JA18-123_DCS_JA_-Final.pdf

LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION & APPROVAL (J&A)

FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PART 8 ACQUISITIONS

Multiple Award Schedule (MAS)/Multiple Award Contract

Orders under MAS/General Services Administration Schedules (GSA)/Federal Supply Schedules

(FSS) FAR 8.405-6

Purchase Request Number: XXXXX

Contract Number: GS-35F316BA

Task/Delivery Order Number: HC1047-17-F-0001

Procurement Title: Defense Collaboration Services (DCS) Development and Operational

Support

Estimated Value: $XXXXX

Limited Source Authority: FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C)

LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

J&A Number: JA18-123

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as Procuring Activity Competition Advocate, hereby approve this limited source justification in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C).

The acquisition referenced herein is conducted under the authority of the Multiple Award

Schedule Program.

1. REQUIRING AGENCY AND CONTRACTING OFFICE:

Requesting Agency:

DISA/Development and Business Center (DBC)/Enterprise Services Portfolio (SD3)

P.O. Box 549

Ft. Meade, MD 20755-0549

Contracting Activity:

DISA/Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO)/ PL62

P.O. Box 549

Ft. Meade, MD 20755-0549

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S):

The purpose of this action is to modify the Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Task Order (TO) HC1047-17-

F-0001 for DCS support services. The current DCS support contract provides engineering, architecture, development, testing, cybersecurity and sustainment for the applications and infrastructures on NIPRNet and SIPRNet. The contractor is Soliel LLC. 1921 Gallows Road, Suite 120, Vienna VA, 22182. This modification will utilize Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funding. The modification impacts Option Year 2 of the Task Order, which has a period of performance of 8 May 2018 through 7 May 2019. The total cost of the task order is estimated to increase by $XXXXX.

Defense Collaboration Services (DCS) Development and Operational Support-JA18-123

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In order to meet the aggressive timeline for the critical tasks discussed below, the existing DCS

Development and Operations Support contract must be modified in the interest of economy and efficiency as a logical follow on to the existing order.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES:

This modification will add two critical tasks integral to the DCS program to continue to provide the enterprise collaborative services to four million users in the Department of Defense.

The first task will enable an expedient transition of DCS from the MilCloud 1.0 hosting environment to MilCloud 2.0. This task is required in order to meet the Director, DISA Services

Development Directorate (SD) mandate to move all SD cloud-ready applications to MilCloud

2.0 by 1 October 2018.

New Infrastructure Migration Support - (Contractor-Site with Ad-hoc Government site access) The task objective is to provide technical support to complete DCS migrations to new hosting infrastructures. The contractor shall provide technical support to assess, evaluate, engineer, architect, integrate, test, and implement DCS into new hosting infrastructures. The contractor shall provide cybersecurity support to obtain IA approvals, manage and mitigate the risks in the new infrastructure.

a. The contractor shall provide engineering support to complete the DCS MilCloud 2.0 cloud hosting infrastructure migration. The engineering support consists of engineering, integration, and implementation to the MilCloud 2.0 environment.

b. The contractor shall complete the testing for the MilCloud 2.0 infrastructure to successfully transition to the MilCloud 2.0 environment.

c. The contractor shall provide cybersecurity support to obtain IA approval for the

MilCloud 2.0 transition. The contractor shall coordinate with engineering, PMO cybersecurity, and RME team to support cybersecurity documentation, approval process, and management.

The second task will enable transition of DCS from Adobe Flash to HTML5. Currently DCS runs on Adobe Flash; however, browsers will no longer support Adobe Flash by year 2020. DCS must have a version developed in 2018 that is HTML5 capable in order to pilot and test in 2019 and deploy prior to 2020.

Technology Refresh Support - (Contractor-Site with Ad-hoc Government site access)

The task objective is to provide technology refresh support. The contractor shall provide technical support engineer, integrate, test, and deliver technology refresh updates to DCS. The contractor shall deliver open source software components that can be integrated with DoD requirements for deployment. The technical support will include DCS web conference and

XMPP chat services that improve the DCS service.

a. The contractor shall provide engineering and integration support to deliver HTML5.

