JA LoadRunner OpenText VA-27-00003087 REDACTED.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-27-00003087

JUSTIFICATIONFOR 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 award of a firm-fixed price (FFP) Delivery Order (DO) issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), for the renewal of brand name software OpenText Corporation (OpenText) licenses, maintenance and updates.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Information and Technology, Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) Benefits Enterprise Platform (BEP) requires renewal of brand name Open Text LoadRunner Professional Performance Engineering and Country Usage Add-On licenses, support, and maintenance currently in use at VA.

This procurement will provide the BEP with the capability of performance testing usage on the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) to better measure performance loads during peak usage periods. This software enables all applications installed on the VAEC environment to accomplish load balancing performance metrics within each application and database workload to ensure the number and volume of transactions being processed does not degrade BEP or the VBA Corporate Database (CRP) and Benefits Integration Platform (BIP) production systems. It also supports web-based workloads and comprehensive enterprise protocol coverage, and provides protocol level testing.

Additionally, software support and mainteance services are required for this software to remain updated with the latest versions through downloads from the original software developer (OSD), which provide patches and updates to the software, and for troubleshooting issues which may arise as a result of software usage. LoadRunner Professional Performance Engineering and Country Usage Add-On licenses and associated Business Support Updates.

The Period of Performance (POP) for the software license and maintenance services shall be a seven (7) month base period and two (2) 12-month option periods. The total estimated value of the proposed action is , inclusive of options. VA has identified a one-time requirement to administratively co-term the base period to align with other licenses in use for this program resulting in the seven (7) month period of performance for the base.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Overhaul (RFO) FAR 16.507-6, 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 RFO FAR 16.507-6(b)(2), entitled of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized.

Brand Name OpenText LoadRunner Software Licenses and Maintenance Support Control Number VA-27-00003087

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 NASA SEWP resellers for the brand name software OpenText LoadRunner Professional Performance Engineering and Country Usage Add-On licenses and associated Business Support Updates.

The BEP, VBA CRP, and BIP rely on LoadRunner to perform load, stress, and performance testing for systems that support VBA claims processing, ratings, awards, and payment services. These systems provide critical services and system-of-record data supporting benefits delivery to more than 12 million Veterans, dependents, and caregivers each month. LoadRunner analytics help identify and resolve performance bottlenecks that adversely affect claims adjudication and payment processing.

OpenText Loadrunner brand-

The Open Text LoadRunner software source code is developed specifically for LoadRunner products and those licenses include use in the cloud and/or use at an additional site. No other manufacturer can fulfill this requirement since no other manufacturer has access to the proprietary source code of LoadRunner or the ability to offer license expansions for LoadRunner products.

performance testing framework and technologies including modern API-based services, legacy SOAP, and Tuxedo services as well as existing proprietary scripts and licenses. This ensures that patches and updates can be implemented directly within maintenance renewals are necessary because future patches and updates must integrate with and support the VA maintenance, interoperability and security could be compromised, risking system reliability and compliance.

In addition to the licensing and compatibility requirements discussed above, market research determined that LoadRunner is the only solution identified that supports the full range of technologies required by the VA environment, including modern API-based services, legacy SOAP web services, and Tuxedo-based services, while remaining compatible with the VA's existing performance testing framework and script inventory.

LoadRunner also delivers robust support for web-based workloads and comprehensive legacy applications. This capability is essential because BEP, CRP, and BIP contain a combination of modernized and legacy applications that must be tested within a single performance-testing framework. Alternative solutions would require the use of multiple testing products, significant modifications to existing testing processes, or extensive redevelopment of performance test assets, resulting in increased complexity, additional costs, schedule delays, and increased operational risk.

To utilize a performance testing solution other than the brand-name OpenText LoadRunner, the Government would be required to replace its existing LoadRunner

Prograssional licensing, procure a new enterprise performance testing platform and framework to be compatible with the new solution. This would require rewriting approximately approximately 254 performance test scripts. Historical experience indicates that each script requires approximately two weeks, or 80 labor hours, to develop, validate, and deploy. Recreating the existing test suite would therefore require a minimum of 20,320 labor hours before accounting for testing, validation, and ongoing maintenance activities. Given the continued growth of BEP, CRP, and BIP since the original acquisition in 2021, the actual effort required would likely be substantially greater. Such a migration would introduce unacceptable cost, schedule, and performance risk while delaying the Department's ability to conduct critical testing activities that support Veterans benefits processing systems.

