JA OpenText COBOL-IT Software Licensing Maintenance Support_Final Redacted.pdf

OpenText COBOL-IT Software Licensing, Maintenance & Support VA-24-00046414 fJUSTIFICATION

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: This 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) Government wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for the procurement of brand name OpenText Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) - Information Technology (IT) software licensing, maintenance, and support services.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information and Technology, Information and Technology Operations and Services, Infrastructure Operations (IO) has a requirement for the renewal of OpenText COBOL-IT 2 COBOL-IT Compiler Suite Enterprise Edition Developer licenses, 32 COBOL-IT Enterprise Runtime per Core licenses, 15 COBOL-IT Developer Studio licenses, software maintenance to include support services to allow Benefits Integration & Administration Product Line to receive software upgrades and updates, to include major releases, point releases, service releases and security releases on a quarterly basis, or within 48 hours in cases that a high-risk vulnerability fix becomes available. No hardware is being procured. The upgrades and updates that this software maintenance provides are required to ensure the software remains operational and necessary for IO to be able to operate successfully. The period of performance shall be 12 months from date of award with three 12-month option periods, if exercised. The total estimated value of the proposed action is , inclusive of the option periods.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (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: The current IO infrastructure is based on existing OpenText COBOL-IT software, and no other software licenses can interoperate with VA’s current COBOL-IT software infrastructure due to the proprietary protocols utilized by COBOL-IT. The technical team reviewed other VA Technical Reference Model (TRM) software from NetCOBOL, CA Vision COBOL, and IBM Z/OS COBOL. While these alternatives provide similar services, none of them are compatible with VA’s current VBA OpenText COBOL-IT based infrastructure. VA requires renewal of software licenses, maintenance and support

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

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 upon anticipated competition among NASA SEWP V GWAC holders who are resellers of the required Open Text COBOL-IT Software Licensing, Maintenance and Support. Additionally, NASA SEWP has already determined that the catalog prices on its contracts are fair and reasonable. Finally, price analysis shall be conducted by comparing the successful quote to the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

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

07/18/2024

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name OpenText COBOL-IT Software Licensing, Maintenance and Support 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.

7/18/24