NNG15SD22B 36C10B20F0309_1.docx

VA-20-00062852

COVID 19 - Visualization and Automation

VA-20-00062852

Contract Opportunity Award Notice

PRODUCT SERVICE CODE

SUBJECT

CONTRACTING OFFICE'S

ZIP-CODE

SOLICITATION NUMBER

BASE NOTICE TYPE

ARCHIVE

DAYS AFTER THE AWARD DATE

RECOVERY ACT FUNDS

NAICS CODE

SET-ASIDE

CONTRACTING OFFICE

ADDRESS

DESCRIPTION

See Attachment

POINT OF CONTACT

(POC Information Automatically Filled from User Profile Unless Entered)

AWARD NUMBER

AWARD AMOUNT

LINE ITEM NUMBER

AWARD DATE (MM-DD-YYYY)

AWARDEE NAME

CONTRACTOR'S DUNS NUMBER

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 1

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 2

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 3

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 4

AWARDEE CITY

AWARDEE STATE

AWARDEE ZIP CODE

AGENCY'S URL

URL DESCRIPTION

AGENCY CONTACT'S EMAIL

ADDRESS

EMAIL DESCRIPTION

AWARD INFORMATION

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

GENERAL INFORMATION

* = Required Field Contract Opportunity Award Notice D318 FY20-COVID 19 - Visualization and Automation 07724 36C10B20Q0538 N 541519 Department of Veterans Affairs Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown NJ 07724 heera.polanco@va.gov kathryn.pantages@va.gov heera.polanco@va.gov 732-795-1074

NNG15SD22B36C10B20F0309

$1,508,400.00 08-21-2020

FOUR POINTS TECHNOLOGY, L.L.C.

089896737

14900 CONFERENCE CENTER DR STE 100

CHANTILLY

VA

20151 heera.polanco@va.gov heera.polanco@va.gov

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics

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) V Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), for the procurement of brand name Edge Technologies software licenses and associated implementation and maintenance services.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information & Technology, Infrastructure Operations, has a requirement for an upgrade to its current Integrated User Interface Visualization solution, Edge Technologies enPortal/appBoard based on Flash video technology, to the latest Edge Technologies product, EdgeCore with Edge Robotic Process Automation based on HTML5. This is an upgrade to an existing Edge Technologies implementation already present in VA. Through procurement of these updated perpetual software licenses, this acquisition will provide additional visualization and integration capabilities, eliminate security vulnerabilities related to Adobe Flash used in the current version, enhance 508 Disability Compliance, and provide new robotic process automation features.

This requirement shall also include associated technical support services for the implementation and the maintenance of the software. The contractor shall provide implementation services to assist the customer with stand up, implementation and product training. The required software maintenance support shall include new version updates, implementation services for the software to include creation of new data connectors, and routine technical support available by phone and email during business hours. The period of performance shall consist of a 12-month base period and two subsequent 12-month option periods for maintenance services. All software licenses will be procured in the base year only. The total estimated value of the proposed action is $ inclusive of the option periods.

4. 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 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: Only Edge Core provides the capability to upgrade the automically and seamlessly upgrade existing Edge Technologies dashboards, while also providing enhanced 508 Compliance and security features. This is an upgrade to existing, installed licenses of Edge Technologies enPortal/appBoard. This upgrade can only be done within the existing brand because the proprietary nature of the software limits use of the existing dashboards to Edge Technologies products. Due to the proprietary nature of the software, other brands cannot access or use the dashboards created by Edge Technologies products and, therefore, the dashboards would need to be completely rebuilt if other products were used. If another brand product was used, this would result in several thousand hours of engineering and conversion work, in addition to the cost of the new product, related training and lost time to learn the new product. Specifically, switching to a new product is estimated to cost at least $6,000,000.00 not including a the loss of time of approximately a year to implement the new product.

No other product could be substituted, however, as EdgeCore provides a unique capability. Only EdgeCore can provide an agnostic visualization layer that integrates data from multiple systems and presents unified, role-based views of critical, relevant information to a variety of operational and executive stakeholders. The term “agnostic” in this context means that it can display real time, live visualizations of data from other products as if it were the native, original product dashboard. At the same time, the EdgeCore solution does not require data to be moved/copied to a separate repository and, instead, uses data in its native location (virtual data federation). This is a requirement due to security issues related to copying sensitive data, the cost of data storage, the labor associated with maintaining the data storage and the time required to copy data to a new location.

Additionally, EdgeCore provides unique data integration features along with robotics process automation/workflow automation capabilities and orchestration of other robotic process automation software. No other product has equivalent functionality or features that can meet the Governments requirements. The combination of the proprietary upgrade, the agnostic visualization layer, the virtual data federation, data integration and its robotic process automation features is unique and only found in the Edge Technologies EdgeCore product. These features meet the Governments requirements and make Edge Technologies EdgeCore product the only product capable of meeting the Government’s needs.

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. It was determined, however, that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for this brand name software and associated technical services. In accordance with FAR 16.5.5(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), notice of award of this action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities website within 14 days of award and this justification will be made publicly available. This justification shall also be posted with the solicitation on the NASA SEWP V website for review by prospective offerors.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the Government will continue to perform market research to determine if there are any new products or maintenance services available in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be fully competed.

8. Market Research: In May 2020, market research was conducted by the Government’s technical experts via internet research and review of industry publications to identify if there are other providers with products capable of providing similar capabilities. This included reviewing technical literature related to several other vendors’ proprietary real time data visualization, integration and automation solutions, conducting catalogue, database, and internet searches, and reviewing Gartner Research White Papers to identify potential other software which could meet the Government’s needs. Government technical representatives reviewed similar brands including Microsoft BI, Splunk, Qlikview, Elastic’s Kibana and other similar platforms. It was determined that no other brand could provide the required automatic upgrade of the existing Edge visualization solutions, or meet the Governments requirements for agnostic visualization layer, virtual data federation, data integration and robotic process automation features. Given that Edge Technologies’ Edge Core product is a proprietary solution, there are no other alternate vendors that can provide the required capabilities.

In July 2020, the Contract Specialist conducted additional market research using the NASA SEWP V Provider Lookup Tool to ascertain the extent of limited competition among resellers of the required Edge Technologies software and associated services. Through the use of the Provider Look-Up Tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website, four Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses were identified as resellers of the required Edge Technologies software and associated services. In addition, NASA SEWP V is a dynamic GWAC in which products can be added on a daily basis to vendor catalogs based on customer requests, as long as the required information technology product is within scope of the NASA SEWP V GWAC. Based on this, it is expected that limited competition between vendors will exist for this acquisition through the NASA SEWP V contract.

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.

Date: ________________________________

Project Manager 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 limited competition. Additionally, NASA SEWP V has already determined the prices on contract to be fair and reasonable and more competitive pricing may result from competition. Finally, the successful quote will be compared with the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

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.

Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of Edge Technologies software and associated implementation and maintenance services on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________

Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics