Justification and Approval Redacted.pdf

Control Number: VA-20-00031656

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) Government wide Acquisition (GWAC) for the renewal of brand name JumpMind SymmetricDS annual software subscription.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information & Technology, Enterprise Program Management Office requires renewal of its annual JumpMind SymmetricDS Enterprise software subscription in support of the Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense Identity Repository (VADIR) database. The VADIR database is an electronic repository of military personnel’s military history, payroll information and their dependents’ data provided to VA by the Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) which is the authoritative source for this data. The VADIR database repository is used in conjunction with other applications across VA business lines to provide an electronic consolidated view of comprehensive eligibility and benefits utilization data from across VA and Department of Defense (DoD). VA applications use the VADIR database to retrieve profile data, as well as address, military history, and information on compensation and benefits, disabilities, and dependents. Veterans and their families are supported by VADIR in areas to include registration, homeless care, loan guarantee, separations, 9/11, automated eligibility determination for care, veteran outreach, education and compensation benefits, GI Bill and many others. VADIR serves as a primary data source for enterprise data services for all military history and provides reporting and analysis capability to VA staff offices and multiple lines of businesses. DMDC and VADIR share data using JumpMind SymmetricDS for replication and synchronization. JumpMind SymmetricDS is open source software for database and file synchronization, with support for multi-master replication, filtered synchronization, and transformation. It uses web and database technologies to replicate data changes on a schedule or near real-time. The software scales for a large number of nodes, works across low-bandwidth connections, and withstands periods of network outage across VA. This commercial off-the-shelf product enables replication of DoD Military history from DoD to VADIR for over 25 million records. It manages all data copying, accuracy, data integrity, and tracking, between the authoritative data source at DoD and VADIR. The period of performance will be a 12-month base period with two 12-month option periods.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to

JumpMind SymmetricDS Control Number: VA-20-00031656 fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by 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 JumpMind SymmetricDS software is the only brand name database replication and synchronization solution that has the interoperability and compatibility necessary for VADIR to exchange data with DMDC. DoD has mandated VA use JumpMind SymmetricDS software for VADIR to receive data from DMDC. In order for two-way communication to take place between VADIR and DMDC, the source and target databases both need to utilize the same application and technology for replication and synchronization of shared data. If another solution other than JumpMind SymmetricDS was introduced into VADIR, the system would no longer be able to exchange data with DMDC which would prevent the Veterans Benefits Administration and Veterans Health Administration from receiving veteran military history data updates required for critical benefit determinations, to include registration, homeless care, loan guarantee, separations, 9/11, automated eligibility determination for care, veteran outreach, education and compensation benefits, GI Bill and many others.

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. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among resellers for brand name JumpMind SymmetricDS annual software subscriptions. 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: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research to ascertain the ability of any other source, other than JumpMind SymmetricDS, that could facilitate the sharing of data between DOD’s DMDC database which currently utilizes JumpMind SymmetricDS and VA’s VADIR database. A technical review of JumpMind SymmetricDS technical documentation was performed via internet search.

The review indicated that only the JumpMind SymmetricDS solution can replicate and synchronize data between the DMDC and VADIR databases as both the source database and the target database have to be running the same technology in order to replicate and synchronize data with each other. While other software sources possess general capabilities needed to provide similar services such as Oracle Advanced Replication, no other source was found to meet VA’s needs without limiting interoperability and compatibility. In March 2020, VA technical experts conducted additional market research for software solutions providing similar functionality.

Specifically, VA reviewed software from MarkLogic, BaseX, ClusterPoint, Sonic XML, JumpMind SymmetricDS Control Number: VA-20-00031656

Sedna, eXustDB, and Qizx. These products do not have the interoperability and compatibility necessary for VADIR to share information with the DMDC database.

Based on the market research detailed above, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only the JumpMind SymmetricDS brand name software can meet all of VA’s requirements.

Additional market research was performed by the Contract Specialist in July 2020 to ascertain the extent of limited competition among resellers of the required software subscription renewals. Using the Provider Look-up tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website, one Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) within Group B(2) was identified as a reseller of the required JumpMind SymmetricDS software subscriptions. Considering only one SDVOSB reseller was identified via the NASA SEWP product lookup, additional market research was conducted through email correspondence and direct conversation with JumpMind sales representatives. The additional communication confirmed that JumpMind will allow any additional SDVOSBs to resell its software subscription subject to JumpMind’s internal vetting process to ensure each interested SDVOSB reseller is a capable and responsible business partner. Therefore, limited competition is anticipated among Veterans Information Pages-verified SDVOSB NASA SEWP contract holders in Group B(2).

9. Other Facts: N/A