NNG15SD22B-201.pdf

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-priced delivery order under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Cisco and brand name NetApp FlexPod Converged Virtualization Infrastructure (CVI) components with configuration and maintenance.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology, IT Operations and Services (ITOPS), Solution Delivery (SD), Endpoint Engineering has a requirement to procure various brand name Cisco and brand name NetApp FlexPod CVI components with configuration and maintenance to support a technology upgrade at the Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) gateways located in Chicago, IL, Dallas, TX, San Jose, CA, and Sterling, VA. The FlexPod CVI is a complete solution designed by Cisco and NetApp that consists of only Cisco and NetApp hardware and software. This effort will add two Cisco chassis, blade servers and a single NetApp storage shelf, allowing ITOPS SD to provide increased performance and system availability in supporting emergency Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) efforts, and will move to the most current version of the virtualization technology into redundant High Available systems capable of fault tolerance that are compliant with contingency planning regulations to include hot standby and virtual machine recovery processes. This allows for coverage in the event that VA experieces a systems outage. In the event of an outage of a chassis, another chassis would be available to prevent the Telehealth system from going down. In addition, this allows VA to accommodate the increasing demand and need of Telehealth as a result of shelter in place and quarantine as a result of COVID-19 to our nation’s Veterans which has increased exponentially from 325,000 minutes per day to 1.3 million minutes per day and increasing. NetApp maintenance consists of remote assistance, patches, bug fixes, minor and major software upgrades, and replacement parts. Delivery and remote configuration of the CVI components are required within 30 days after receipt of order. The warranty/maintenance support for the Cisco portion of the FlexPod Solution shall be provided under the existing VA Cisco Enterprise wide maintenance contract while the NetApp warranty/maintenance support shall be provided by the contractor under this order.

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”.

COVID-19 Telehealth Infrastructure Support, Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition among authorized resellers is available for the required Cisco and NetApp CVI components, configuration, and maintenance. This procurement is for additional FlexPod CVI components that will allow VA to upgrade its existing storage infrastructure to virtualize storage and computer space. The current infrastructure at each data center consists of only Cisco servers and NetApp data storage systems, and associated software and firmware. VA is not replacing the existing infrastructure, but rather augmenting it with additional CVI components to provide increased performance and system availability in support of current COVID-19 Telehealth provider/Veteran workloads. This will expand current Telehealth video call capacities within VA’s care.va.gov environment due to increased capacity related to COVID-19. The additional CVI components must be fully compatible with existing infrastructure within the data centers and storage facilities in both TIC Gateway facilities, to ensure full interoperability and compatibility within each site and between the sites to allow for the transfer of data. No other brand virtualization hardware and software is interoperable or compatible with the existing infrastructure at the Chicago, Dallas, San Jose and Sterling facilities due to proprietary constraints. Only Cisco and NetApp CVI components can be integrated into the existing environment to ensure compatibility and interoperability with the existing systems. Furthermore, VA requires one source to provide the integrated set of CVI components due to the interactivity of both brands working together as part of the FlexPod CVI proprietary design. Failure to utilize one source to provide the Cisco and NetApp items and services will result in configuration and installation issues since these efforts must be done at the same time to ensure full interoperability and compatibility. Additionally, since these items ship to unmanned data centers, Government employees need to travel to the sites for installation. Utilizing more than one source creates a large amount of risk that coordinated delivery and installation can occur in a timely manner. Given VAs requirement to provide increased performance and system availability in supporting emergency Corona Virus Disease 2019 efforts, the risk is unacceptable.

Remote configuration and maintenance support of the CVI components is also required to ensure the FlexPod CVI continues to run efficiently. Due to the proprietary nature of the FlexPod CVI, only Cisco or NetApp and its authorized resellers can provide the required configuration services, license keys and maintenance support for the products to operate. Cisco or NetApp, or its authorized resellers are the only sources available that can provide software updates, troubleshooting, patches, and version releases as well as replacement parts and remediation services for the hardware and software components of the CVI. Other manufacturers do not have the proprietary source code or replacement parts necessary to provide the required maintenance. Maintenance performed by parties not authorized by Cisco or NetApp invalidate product warranties and remove liability for performance of the CVI from the manufacturers for any new and existing VA infrastructure.

In the event the brand name Cisco and brand name NetApp FlexPod CVI components are not procured, the current infrastructure’s performance and system availability will not be able to support the increased Veteran use of Telehealth. Failure to do so will jeopardize the medical care of our nation’s Veterans.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section eight of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that could meet the Government’s technical requirements. It has been determined however that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for the brand name requirements. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), the resulting contract award will be synopsized at award on the Contracting Opportunities webpage and this Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity will be posted on the NASA SEWP V website with the solicitation.

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: VA’s technical experts conducted market research in March 2020 to ascertain if any other source other brand CVI components could be integrated within the existing environment to meet VA’s needs other than Cisco or NetApp. Specifically, products from other similar server and data storage manufacturers such as EMC Corporation, International Business Machines, Hewlett Packard and Dell were reviewed.

None of these other virtualization components were found to be interoperable or compatible with the existing infrastructure. Only the FlexPod CVI components, which are part of a proprietary solution consisting of only NetApp and Cisco hardware and software, will ensure compatibility and interoperability with the existing storage environment at Dallas, San Jose, Sterling and Chicago. Any other brand name storage infrastructure components will jeopardize ITOP SD’s ability to effectively virtualize storage and computer space at these locations. Similarly, while other vendors possess general capabilities needed to provide similar maintenance services, no other source was found to meet VA’s needs due to the proprietary source code specific to the maintenance support for these particular CVI components. VA technical experts concluded that unauthorized providers such as EMC Corporation, International Business Machines, Hewlett Packard or Dell do not have access to the proprietary data, source codes, and protocols, and proprietary hardware for the FlexPod CVI, making use of non-authorized vendors to provide support could potentially result in VA obtaining “gray market or “black market” goods; therefore, increasing security risks for VA overall.

Additionally, in March 2020, additional market research was conducted research by using the Provider Look Up Tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website. The tool revealed multiple authorized resellers of Cisco and NetApp products, including multiple verified service-disabled Veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) resellers in Group B2. Therefore, based on the results of the market research, there is reasonable expectation that limited competition exists among verified SDVOSB contract holders in Group B (2) of the NASA SEWP GWAC.

9. Other Facts: N/A