Justification Brand Name Gigamon_Redacted.pdf

VA-24-00045420

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 award of a firm-fixed price Delivery Order (DO) to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for the renewal of maintenance and technical support for brand name Gigamon hardware.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: VA Office of Information and Technology, Information Technology Operations and Services, Infrastructure Operations (IO) has a requirement for renewal of brand name Gigamon hardware maintenance and technical support for existing deployed. This technical support will be delivered via telephone, e-mail, or internet to troubleshoot malfunctioning equipment/components or provide replacement equipment/components that restore full operation and accessibility to the original redundant component configuration. Initial response to all requests for maintenance shall be initiated within one hour of the initial notification from VA. Additionally, hardware maintenance shall consist of firmware upgrades, updates to include major releases, point releases, service releases and security releases of applicable firmware on a quarterly basis, and/or within 48 hours in cases where a high-risk vulnerability fix becomes available. The renewal of the brand name maintenance is required to ensure the hardware remains operational. The period of performance shall be 12-months with two option periods.

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”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited: Based on market research, as described in section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for this brand name requirement. The current VA IO infrastructure is comprised of existing proprietary brand name Gigamon hardware, for which VA requires support and maintenance that will be seamlessly compatible with the existing infrastructure protocols and functionality for continued operational availability. These existing, in-use, Gigamon devices and products are located at the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) can only interoperate and communicate with other brand name Gigamon devices through proprietary source code. Due to this proprietary nature of this source code and communication protocols, no other brand of hardware maintenance and technical support will be able to deliver compatible and seamlessly interoperable fixes/updates to the current brand name Gigamon infrastructure. Specifically, both the administrative control interface, which controls the network visibility fabric, and the physical device interfaces for clustering and load balancing are proprietary to Gigamon, allowing for the integration into the existing Gigamon infrastructure at AITC. As such, a responsible source for the required hardware maintenance and technical support must have access to the proprietary source code to develop, test and push patches, updates and functionality through the fabric manager that will seamlessly interoperate and communicate with this infrastructure. The fabric manager is essential to supporting this infrastructure as it manages, implements, and allows VA to view the firmware version of the code in use for the current Gigamon infrastructure, and permits detection of any issues there may be with the Gigamon equipment and ancillary software. Introduction of push/patch/update not developed based on the brand name Gigamon source code creates unacceptable risk to the entire environment. Additionally, no other source, other than Gigamon or its authorized reseller has access to this proprietary source code. Without access to the proprietary source code, a vendor cannot test/validate full functionally or how the patch will interact with the rest of the deployed system. For instance, if there was an issue with a patch/update, and it was not seamlessly interoperable, it could create an unknown vulnerability to the entire system that would have otherwise been avoided. Furthermore, a responsible source must be an authorized reseller of the brand name services to have access to replacement parts that are proprietary to Gigamon to meet form, fit, and function of the existing solution.

Due to these proprietary constraints, the use of any alternative vendor maintenance and technical support services will necessitate a complete replacement of the existing Gigamon infrastructure in place. Acquisition of a different product, even if another one existed with qualifications that met VA’s stated functional needs, would require multiple support costs if the Gigamon hardware were abandoned in favor of a different product. Based on previous acquisition history, VA estimates the duplicative cost associated with replacement of the existing Gigamon infrastructure, inclusive of training efforts and travel time would be approximately $3 million. These estimated duplicative costs would not be recovered through competition. This figure does not account for the minimum 24-month time investment needed for VA engineering design, testing, procedure development, and implementation that would be required for a new product. The brand name Gigamon hardware maintenance is the only hardware maintenance that meets the Government’s requirements. No other hardware maintenance is compatible with or interoperable with the existing Gigamon hardware.

Failure to renew the brand name Gigamon maintenance and technical support as proposed would leave VA with inhibited ability to perform its security mission, reducing the agencies capability to monitoring and identifying potential threats.

Only the proposed brand name Gigamon products will meet the requirements to integrate and interoperate with the existing Gigamon-based infrastructure.

Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research paragraph of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. However, it was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for this brand name hardware maintenance. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b) (2)(ii)(D), this action will not be synopsized, and the justification will not be made publicly available on the Contracting Opportunities website as it is under the simplified acquisition threshold. However, the justification will be posted with the solicitation on the NASA SEWP V website.

Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the agency will work with the program office to perform additional market research so that other solutions can be considered.

Market Research: January 2023 and January 2024, Government technical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) conducted web-based market research to ascertain if any other non-proprietary but fully compatible and functional hardware maintenance and technical support is available. VA SMEs compared hardware maintenance and technical support offerings from competitive vendors, such as CommView and Solar Winds Netflow, who provide similar services. It was determined that none of these sources have the necessary access to the proprietary source code required to maintain the existing Gigamon infrastructure.

Further, no other manufacturer or developer has the capability of developing and issuing hardware maintenance that could meet VA’s interoperability and compatibility requirements outlined in paragraph 5 of this document. Only brand name Gigamon hardware maintenance and technical support meets all of the Government’s requirements.

Additional market research was performed in May 2024 by issuing a Request for Information (RFI) on the NASA SEWP Market Research Report. The RFI resulted four (4) Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) resellers of the required Gigamon hardware responding. As a result, there is a reasonable expectation for two or more SDVOSB vendors can meet the requirements. As such, this action will be set aside to SDVOSBs in Groups B1, B2, C and D under NASA

SEWP V GWAC.

9. Other Facts: N/A

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.

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 the comparison of proposed prices received in response to the solicitation.

Additionally, the successful quote will be compared to the NASA SEWP V GWAC published pricelist. NASA V SEWP GWAC prices already being determined to be fair and reasonable. Finally, the successful quote may be compared to the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. As this contract action exceeds $3,500, but does not exceed the simplified acquisition threshold, this document serves as the contracting officer’s basis for using an exception to the fair opportunity process in accordance with FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(A).