JA template - FAR 16.5 - MicroStrategy Follow- JB1 03122025-JB-S_Redacted.pdf

MicroStrategy Annual Software Maintenance Control Number VA-25-00048012

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 delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP), Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name MicroStrategy software maintenance and support for existing MicroStrategy perpetual software licenses.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Acquisition & Logistics (OAL) requires the acquisition of software maintenance and support for the existing MicroStrategy perpetual software licenses. OAL currently utilizes MicroStrategy, a Business Intelligence (BI) enterprise-reporting, dashboard, and On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) software tool in its Electronic Contract Management System (eCMS). These reports are utilized to manage and communicate VA contracting and budgeting activities. The MicroStrategy software toolset allows reporting and analysis of data stored in a relational database, multi-dimensional database or flat data file. This software helps understand and make sense of the data collected in order to make more strategic business decisions. The software maintenance support will provide VA with the most current release of the application and software patches, along with access to the MicroStrategy technical help desk. MicroStrategy’s software is a component of VA eCMS.

The proposed period of performance is for a 12-month base period and one 6-month option period. The total estimated price of this proposed action is , inclusive of the one option period.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (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.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on extensive market research, as described in Section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers. MicroStrategy is the developer of the MicroStrategy software and is the sole licensor of software and software maintenance support. Due to the proprietary nature of the software, there are no other compatible software or support services that meet the requirements that can support VA’s owned perpetual licenses or satisfy the Governments’ needs. VA currently has all integrated and configured reports completed in MicroStrategy software, and due to the proprietary nature of that software, only MicroStrategy licenses can distribute the reports to the required VA staff. Therefore, only MicroStrategy software can meet the Government’s requirements. MicroStrategy is currently the only software integrated with VA’s contract writing software and contracting processes. Integrating any alternative software to distribute these reports is estimated to take 12 to 18 months and cost approximately . This estimated duplicative cost and time is based on previous efforts of similar size and scope to integrate, configure, and deploy modules and reporting systems to VA contracting systems. Specifically, this integration would involve the contractor developing a programing interface with VA contract writing systems as well as configuring and cleansing data values and formatting reports for VA contracting personnel with different missions and different reporting needs. This requires a significant amount of integration work, coordination, and integration with multiple VA databases. Replacing this would require VA to run multiple reporting systems for at least 12-months which would result in approximately in additional duplicate costs, to run redundant licenses. Currently VA owns MicroStrategy Server licenses and replacement of these Licenses would cost an additional estimated to acquire new perpetual licenses for a total of in duplicated costs. These estimates of additional duplicative costs are based on previous acquisition history and would not be recovered through competition. It is critical to the mission of OAL that MicroStrategy software maintenance support continues, without these additional licenses thousands of users would fail to receive this report and critical data it provides for acquisitions. Due to the criticality of the functionality provided by MicroStrategy software, VA simply cannot afford a lapse in support. Failure to obtain the aforementioned software maintenance support or the downtime that would be necessary to pivot to any alternative vendor solution would have a significantly negative impact on the ability of OAL’s management to monitor and report on VA’s procurements, which could result in missed procurement deadlines, duplicated procurement efforts, failure to properly fund VA procurements. This, in turn, would lead to failure to properly and efficiently acquire the goods and services required by VA and would cause harm to Veterans who rely on these goods and services.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, the details of which are in the market research section of this document. 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 of the required MicroStrategy perpetual software license and maintenance and support. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), the contract award will be synopsized on the Federal Contract Opportunities SAM.GOV Page within 14 days of award and the Justification well be made publicly available. The Justification will also be posted with the Request for Quote on the NASA SEWP web site.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for the requirements described herein, the Government will continue to conduct market research to determine if there are any products or services available that will enable future requirements to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research in January 2025 by reviewing the websites for other similar software. Specifically, VA technical experts reviewed alternative software including those from Microsoft Power BI, Distributed Solutions Incorporated’s reporting module, Tableau, SAP Crystal Reports and Qlik Sense. Though these reporting software suites provide similar software and services, none are currently integrated with VA’s existing contract management system or processes. Additionally, use of any alternative vendor would result in a substantial duplication of cost and time as outlined in Section 5 of this justification. Further, due to the proprietary nature of the VA owned perpetual licenses, no other vendor can provide the maintenance on the MicroStrategy software as MicroStrategy is owner of the software and will not allow anyone other than an authorized reseller of its services access to modify its software code.

Additional market research was conducted to determine if limited competition is available among resellers. The NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tools was also utilized on January 10, 2025, to search for MicroStrategy resellers. In Group A, seven

(7) resellers were found and within Groups B, C, and D a total of 49 resellers were found. Furthermore, NASA SEWP V GWAC has a dynamic catalog where line items can be added based on customer requests; therefore, as long as the required item or service is within scope of the NASA SEWP V contracts, items and services can be added to the catalog.

9. Other Facts: None.

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

Name Date: ________________________________

Title Signature: ____________________________

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 on anticipated competition. Additionally, NASA SEWP V GWAC has already determined the prices on contract to be fair and reasonable. Finally, the successful quote will be compared to the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

Matthew Newell Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

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

Matthew Newell Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

ELLEN SWINTON Digitally signed by ELLEN SWINTON Date: 2025.03.12 16:09:30 -04'00'

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of the proposed action for MicroStrategy perpetual software license, maintenance and support on another 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.

Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Jason Bullen Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics

JASON BULLEN

Digitally signed by JASON

BULLEN

Date: 2025.03.12 16:24:23 -04'00'