P03 JA Gigamon_Redacted.pdf

Control Number VA-26-00009416

Gigamon Hardware Maintenance

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 (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 procurement of brand name Gigamon hardware maintenance and technical support.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information and Technology (OIT), IT Operations and Services, Infrastructure Operations (IO) has a requirement for brand name Gigamon hardware maintenance and technical support. The support shall be conducted 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. 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 maintenance is required to ensure the hardware remains operational. The proposed action is for hardware maintenance and technical support services only. No hardware will be procured or renewed via this action. However, replacement of equipment/components, as part of the maintenance process might be necessary. The period of performance of the proposed DO shall be 12-month from the date of award.

The total estimated value of 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.

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 justification, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for brand name Gigamon hardware maintenance and technical support. The current IO infrastructure consists of Gigamon hardware. VA requires support compatible with the existing VA owned, infrastructure protocols and functionality for continued operational availability. The existing VA owned Gigamon devices and products used in the current infrastructure, which consists of approximately

250 sites and interconnected with five IO data centers, only integrate with other

Gigamon devices. Specifically, both the administrative control interface which controls the network visibility fabric and the physical device interfaces for clustering and load balancing are proprietary and only Gigamon devices can integrate into the existing

Gigamon infrastructure. Only Gigamon or a reseller can provide the necessary hardware maintenance because the network visibility/port aggregation/filtering hardware solutions from other vendors will not integrate with the existing IO Gigamon infrastructure, nor do alternative vendors have access to the underlying proprietary firmware code needed to properly configure the hardware or provide upgrades or updates. Due to these proprietary constraints, use of any alternative hardware maintenance and technical support would require these sites to replace the existing

Gigamon infrastructure in place. Additionally, it would also require duplicative use of VA resources for maintenance, engineering, management transition, and training for implementation. Based on previous acquisition history, VA estimates that implementation would also require a minimum of 24 months for VA engineering design, testing, procedure development, and implementation that would be required for a new product including individual site coordination plus the transition time after. In addition, a prior implementation of Gigamon hardware already exists in IO. VA estimates the duplicative cost associated with replacement of the existing Gigamon infrastructure, inclusive of training efforts and travel time would be approximately $20 million. These estimated duplicative costs would not be recovered through competition.

. No other hardware maintenance is compatible with or interoperable with the existing

Gigamon hardware. The proprietary hardware restricts other non-Gigamon products from interoperating with Gigamon central management and licensing. In addition, only

Gigamon, or a reseller, can provide the required firmware updates since access to

Gigamon’s proprietary code is required to ensure all the services provided are properly configured. Further, even if another brand of hardware and software maintenance and technical support existed that could integrate with existing Gigamon infrastructure, utilization of another brand of hardware and software maintenance and technical support may jeopardize existing warranties in place with the hardware.

Failure to acquire Gigamon maintenance and technical support would leave VA with inhibited ability to perform its security mission, reducing the agencies capability to monitor and identify potential threats. Only brand name Gigamon will meet the requirements to integrate and interoperate with the existing Gigamon-based 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 viable among resellers for this brand name maintenance and technical support. 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 Federal 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: Government technical subject matter experts (SMEs) conducted web-based market research in July 2025 to ascertain if there are viable sources who could provide the hardware maintenance and technical support that could meet VA’s requirements. VA SMEs compared hardware maintenance and technical support from various vendors such as CommView and Solar Winds Netflow, who have similar offerings and determined that none of these products have access to the proprietary source code required to maintain the existing VA owned Gigamon infrastructure. No other manufacturer has the capability of developing and issuing hardware maintenance for Gigamon to support existing infrastructure. The products researched were unable to meet the functional requirements, integration with existing installed hardware, and hardware maintenance requirements. Based on the above market research, these other similar solutions are not able to provide the required hardware maintenance and technical support for VAs existing infrastructure.

Additionally, market research was conducted in August 2025 through the use of the Provider Lookup Tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC web site to determine whether the brand name Gigamon is available from NASA SEWP V GWAC Contract holders. It was determined that are several approved Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) resellers of the brand name Gigamon that hold current GWACs.

Therefore, limited competition is expected among SDVOSBs for this proposed action.

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 NASA SEWP GWAC prices already being determined to be fair and reasonable.

Additional price competition is expected among resellers for this action. Additionally, price discounts will be sought.

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of Gigamon hardware maintenance and technical support 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.