This required tech refresh will replace Adobe Flash with a full HTML5 capable DCS service. The browser support for Adobe Flash ends in 2020 and DCS will not be accessible after 2020.

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4. IDENTIFICATION OF LIMITED SOURCE AUTHORITY AND DEMONSTRATION OF

CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS:

Circumstances Justifying Limiting the Source.

(a) Exception to Fair Opportunity. The following exception apply to exception to fair opportunity accomplished IAW FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C).

(1) In the interest of economy and efficiency, the new work is a logical follow-on to an original Federal Supply Schedule order provided that the original order was placed in accordance with the applicable Federal Supply Schedule ordering procedures. The original order or BPA must not have been previously issued under sole-source or limited-sources procedures.

(b) Description of the Justification.

The modification to incorporate the MilCloud 2.0 and the HTML 5 tasks is in the interest of economy and efficiency and is a logical follow-on to the existing DCS contract being performed by Soliel. By adding the tasks to the Soliel TO, the Government avoids the duplication of costs for Program Management, Network Engineering and Testing

Engineering support services. Based on the application sustainment cost associated with that learning curve, the Government would incur approximately $XXXXX in duplication costs if this effort were competed and awarded to another vendor. In addition, delays association with transitioning to a new vendor and the learning curve for the new vendor would impose severe schedule risk to meeting the stated deadline.

The current prime contractor, Soliel, and its subcontractors have the expertise and knowledge to deliver the two tasks in a most optimal manner in terms of timeliness and cost. The modification enables the government to meet the DISA Services Development Directorate

(SD) mandate to transition cloud-ready applications from MilCloud 1.0 to 2.0 by 1 October

2018. In addition, the modification will allow expedient delivery of HTML5 to DCS to facilitate timely transition from Adobe Flash, and thus providing uninterrupted service to four million DoD users.

Transition to MilCloud 2.0.

The DoD CIO and DoD Chief Management Officer issued a joint memorandum, “Fourth

Estate Information Technology Optimization”, dated April 27, 2018, in which they called on DoD Fourth Estate to consolidate common information technology services. Part of this optimization will include transition of Fourth Estate cloud-ready applications to the newly established MilCloud 2.0. VADM Nancy Norton, DISA Director, requested DISA organizations complete transition of all cloud ready applications to MilCloud 2.0 as soon as possible so DISA could capture lessons learned, and prepare for the rest of the Fourth

Estate to transition to MilCloud 2.0. In preparation, Mr. Terry Carpenter, Director of

DISA Services Development Directorate (SD) directed all cloud ready applications transition to MilCloud 2.0 by October 1, 2018. In addition, the MilCloud 2.0 environment leverages latest cloud technologies in scalability and elasticity, there will be immediate infrastructure cost savings and operational efficiencies upon transition

Page 4 of 8 Pages completion. As the DCS PMO hosting cost savings are realized, the DCS PMO can share the funding with other critical programs within DISA to expedite or deliver new features for our warfighters.

HTML5.

A version of HTML5 capability in DCS must be developed in 2018, followed by testing and deployment before phasing out of Adobe Flash on all commercial web browsers.

The DCS service will increasingly become inaccessible as commercial browsers are already starting to phase out support for Adobe Flash. Only the existing contractor has a

Department of State issued Technical Assistance Agreement (TAA) with the Canadian subcontractor, Blindside, in order to complete the necessary work required of this modification. Blindside side has no TAA with any other U.S. entity; therefore, any contractor other than Soliel would require 6-9 months after contract award to complete the TAA process with the Department of State. A fully HTML5 capable DCS must be delivered in 2018 in order to pilot and test the solution in 2019 and deploy prior to 2020.

This modification is a logical follow-on to the work originally placed on this development and operations support contract and will enable an uninterrupted delivery of the DCS capability to DoD. Awarding a new contract(s) to cover this support would not be efficient or economical as the prime contractor, Soliel, and their subcontractors have accumulated DoD infrastructure and application expertise and knowledge over the life of the DCS program. It is not feasible to meet the MilCloud 2.0 transition deadline by 1

October, 2018 and develop the HTML5 capable DCS application by 31 December 2018 with a new contractor. The most efficient means to complete the MilCloud 2.0 transition and HTML5 upgrade is through modification of the existing contract.

(c) Justification:

(1) Minimum Government requirements.

The minimum requirement is to assess, evaluate, engineer, architect, integrate, test, and implement DCS efforts in the following areas:

MilCloud 2.0 Transition

HTML5 Upgrade

(2) Proposed sole source contractor.

Soliel and its subcontractors have provided full support for DCS since 2016, and has the knowledge, experience and expertise to complete the required tasks in the most advantageous manner in terms of time and cost for the government. Soliel has unique knowledge of the existing code base, a highly competent technical team, an established relationship with the open source code developer community, and ready regulatory approval for the Technical Assistance Agreement Approval (TAA). To meet the

Government’s development requirement and deadlines, Soliel is the only vendor with the needed knowledge base, technical expertise, and assurance to deliver the requirements.

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(3) Discussion regarding cause of the limited source situation.

Emerging technologies and new user requirements are unforeseen and unannounced, both are completely independent of and outside of the DCS PMO control. Such technology and user requirement changes were not present at the time of the original DCS RFP.

Competition for this requirement is possible; however, the existing contract was intended to provide full DCS operations and sustainment support. The tasks in this modification cannot be effectively competed, new contractor brought up to speed, TAA regulatory requirement, and tasks performed within the needed Government timeline.

(4) Demonstration of limited source.

It would take another contractor at least 12 to 18 (6-9 months of acquisition, and 6-9 months of learning curve) to acquire the knowledge and skills to perform the DCS code development and integration at the same level; and secure the open source base code. The incumbent has requisite knowledge to maintain the current code base. In order to be competitive, a new contractor would also have to get regulatory approval for a TAA by the US Department of State to secure technical support from the open source community.

This is a lengthy process that can take up to a year.

(5) Procurement discussion.

The Director, DISA SD, mandated that DISA must migrate DCS from MilCloud

1.0 to MilCloud 2.0 by 1 October, 2018. In addition, HTML5 must be delivered by 31 December, 2018. Only the current contractor is positioned to efficiently and effectively deliver the requirements to meet timeline and budget constraints.

The current contract was competitively awarded to Soleil.

(6) Impact.

If DCS Mil 2.0 transition is not completed, DCS PMO fails to meet the Director, DISA

SD, directive. The MilCloud 2.0 team requires the lessons learned from transitioning

DISA applications in order to prepare for the larger DoD Fourth Estate transition.

Without this “DISA First” push, DISA’s reputation could be tarnished if DISA fails to utilize its own Mil 2.0 hosting infrastructure for enterprise services. Also, there will be higher infrastructure costs for the DCS PMO in Mil 1.0 as the DCS PMO continues to pay for duplicative hosting costs. If the HTML5 capability is not delivered, the DCS functionality and access will be lost. Without DCS, DoD will not have an enterprise collaborative service to conduct routine collaboration meetings, which, in turn, could require increased DoD travel and associated costs. This will result in unacceptable mission impacts to warfighters at COCOMs, Services, Agencies and other DoD Mission

Partners that rely on DCS on NIPRNet and SIPRNet for mission collaboration and communication on daily basis. There are over 500,000 users who have accessed DCS within the last six months. DCS routinely serves 35,000 web conference users weekly and 18,000 concurrent chat user daily, there will be a significant impact to collaboration and work flow productivity.

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5. COST/PRICE FAIR AND REASONABLE DETERMINATION:

The Contracting Officer will obtain certified cost or pricing data, in accordance with Federal

Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.403-4 and will use this information to determine fair and reasonableness. After completion of negotiations, a Certificate of Current Cost or pricing Data will be obtained.