Failure to procure the OpenText LoadRunner software licenses and maintenance will significantly impair the Department of Veterans Affairs' ability to validate the performance, scalability, and reliability of mission-critical Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) systems before production deployment. Without the ability to conduct comprehensive enterprise-scale load, stress, and performance testing, the VA's ability to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks before production deployment would be significantly diminished, increasing the risk of application degradation, service interruptions, delayed claims processing, and disruptions to the timely delivery of benefits and payments to Veterans and their families. OpenText LoadRunner provides the enterprise-scale load, stress, and performance testing capabilities required to support mission-critical Veterans Benefits Administration systems. The software enables the simulation of large numbers of concurrent users, supports testing across complex hybrid environments, integrates with existing automation and CI/CD processes, and provides detailed performance analytics used to identify and remediate application bottlenecks.

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 could available among resellers for brand name OpenText LoadRunner Professional Performance Engineering and Country Usage Add-On licenses and associated Business Support Updates. VA will continue to monitor market trends, new/emerging products, and services for availability of other solutions to meet VA needs. In accordance with RFO FAR 16.507-7(c)(ii) this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. In accordance with RFO FAR 16.507-6(f)(1) this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: Although the Government is limiting competition as a result of specifying a brand name item, there are multiple authorized resellers of the required products on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC. Limited competition for this requirement among these vendors is anticipated. Furthermore, in order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the agency will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be completed.

8. Market Research:

Government technical experts conducted market research from November 2025 through March 2026 through web-based research and interviewing other VA product teams to review alternative testing solutions includingOpenText LoadRunner and alternative performance testing solutions, including BlazeMeter, ReadyAPI, and Locust.

Through market research it was determined that OpenText LoadRunner was the only solution identified that supports the full range of technologies required by VA environment, including modern API-based services, legacy SOAP web services, and Tuxedo-based services, while remaining compatible with the VA's existing performance testing framework and inventory of approximately 254 performance test scripts. As mentioned above the alternative solutions reviewed such as BlazeMeter, ReadyAPI, and Locust revelealed they lacked support for multiple required technologies such as protocol-level testing for Tuxedo services, comprehensive SOAP service virtualization, BlazeMeter, while identified as an alternative for modern web application and API performance testing. ReadyAPI is primarily designed for API functional and load testing rather than enterprise-wide performance engineering, and Locust is an open-source framework focused primarily on HTTP-based workloads that requires extensive custom development to support additional protocols and enterprise capabilities. Consequently, none of the evaluated alternatives can meet the Government's requirements without substantial duplication of cost, redevelopment effort, and increased operational risk.

In addition to the aforementioned details above, the Contract Specialist (CS) conducted further market research in August 2026 to identify potential resellers capable of supplying the brand-name OptenText LoadRunner product and to investigate alternative solutions that could satisfy the Government's needs. The CS subsequently published a Request for Information (RFI) from August 4th, 2026 to August 12th, 2026, on the Contract Opportunities website (SAM.GOV) under RFI No. 36C10B26Q0723, which resulted in six (6) responses. Among these, only three (3) vendors all classified as small-businesses (SB) were found to be capable, as they submitted all required information in the RFI for the brand-name OpenText LoadRunner product. Additionally, the CS issued RFI No. 386832 from August 4th, 2026, to August 18th, 2026, on the NASA SEWP V GWAC to all contract holders. This RFI garnered 12 responses, with four (4) coming from Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned SmallBusiness (SDVOSB) resellers, three (3) of which were were Veteran Small Business Certification, and deemed capable to meet the Governments set-aside requirements as well as project requirements.This RFI also included one (1) SDVOSB that provided a response featuring an alternative product called Tricentis NeoLoad. The Government's technical experts assessed this alternative product and concluded that, although it shares some features with the brand-name OpenText LoadRunner product, Tricentis NeoLoad does not offer the protocol-level support required by BEP for Oracle Tuxedo services, which is a feature of the OpenText LoadRunner product. As a result of the market research conducted , there is a reasonable expectation of limited competition among SDVOSB resellers, and as such, the RFQ will be posted as a SDVOSB set-aside under NASA SEWP.

9. Other Facts: None