JA_SETA_Logical_Follow_On_to_HSFEHQ-10-D-0388_HSFE30-14-J-0039.pdf

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Acquisition Management Division

Date: June 12 2015

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity

Part I

Pursuant to the requirements of FAR Subpart 16.505, Ordering under Indefinite Delivery contracts and in accordance with the Fair Opportunity requirements of FAR 16.505(b)(1), the justification for the use of the statutory authority under FAR 16.505(b)(2) is provided per the following facts and rationale required under FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii):

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

Department of Homeland Security

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Office of the Chief Procurement Officer

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

This action contemplates the award of a logical follow-on Task Order extension for the incumbent Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) Task Order 39 contractor.

The Task Order extension contemplated is for single 12-month base period.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s need (including the estimated value).

This procurement is for contractor support for the Architecture Engineering and Enterprise

Services (AEES) Division of FEMA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). The required contractor personnel augment existing government staff and provide advanced

Information Technology (IT) system engineering support, specialized technical assistance, and project management support for the development, deployment, and sustainment of numerous custom Enterprise applications, systems, and associated infrastructures.

Specifically, the contractor provides software and hardware life cycle support and technical assistance for FEMA’s custom software applications, enterprise voice and data systems, enterprise video systems, cable plant design needs, and application sustainment activities to include patching, server up-keep and maintenance, planning for integration with existing and new custom applications, deployment of bug fixes, enhancements, and upgrades to custom applications, and design and sustainment of infrastructure. The estimated value of this requirement is $9.5 million for the full one year period.

4. Identification of the Exception to fair opportunity.

Per FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C), this order is intended to be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the SETA contract and all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

FEMA has a requirement that, given the cost and risk that would result from the delay associated with providing for additional fair opportunity, can only be met by the incumbent’s specialized technical assistance personnel who possess detailed and specific knowledge regarding FEMA’s custom application and infrastructure. The current contractor was selected through full and open competition under FAR part 15 for a base year and two (2) twelve-month option periods for SETA Task Order 6 (HSFEHQ-10-D-0388/HSFEHQ-11-J-

1268.) The specialized nature of their services and the institutional knowledge this contractor possesses make any lapse in their services severely disruptive to FEMA’s mission and place the agency at great risk in regard to operational readiness.

This follow-on work is logical given the scope of work being performed in relation to the original task order and the burden the government would encounter should it be required to transition to a new contractor in the short term. Regarding scope, the work performed under the logical follow on mirrors the work this contractor performed under the original task order. The systems, infrastructure, and work locations remain the same, as does the majority of the technical assistance tasks to performed, as described above in Section 3 and to follow in Section 6. Similarly, the follow-on work is logical from an economy and efficiency standpoint, as the unique , FEMA-specific technical knowledge this contractor has attained during it prior three years support OCIO’s AEES Division would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace absent an extended period of transition and knowledge transfer between the incumbent vendor, the new vendor, and the government. At this time, were the

Government to pursue a short-term replacement for the incumbent vendor, great disruption and risk would impact to OCIO’s mission that would greatly outweigh whatever benefits would accrue under a new vendor in the short term, given the current support model and immediate support needs. There would be additional cost to transition and train new contract staff in FEMA processes and procedures as well as lost time. This is not in the interests of economy and efficiency.

5. The contracting officer anticipates the cost to be fair and reasonable based upon the negotiated rates under the existing contract along with the same level of effort and labor mix.

FEMA has analyzed incumbent contract’s quoted follow-on rates and finds them reasonable in comparison to the rates of other contractors performing similar work under other DHS contract vehicles that are publicly-available. Notably, the rates provided by the incumbent vendor were compared to the rates for similar labor classifications under the DHS Enterprise

Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions (EAGLE) contract and were found to be lower and provide a better value to the government than the rates under EAGLE. Further, the proposed rates were also compared to the incumbent vendor’s previously quoted rates. The current quote is in-line with the rates, including spot discounts that we included previously on the basis of the prior task order fair opportunity competition, with only a moderate escalation amount of 3% included in the new rates. The proposed logical follow on labor rates average increase is approximately 3% compared to Task Order 39 Final 6-month

Option labor rates. The Washington DC area Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) 12-month increase stands at approximately 2%, meaning nearly 2/3rds of the 3% escalation in rates can be attributable to standard price increases within the region, leaving the rate increase attributable to competitive pressures only totaling 1%. Given this extremely limited variance between prior rates and current proposed rates, the proposed rate increase for the logical follow on is deemed reasonable.

6. Additional supporting facts for the acquisition:

SETA contractors provide a variety of critical enterprise architecture services. The incumbent staff, by virtue of their inherent knowledge of FEMA’s mission essential systems and extensive hands-on experience managing those systems, is critical to maintaining mission readiness and operational support. The SETA contract is a small business contract, and the current contractor for Task Order39, Applied Computing Technologies (ACT) is a small business.

The following is a detailed list of services impacted by a lapse of this contract.

