JA Redacted for Posting.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-25-00009558

JA Template_FAR 16.5_(07-AUG-2024)

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 (FFP) delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Stata/MP 18 software licenses and maintenance support. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI) currently has Stata 18 upgraded software and will renew the software maintenance required for the existing 60-seat license Stata/MP 18 (40-core) network. This acquisition is in support of the VA VINCI program.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The proposed action will provide brand name Stata/MP 18 software maintenance support for the existing 60-user (40-core) network license to support customer demand. Stata software are perpetual licenses used for data analysis, data management, and data visualization within the VINCI program platform that are already owned by the VA. VINCI is part of the research and development collaborative program between the Veterans Health Administration Health Systems Research and Development office and Office of Information and Technology Enterprise Program Management Office and serves as the analytical arm of the partnership. VINCI provides the computing platform (in the form of Central Processing Units, Random Access Memory, and storage capabilities) as well as the software applications and technical support to allow researchers to utilize the wealth of VA data in a secure environment. Stata is one of the software applications provided in the VINCI environment. Stata 18 software allows users to write results directly to a .docx or .pdf file, allows Lasso commands, adds capabilities for Latent Class Analyses, Mix IRT and other clustering models, as well as providing compatibility with newer machine learning classification and regression algorithms. Stata software maintenance will allow more researchers to analyze, manage, and visualize data for their research needs. Stata was added to the VINCI computing environment to support multilevel generalized linear models (GLM), power and sample size (PSS) analysis, generalized structural equation modeling (SEM), forecasting, effect size computations, workflow organization via Stata Project Manager, and support for long strings and binary large objects (BLOBs). The period of performance for this effort shall be a 12-month base for software maintenance.

The total estimated price of the proposed action is .

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 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”.

CONTROL NUMBER X VA-25-00009558

JA Template_FAR 16.5_(08-AUG-2024)

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: VA has one of the largest patient record data sets for medical research in the United States and is considered a thought leader for medical research. Researchers throughout VA use the VINCI platform for data analysis and require appropriate tools to extract meaningful information from this vast data resource. Stata is one such tool, providing researchers with data analysis, data management, and data visualization support. These capabilities are fundamental to the scientific research problems being defined and solved on the VINCI system.

Stata brand name software is the only software that can continue to build upon VA’s existing Stata brand name software licenses. Any other brand name software is unable to provide the functionality unique to Stata, including multilevel GLM, PSS analysis, generalized SEM, forecasting, effect size computations, workflow organization via Stata Project Manager, and support for long strings and BLOBs. Additionally, no other brand name software will be interoperable or compatible with the currently installed Stata software. Renewal of the Stata software license will support existing researchers who are using Stata in their work and will allow more researchers to use Stata to analyze, manage, and visualize data for their research needs. Researchers working in the VINCI environment have written a large amount of code using Stata. Failure to obtain software maintenance for VINCI’s existing Stata license would force these researchers to port their code to an alternate tool. Such a transition would impact over 500 users, require months of rework and cost the VA over a million dollars, jeopardize ongoing research designed to support better outcomes and therefore better care for Veterans.

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 can meet the Government’s requirements. It was determined; however, that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for this brand software license and maintenance. 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.

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.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted in January – February 2025 by the VINCI project team. The market research included a review of various websites and trade publications and discussions with data managers and researchers in the VA to ascertain if there are other similar software products that can meet the Government’s requirements. Competitors including IBM’s SPSS, R, and SciPy/NumPy/Matplotlib were compared to Stata. Stata and its competitors are similar in terms of functionality, but Stata stands out from other products because Stata can leverage more than one processor, while most of the other products can only use one. Additionally, R and SciPy/NumPy/Matplotlib are free and open source meaning they lack vendor support.

Finally, IBM's SPSS is expensive compared to Stata. Based on reviews of these products, the Government’s technical experts determined that none of these products can meet the Government’s interoperability and compatibility requirements discussed in item 5 above. Additionally, none of these other products focuses exclusively on science and research. Review of these products was based on actual VA experience using the

CONTROL NUMBER X VA-25-00009558

JA Template_FAR 16.5_(08-AUG-2024) competing research software. VA researchers regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other brand name software is available. As a result of the market research, the technical experts confirmed that Stata owns the proprietary source code and is the only source capable of providing the required software maintenance and upgrades for Stata software. No other software has the capability of developing and issuing software updates and fixes for Stata software necessary to support existing requirements. Furthermore, none of these products support an easy or efficient way to import existing Stata code to support existing work done in Stata. Based on these market research efforts, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only Stata brand name software can meet all of the VA’s needs.

Additional market research was conducted by the Contract Specialist in April 2025 using the NASA SEWP Provider Lookup Tool, which found 38 resellers. Market research conducted utilizing the NASA SEWP Lookup Tool identified 15 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) that are Stata resellers. Based on the results of the Provider Lookup Tool set forth above, there is a reasonable expectation that two or more SDVOSBs can provide the required brand name Stata/MP 18 software licenses and maintenance support.

9. Other Facts: None.