JA LSJ 26F7243 1006260008 Trellix - R.pdf

LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

SECTION 1: IDENTIFICATION OF THE AGENCY AND THE CONTRACTING

ACTIVITY

Department of State Contracting Activity Acquisition Management

Requiring Activity Bureau of Intelligence & Research Technology & Innovation Office (INR/TIO)

SECTION 2: NATURE AND/OR DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION BEING

APPROVED

Approval is requested to limit the number of sources for soliciting and awarding an order under a Federal Supply Schedule contract for the supplies and/or services described in Section 3 on behalf of the Requiring Activity. Vendor - CARAHSOFT TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION, 11493 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 100, Reston, VA 20190

SECTION 3: DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES REQUIRED TO MEET THE

AGENCY’S NEEDS

Product Name: Trellix MAX Resident Specialist / Engineer o "Resident" / "MAX Resident": This provides a dedicated, embedded subject matter expert (SME) or resident engineer from Trellix who works directly with the organization to support deployment, operational tuning, incident response, or system administration for the Trellix security stack.

Part Number (SKU): MAXRESIDENT-MB-AG o MAXRESIDENT: Trellix Resident Engineer / SME Service.

Term:

o 1 year: 12-month period of performance (POP).

This SKU is purchased to provide an organization cleared, high-level Trellix engineers embedded within their security operations or engineering team to manage, maintain, and optimize enterprise security solutions (such as Trellix Endpoint Security, Network Security, or

XDR).

SBU - CONTRACTING AND ACQUISITIONS

The estimated value for the entire period of performance of Trellix Max Resident subscriptions is .

SECTION 4: IDENTIFICATION OF THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

AND THE SUPPORTING RATIONALE

This acquisition is conducted pursuant to 41 U.S.C. 4103 and 4106 as implemented by FAR 8.401 and GSAR 538.7104-3(b)(1)(ii).

Only Trellix Solutions Group at Carahsoft or an authorized Trellix partner possess the combination of manufacturer-recognized certifications, cleared personnel, and direct access to proprietary Trellix engineering resources necessary to perform the highly specialized remediation, tuning, and validation services required by INR. This is not a matter of preference for a particular product feature, but a limitation on the number of qualified sources capable of safely performing embedded, manufacturer-authorized engineering work on a Top Secret production environment.

INR requires embedded resident engineers because corrective actions involve continuous tuning, validation, knowledge transfer, and operational support over an extended remediation period rather than discrete implementation services. Implementation, customization, and engineering services must be performed in accordance with manufacturer-approved methodologies. Performance by entities outside this limited authorized group could result in unsupported configurations, invalidate vendor support obligations, delay emergency engineering support, complicate vendor-assisted incident response, and increase operational risk to Top Secret mission-critical systems.

The level of engineering required to successfully remediate the identified deficiencies exceeds conventional cybersecurity integration services. The required tuning directly affects enterprise-wide endpoint protection and detection capabilities deployed across INR's production environment. Improper configuration presents severe risk to the Top Secret operational network, including reduced detection effectiveness, excessive false positives or false negatives, adverse effects to endpoint performance, disruption to enterprise security operations, or introduction of additional cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

SECTION 5: DETERMINATION BY THE ORDERING ACTIVITY CONTRACTING

OFFICER THAT THE CONTRACT ACTION REPRESENTS THE BEST VALUE

CONSISTENT WITH FAR 8.404(D)

The Contracting Officer has determined that the anticipated price(s) will be best value based on GSA contracts or pricing agreements, catalog or established price list, price competition, and independent estimate. By signing the justification, the Contracting Officer makes a determination that the to the Government is expected to be fair and reasonable.

SECTION 6. DESCRIPTION OF THE MARKET RESEARCH CONDUCTED AMONG

SCHEDULE HOLDERS AND THE RESULTS OR A STATEMENT OF THE REASON

MARKET RESEARCH WAS NOT CONDUCTED

INR is committed to fostering competition to the maximum extent practicable for future acquisitions of cybersecurity, endpoint security, and threat detection solutions. Currently, the primary barriers to open competition are the substantial technical risk, unacceptable operational downtime, and prohibitive duplicate costs associated with replacing the existing Trellix enterprise infrastructure and migrating proprietary detection content.

To overcome these barriers and assess whether future competition is feasible for subsequent acquisitions, INR will take the following actions prior to initiating any follow-on procurement:

Market Research & Capability Assessments: INR will continuously monitor the commercial marketplace for emerging cyber threat detection, endpoint protection, and IC-capable platforms. Specifically, the activity will assess whether alternative commercially available products have achieved vendor-supported implementations

Because of this complexity, INR requires remediation to be performed by the limited pool of engineers possessing manufacturer-recognized Trellix certifications, extensive experience implementing enterprise-scale Trellix environments, and direct access to Trellix's proprietary engineering resources, including proprietary implementation methodologies, software updates, technical knowledge bases, product roadmaps, engineering escalation support, and vendor-developed best practices — all of which are available only through Trellix Solutions Group at Carahsoft or an authorized Trellix partner. Although numerous contractors provide general cybersecurity engineering and endpoint security services, they do not possess access to cleared, manufacturer-authorized expertise, proprietary implementation methodologies, certified engineering resources, or direct access to Trellix engineering support necessary to perform the highly specialized configuration, optimization, and tuning required by this acquisition.

Consequently, this qualifies as a limited-sources justification: only the identified, limited pool of Trellix-authorized providers can meet the Government's minimum requirements at the level of quality and security assurance needed.

compliant with Intelligence Community and National Security System requirements sufficient to eliminate the need for a brand-name restriction.

Cost-Benefit & Migration Analysis: Prior to initiating a follow-on requirement or standard refresh cycle, INR will conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to determine whether future migration becomes technically feasible, operationally viable, and cost-effective without imposing unrecoverable duplicate costs.

If market research indicates that alternative solutions have matured to meet the agency's strict security standards and seamless content migration is achievable without unacceptable risk or duplicate cost, the Government will structure the subsequent acquisition as a full and open (or competitive under FAR Part 8/16) solicitation.