Based on this market research, only brand name ImageWare software and hardware maintenance can meet VA’s requirements.

Further market research was conducted by the Contract Specialist in April 2021 by utilizing the Provider Look Up Tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website and the Vendor Information Pages (VIP) database. The search revealed that there are multiple VIP verified SDVOSB resellers of ImageWare products and services. As such, adequate competition is expected.

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.

Dhaval Shah Signature: ___________________ IT Specialist VA OI&T Date: _______________________

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 based on anticipated competition. Additionally, NASA SEWP V has already determined the prices on contract to be fair and reasonable. Finally, the successful quote will be compared with the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

Kevin Monahan Signature: _________________________

Contracting Officer Date: _________________________

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

Kevin Monahan Signature: _________________________

Contracting Officer Date: _________________________

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name ImageWare software and hardware maintenance support on a limited competition basis pursuant to the statutory authority cited in paragraph 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