Mt. Weather Ground Entry Point (MWGEP) – Satellite engineering services needed to design a new satellite ground entry point will be delayed, causing significant financial impact.

Enterprise Network Support: SETA staff provides Tier III network engineering services, support the development and review of all System Change Requests and implementations of new network architecture, provide network capacity planning support, support complex troubleshooting of network problems, and provide engineering services to all fixed, mobile, and disaster facilities. These services would not be performed during contract lapse.

Enterprise Wireless Network Support: SETA staff provides project management services for the sustainment of Wi-Fi technologies throughout FEMA, providing trusted partners a means of network access during National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) activation.

Satellite Services: SETA staff provides project management services for the satellite airtime transition of Disaster Emergency Communication Directorate very-small-aperture-terminal

(VSAT) systems. The VSAT transition relies heavily on project management skills/services and cannot be completed without them. This project will not meet intended deadlines.

VSAT systems throughout FEMA will not be available for deployment. This is a CRITICAL mission impact.

FEMA Office of the Chief Financial Officer Support: SETA contractors provide support for numerous OCFO systems, including the Integrated Financial Management Information

System (IFMIS), the FEMA Accounts Receivable System, which is used to recoup funds from overpaid disaster survivors and mission assignment vendors, and the SOA Financial

Services system. All systems are under-going significant upgrades and maintenance, the unplanned interruption of which could cause significant impact to the FEMA mission.

Business Objects [OCIO] The Business Objects (BO) tool is used for exploring, analyzing and investigating in real-time the key measures required to plan, support and manage disaster functions. BO makes validated data readily available to managers and other authorized individuals to expand business knowledge supporting critical decision-making. The planned/required hardware and software upgrades are vital to most of FEMA’s mission critical disaster support capabilities and will be delayed unless completed by engineers with detailed knowledge of these systems.

Business Objects (BO) Incident Qualification and Certification System (IQCS) [OCIO]

The BO IQCS tool is used for exploring, analyzing and investigating in real-time the key measures required to plan, support and manage the disaster functions. The Incident

Qualification and Certification System (IQCS) interface will allow incident managers to select emergency respondents with appropriate qualifications and certifications for a give all-hazards situation. The new capability will likely not be available for the 2014 hurricane season unless engineers with detailed knowledge of FEMA’s implementation of BO and the

IQCS interface are available to complete this effort.

Citrix Remote Desktop [OCIO] The Citrix remote Desktop enables emergency managers in the field to access legacy mission applications. The lack of implementation of this capability will severely impact disaster field operations.

DAIP Migration [National Processing Service Center (NPSC) Operations] The Disaster

Assistance Improvement Program, a Presidential eGov Initiative, is a Federal partnership of

16 agencies to provide a clearinghouse of disaster assistance information, to register applicants for assistance for Federal programs, and to provide status on the processing of applications for assistance. The efforts to virtualize, consolidate, and upgrade FEMA’s call center support and internet self-service capabilities will be delayed in several key aspects.

Any gap of more than two weeks in Engineering Support and Technical Assistance will prevent new capabilities from being available at the beginning of the 2014 Hurricane Season.

Document Management and Records Tracking System (DMARTS) Migration The

DMARTS Migration will lower support costs and provide a more cost-effective alternate site capability. An interruption of Engineering Support and Technical Assistance for DMARTS will have a negative impact on Disaster Victims, affect system availability, and cost the agency additional development dollars due to schedule slips in this migration.

Enterprise System Integration & Transition Services (ESITS) LAB [OCIO] The

Engineering Lab will be an adjunct to the Test and Development Lab and support engineering efforts to test new hardware and software as well as new configurations. An interruption of Engineering Support and Technical Assistance will cause the slip of new and existing FEMA custom applications as there will be no place to validate software design/infrastructure and will also lead to increased cost to FEMA for troubleshooting failures caused by lack of validation. In addition, if systems aren’t properly validated, then during surge conditions cause by disaster activity, the custom applications are likely to have load induced outages/slowdowns that will require online troubleshooting and negatively impact the ability to render services to disaster victims.

Enterprise Shared Workspace (ESW 2010) [OCIO] SharePoint 2010 represents an upgrade to the ESW SharePoint 2007 portal platform and, as such, will provide FEMA with upgraded and additional collaboration and work flow capabilities. The Agency's ESW could fail at any time and cripple any of several agency programs; if knowledgeable engineering staff are not available to complete the implementation before an issue occurs, the programs may fail which will negatively impact the agency’s ability to provide disaster support.

Storage Resource Management Software [OCIO] A comprehensive SAN Storage

Management Software solution is needed to manage day-to-day storage allocation and to diagnose failing components and proactively take remedial actions. The loss of key

Engineering Support and Technical Assistance will delay completion of a comprehensive evaluation and acquisition of a solution past the time of need to avert a major issue, thereby causing corruption/loss of key Agency databases and applications.

Logistics Supply Chain Management System (LSCMS) Disaster Recovery (DR)

[Logistics] The Logistics Supply Chain Management System (LSCMS) Program supports

FEMA's mission of responding to all hazards expediently and efficiently by managing the nation's end-to-end supply chain of disaster assets and commodities. LSCMS provides

FEMA with the flexibility to respond to and recover from all hazards as well as provide full disaster supply chain visibility to FEMA and its partners. This project is adversely affected by the not having the SETA staff available for to work the TDL and production Code

Deployments, upgrades, bug fixes, enhancements, and other Life Cycle and sustainment activities. There will be a significant loss of institutional knowledge (database, system architect, middleware, SOA, etc.) on the application if SETA is not renewed which will delay or prevent FEMA’s ability to set up a production Disaster Recovery environment thereby putting disaster survivors at risk of not receiving critical supplies, disaster assets, and commodities. The impact of this would be life threatening

Non Disaster Grants (ND Grants) [Grants Program Division] The Grants Program

Division has established a ‘go-live” date of Summer 2014, which will be jeopardized if knowledgeable engineering resources, specifically those responsible for the design and implementation of the TDL implementation, are not available to plan and implement the

Production implementation.

Secure Data Sharing [OCIO] The Collaborative Operations Program (Secure Data Sharing

Phase 2 or SDS) would be brought to a standstill due to the lack of the specialized

Engineering and Technical support that was previously provided by the incumbent. It is not possible to leverage another vendor because of time constraints to get this effort completed by hurricane season. In addition, only the incumbent has the specialized knowledge necessary to integrate the Custom FEMA applications and systems necessary for this effort.

Active Server Log Reporting [OCIO] FEMA's Information Systems Security Officers use specialized software to monitor the use of the Agency's financial and other mission critical systems, as effort that is supported directly by SETA contractors.

SAN Replication Implementation [OCIO] SAN-to-SAN replication is used to replicate virtual machines and their contents between various FEMA IT resources. The loss of Key

Engineering and Technical assistance support resources, who have specialized knowledge of the custom FEMA environment, is hampering efforts to finalize the configuration and assist with the Production implementation.

As shown in the previous list of applications, the critical knowledge of FEMA Custom applications achieved by the incumbent vendor, combined with the impact that an extended loss of support would have on the Life Cycle Support and sustainment of those custom applications, limits FEMA to only one possible source of engineering services at this time.

The loss of those services will prevent FEMA from providing support to disaster victims, place critical systems and services at risk, and likely cause the loss of critical agency data. In addition, FEMA cannot sustain lengthy outages when approaching hurricane season. The

Recovery Directorate is committed to the virtualization of machines and implementing disaster recovery sites for applications, the interruption of which jeopardizes the IA programs and puts the Agency at risk of being unable to respond to survivors’ needs.

7. Actions taken to removal of barriers to competition and fair opportunity. FEMA is actively working to retire legacy custom applications and to develop new applications which fit more closely to a standard design and configuration. However, due to the large number of custom applications that FEMA supports (well over 150) this migration/upgrade is taking a great deal of time and effort. This is compounded by the requirement to support existing custom applications while at the same time, working to migrate legacy data into new systems and applications. As shown above, much of the Systems Engineering and Technical

Assistance support the incumbent is providing is directly related to the migration of systems to more robust and standardized applications and environments in geographically disparate data centers in order to provide the highest possible availability and performance. As FEMA

IT moves towards a more industry-standardized implementation, barriers to competition and vendor transition will be fewer in number.

PART II

1. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable and listing of the sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition. A notice will be publicized as required by FAR

16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D).

2. Market Research. X□ Additional or no additional market research was conducted to determine potential sources because/or the results were:

Market research was be conducted to determine if another vendor could provide equivalent services and it was determined that the vendor’s prices were competitive with other vendors.

It should be noted that the particular services required of the incumbent are of a specialized nature that requires an in-depth understanding of the custom applications and infrastructure.

As no other contractor has worked in the FEMA environment with these custom applications, it is unreasonable to conclude that any other vendor would be able to provide the specialized

Systems Engineering and Technical Support services that the incumbent provides in the current limited timeframe provided for a potential transition absent significant cost and risk to the government.

3. Determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. I have determined that the anticipated price(s) will be fair and reasonable.

Based on the estimated acquisition value identified above, I concur with and approve the above justification:

TECHNICAL / REQUIREMENTS PERSONNEL JUSTIFICATION: I certify that the above assertions are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge.

Gary C. Baldanza Date

Contracting Officer’s Representative

CONTRACTING OFFICER’S CERTIFICATION: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of the contracting officer’s knowledge and belief.

Michelle Calhoun, Contracting Officer Date

Acquisition Operations Division

Information Technology Branch

9/2/15 mcalhoun Typewritten Text September 2, 2015

REVIEW FOR LEGAL SUFFICIENCY:

Jeffrey D. Webb, Attorney Date Office of Chief Counsel

11) REVIEW FOR APPROVAL:

David MacKendrick Date Competition Advocate