P03 - J_A_Cisco.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 1701 Directors Blvd

Austin, TX 78744

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 Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Cisco Telephone hardware and associated hardware and software.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Information and Technology, IT Operations and Services (ITOPS) Unified Communications Infrastructure Support (UCIS) section has a requirement to procure Cisco Brand Name Telephone Hardware for operations related to COVID. The requirement includes 16 Cisco Voice Routers and 5000 Cisco phones and all associated hardware and software enabling setup of 16 small clinics as needed to support VA facilities across the country. The equipment is to be delivered to the Landover warehouse in Landover, MD. The delivery period will be 30 days ARO. The total estimated price for the proposed action is .

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.

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: Based on market research, as described in paragraph 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable available for this procurement. Only Cisco Brand Name Model 8841 and 8851 phones can satisfy this requirement.

systems, only Cisco or a reseller can provide the necessary hardware for the expansion of existing equipment in each site to the required Cisco VS currently deployed throughout the VA voice network. All voice system hardware must seamlessly interface via Simple Int order to route local and long distance calling over the VA infrastructure backbone. No other source is capable of providing the required VS functional requirements. Specifically, the sites must be able to connect to and communicate with the Cisco SME, which were deployed regionally over the last few years, to be able to communicate with each other and more than 50 other sites already set up to include one voicemail system, ability to transfer calls and voicemails across sites. Because Cisco operates within its own proprietary constraints, no other brand name products can communicate with the regional Cisco SME and currently fielded

COVID 19 Cisco Voice Contact Center Hardware VA-21-00022071 devices as required by VA. No other suite of products is compatible or interoperable with the existing VA Enterprise Voice Network, which consists of several Cisco Unified Call Manager (CUCM) clusters. Procuring and using brand name Cisco Voice Routers and Models 8841 and 8851 phones will ensure proper integration with any existing CUCM cluster across the enterprise. Also, the VA has an enterprise licensing agreement with Cisco which allows the addition of these phones without the need to re-negotiate licensing. Therefore, only Cisco or a reseller can provide the necessary products for the expansion of the existing CUCM currently deployed throughout the

Further no other source can provide the required VoIP ha Voice System needs, would require multiple support costs if the Cisco hardware and software were abandoned in favor a different product. The compatibility and interoperability issues would prove insurmountable and impractical from a technical and operational standpoint, since it would require VA to purchase an entirely new Voice System rather than expand on the existing infrastructure.

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 authorized resellers. 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.

Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the SAM Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

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:

in December 2020 by reviewing similar hardware products to ascertain if other brands experts conducted web based research and discovered that while other VoIP hardware from alternative manufacturers such as Blackbox and Brocade exist, they cannot meet hardware that can connect with the Voice System currently in place. Therefore, there is no other hardware available in the marketplace that can meet this requirement. In addition, VA networking Subject Matter Experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other brand name hardware is available. Based on all these the Cisco brand name hardware can meet all

The Contract Specialist (CS) conducted market research in December 2020 by using the NASA SEWP V GWAC market research tools to determine what vendors can meet