PIT JA_Award Notice_Redacted.pdf

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JUSTIFICATION FOR EXCEPTION TO

FAIR OPPORTUNITY OR BRAND NAME

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 16.5 Justification & Approval (J&A)

CSS Tracking Number: 832675104 Funding Document Number: TBD Contract Number: N6600125D0047 Task/Delivery Order Number: TBD Procurement Title: PILOT INTEGRATION TEAM (PIT) – Accelerating to Flank Speed Estimated Value:

Regulatory Authority: FAR 16.507-6(b)(2) - Only one awardee capable because of unique or highly specialized

J&A Exception to Fair Opportunity Number: N/A

1. REQUIRING AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY:

Requiring Agency: Department of the Navy (DON) - Program Executive Office (PEO) Digital / Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) Mission Systems Contracting Activity: Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO): PS8311

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S):

Type of Action: New Contract Type of Contract: FFP

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES:

The requirement will provide specialized Pilot Integration Team (PIT) engineering services to transition critical software products from successful, standalone "pilot" phases into permanent, secure operation within the Navy’s Flank Speed cloud environment, at a total cost of

). This will allow the PIT to meet the agency need of immediate, specialized engineering support to transition successfully piloted software products (such as

) into permanent operation within the Flank Speed Azure (FS-A) environment.

4. IDENTIFICATION OF EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

FAR 16.507-6(b)(2) - Only one awardee capable because of unique or highly specialized

5. DEMONSTRATION THAT THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE

QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE ACQUISITION REQUIRES USE OF THE

EXCEPTION CITED:

J&A: PILOT INTEGRATION TEAM (PIT) – Accelerating to Flank Speed

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UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS:

The cause of this sole-source situation is the profoundly complex, custom-engineered nature of the FS-A environment. Though deemed as “commercial,” FS-A is not a standard commercial Microsoft 365 or Azure tenant. It is a highly customized, Impact Level 5 (IL5) secure enclave that requires integration with a bespoke Zero Trust architecture, unique Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) federations, and custom network routing boundaries within the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN). Only a contractor possessing pre-existing, foundational knowledge of this specific, unique architecture can successfully perform the required pilot integration engineering without causing unacceptable mission delays.

The minimum requirements of the Government are to secure engineering services capable of successfully refactoring, integrating, and deploying selected pilot products into the FS-A environment, culminating in Authorizing Official (AO) approval via the continuous Authorization to Operate (cATO) pipeline. To meet this minimum requirement, the contractor must immediately demonstrate intimate, working knowledge of the Navy's custom Zero Trust frameworks, Entra ID federation dependencies, and specialized container-hardening processes upon task order award.

Innovatus is the only contractor uniquely able to immediately meet the work requirements via MES II SB, or any other contract because they possess unique and highly specialized resident knowledge of the FS-A environment. Pursuant to FAR 16.507-6(b)(2), this Limited Sources Justification is executed to acquire highly specialized Pilot Integration Team (PIT) services directly from Innovatus. As the foundational engineers of the Navy’s production FS-A environment, Innovatus possesses exclusive, hyper-specialized expertise required to seamlessly integrate complex Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) workflows into the Department of Navy (DON) enterprise. Utilizing another vendor on the MES II SB vehicle would cause an unacceptable delay in fulfilling the agency's critical warfighting requirements and ultimately a risk to national security objectives. Further, the time and effort required for another vendor to gain the requisite expertise would result in a substantial duplication of costs that cannot be recovered through competition.

Although the requisite services are defined as “commercial,” the Navy’s FS-A tenant is far removed from a standard commercial cloud deployment; it is a highly customized, Impact Level 5 (IL5) secure enclave governed by rigorous DOW security mandates.

Innovatus engineered the hyper-specific security control overlays, the custom Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) frameworks, and the federated Zero Trust Architectures that currently secure this boundary. Deploying advanced AI at scale within this environment requires bespoke Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) tailored exclusively to the Navy's Risk Management Framework (RMF). Innovatus uniquely developed the container-hardening processes and vulnerability scanning parameters required to achieve Authorizing Official (AO) approval for these advanced data models.

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Data Requirements List (CDRLs)) under this task order to remove barriers to future competition among all MES II SB vendors.

8. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS:

A comprehensive PWS containing detailed engineering descriptions, performance standards, and deliverables has been fully developed by the Government technical team and is provided alongside this justification as part of the procurement package. No additional facts are necessary to support the use of the cited exception to fair opportunity.

9. ACTIONS THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE OR OVERCOME BARRIERS

THAT LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

The requirement herein is a net-new originating from the PEO Digital Technical Director portfolio for emerging capabilities. As this action represents the initial transition and engineering of newly matured pilot products (such as ) into the permanent Flank Speed environment, there is no previous procurement history, no prior contract numbers, and no previous competitive status associated with this specific effort.

The primary barrier to competition for this initial task order is the highly specialized knowledge of the "As-Built" Flank Speed Azure architecture, which is currently held exclusively by Innovatus.

To systematically remove this barrier for future pilot integration efforts, the Government has explicitly embedded technical data delivery requirements within the PWS for this task order.

Specifically, the contractor is required to deliver comprehensive "As-Built" technical design documents, enterprise architecture diagrams, and all Infrastructure as Code (IaC) repositories with full Government data rights.

By capturing this specialized engineering knowledge and establishing an authoritative, Government-owned technical baseline, PEO Digital will be able to provide subsequent technical data packages to all MES II SB MAC holders. This action will effectively eliminate the current discovery and reverse-engineering delay, enabling full and open competition among all MES II SB vendors for future pilot integration task orders.

Because the FS-A environment is a Government-owned cloud tenant, and previous developmental configurations were executed at the Government's expense, the current barrier to competition is not a lack of Government data rights, but rather a lack of comprehensive, updated documentation, currently resulting in a reliance on Innovatus’s undocumented "tribal knowledge." To permanently remove this barrier for future procurements, this task order mandates the delivery of comprehensive "As-Built" architecture diagrams, Infrastructure-as- Code (IaC) repositories, and standard operating procedures. These documents will be formalized as mandatory CDRL deliverables. Compliance and delivery of this Government-owned technical baseline will be a strict condition of performance and payment under this Firm-Fixed-Price task order.

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TECHNICAL CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: David W. Edwards SIGNATURE/DATE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: Scientist / PAE Mission Systems – PEO Digital TD

PHONE:

REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: Bradley Punch SIGNATURE/DATE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: Deputy Technical Director / PAE Mission Systems

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

NAME: Annette L. Aamodt SIGNATURE/DATE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: Contracting Officer, DISA/DITCO/PSD/PS8311

ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS JUSTIFICATION ARE TO BE REFERRED TO:

Susan Griffithe, Contract Specialist,