6. MARKET RESEARCH:

Market research conducted in June 2018 concluded that there are multiple commercial contractors, including multiple small businesses, that could potentially provide the development and operations support needed to deliver the DCS service to the DoD. A search of GSA Advantage Services, for the term “collaboration services” provided 13 relevant contractors with catalogs for information technology collaboration services, with eight small business. This indicates competition would still exist for DCS development and operations support. However, research showed that only companies registered as the exporter of ITAR-controlled technical data or defense services can obtain a TAA and only Soliel has the Technical Assistance Agreement (TAA) with the Canadian subcontractor, Blindside at this time. Market research proved that no other contractor could meet the aggressive timelines required for the work under this modification.

Other contractors can potentially develop and sustain the DCS service, but cannot meet the urgent deadlines for Mil 2.0 and HTML5 due to lack of expertise, experience and knowledge of DCS solution. Although any contractor can learn and develop the open source software, knowledge and expertise of the DCS service can only be gained with years of experience. Since 2014, Blindside and

Soliel subcontractor Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) have worked together to deliver the DCS capability and have the expertise, experience, and knowledge to efficiently and proficiently deliver the capabilities and provide the best opportunity to meet government requirements in time and solution. Blindside is an industry leader in utilizing open source components (NGINX, RED5, REDIS, and Free Switch) to deliver the web conferencing and instant messaging services. It has taken Blindside several years to gain an insight on DoD requirements in terms of features, capabilities and security. Equally as important is the expertise and knowledge accrued by Soliel subcontractor BAH in working with Blindside to receive the BigBlueButton software and integrate the DoD requirements into the Core software to be compliant for DoD deployment. Blindside delivers the functioning collaborative software and BAH has to develop, integrate, and modify the features, capabilities, and security components for DoD Deployment. These modifications include public key infrastructure, rights management, and feature modifications as requested by the government. The open source software is not proprietary, but the knowledge and expertise with open source software and DoD requirements takes a long time to accrue. Initially, the DCS software is

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), but DCS solution deployed in the DoD network is Government off-the-shelf which is proprietary in nature. Blindside and BAH have the expertise and knowledge with this proprietary DCS software solution and provides the most realistic opportunity to meet government requirements in a timely and cost effective manner. It may take another contractor at least one to two years to accrue the expertise and knowledge to deliver DCS capability. No other contractor can meet the urgent deadlines of Mil 2.0 and HTML5 without negatively impacting government requirements and customer service.

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7. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS:

None

8. ACTIONS THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE BARRIERS THAT LED TO THE

RESTRICTED CONSIDERATION:

The following actions are proposed to remove barrier to full and open competition. This effort is a one-time short-term effort that will not be included in the next option period. However, while this work is being completed, the DCS PMO will conduct market research to further assess the availability of companies who possess TAAs and can perform the requirements. If companies with TAAs are identified that can perform the requirement a competitive requirement will be issued before the last option for this contract is exercised.

9. REFERENCE TO THE APPROVED ACQUISITION PLAN (AP):

In accordance with DARS 7.103, a written acquisition plan is not required for this acquisition as it is less the $50,000,000.

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TECHNICAL CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: Yong Shin SIGNATURE: See separate PDF

TITLE/ORGANIZATION:

PHONE: DATE:

REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: Mark Youmans SIGNATURE: See separate PDF

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: SIGNATURE: See separate PDF

PROCURING ACTIVITY COMPETITION ADVOCATE APPROVAL: I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Since this justification does not exceed $XXXXX, this review serves as approval and my written determination that the aforementioned FAR circumstances apply.

NAME: SIGNATURE: See separate PDF

ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS JUSTIFICATION ARE TO BE REFERRED TO Silvia

Molinillo-Corral, 301-225-4092 or silvia.molinillo-corral.civ@mail.mil.

mailto:silvia.molinillo-corral.civ@mail.mil