Redacted BN JA - Pure Storage.pdf

Pure Storage CONTROL NUMBER VA-26-00024212

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 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 Pure Storage products and services. Pure Storage, the manufacturer of the existing storage infrastructure, has undergone a corporate rebranding to Everpure; however, the required products are the Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade product lines.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology (OIT), VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI) intends to procure brand name Pure Storage (currently operating under the Everpure corporate name) X90 FlashArray and FlashBlade hardware, controller upgrades, storage infrastructure expansion components, cabling, accessories, maintenance services, and associated support services to expand enterprise storage infrastructure capabilities to support increased operational, research, replication, backup, disaster recovery, and database performance requirements within the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC).

VINCI currently operates an enterprise Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade environment that supports mission-critical research systems, Corporate Data Warehouse operations, InterSystems Interoperable, Reliable, Intuitive, and Scalable database (IRIS DB) environments, Structured Query Language (SQL) database workloads, Commvault backup operations, Mirror data replication pipelines, ActiveCluster replication, and associated enterprise storage operations.

Since 2022, the existing Pure Storage infrastructure has been operationally integrated within the VINCI environment. It includes a proprietary operating architecture, ActiveCluster replication technology, Pure Storage Application Programming Interface (API)-based automation processes, Commvault integrations, SQL Native Backup configurations, and environment specific operational scripting and storage management processes. VINCI requires this acquisition to meet the growing operational requirements associated with increased research demands and continued expansion of the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) Extract Mirror data pipeline, which utilizes the InterSystems IRIS DB environment. These growing workloads significantly increase the storage capacity, throughput, replication, and performance requirements across the existing enterprise storage environment.

Specifically, the proposed acquisition is required to support continued growth in research, database, backup, replication, and disaster recovery operations. The additional storage capacity and infrastructure enhancements will support the VistA Extract Mirror data pipeline, add approximately two petabytes of network-attached storage capacity, improve performance for InterSystems IRIS DB workloads, and

The existing infrastructure has been operationally integrated into the VINCI environment since 2022, and it currently supports critical enterprise research and operational workloads. Replacing the existing Pure Storage environment with an alternative manufacturer solution would require significant redesigning and reconfiguration of the existing enterprise storage architecture and associated operating processes.

Specifically, migration to an alternative storage platform would require replacement or redesign of existing operational integrations, reconfiguration of backup and replication environments, development and testing new automation processes, and manual migration of enterprise storage workloads. The transition would also require the procurement of parallel storage infrastructure to enable migration activities, as well as extension engineering, testing, and operational transition activities. These activities would increase operational risk, increase the possibility for performance degradation and service disruptions, and result in unacceptable downtime for VINCI mission critical research, database, backup, replication, and disaster recovery operations.

The Government estimates that migrating to an alternative manufacturer solution would take approximately two years of engineering, migration, testing, validation, and operational transition activities, at a cost estimated at $6 million to $9 million. In addition, alternative manufacturer solutions reviewed during market research would not provide seamless interoperability with the existing infrastructure and would require significant redesign of operational processes that currently dependent on ActiveCluster replication, Snap-to-NFS capabilities, Commvault integrations, and other mission critical storage services. As a result, the Government has determined that only brand name Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade hardware, maintenance and support services, and associated components can meet the Government's quality standards without significant cost duplication, unacceptable operational risk, or significant delays in meeting mission requirements.

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 could meet the Government’s requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that competition is available among Serviced-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) authorized resellers for brand name Pure Storage X90 FlashArray and FlashBlade hardware, controller upgrades, storage infrastructure expansion components, cabling, accessories, maintenance services and associated support services on the NASA SEWP V GWAC. In accordance with (IAW) RFO 16.507-7(c)(1)(ii), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, IAW RFO 5.301, 16.507- 6(f)(1)(ii)(B), and 16.507-7(c)(1)(ii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the 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 and monitor advancements within the enterprise storage marketplace to determine whether future operational requirements may be satisfied through increased competition or alternative enterprise storage solutions. Future acquisitions will continue to be evaluated to determine whether changes in technology, operational requirements, or infrastructure configurations would permit broader competition.

8. Market Research: IAW RFO Part 10, in March 2026, the Government’s technical representatives conducted market research by reviewing commercially available enterprise storage solutions, reviewing existing operational infrastructure requirements, and discussions with industry vendors capable of providing enterprise storage solutions.

Government technical representatives evaluated enterprise storage systems from multiple manufacturers, including NetApp, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to assess whether alternative solutions may meet VINCI operational needs. The Government’s technical representatives examined alternative enterprise storage solutions, including NetAPP and HPE solutions, which would not provide seamless interoperability with the existing infrastructure and would require a significant redesign of existing storage integrations, backup and replication processes, automation workflows, and operational configurations leading to a substantial duplication of time and costs as discussed above.

Additionally, maintenance and support of the existing infrastructure require access to proprietary Pure Storage technologies, software, firmware, operational architecture, and support resources available only through Pure Storage and its authorized resellers. As a result, NetApp, HPE, and other manufacturers are unable to provide maintenance and/or support services for the existing Pure Storage infrastructure without replacing the existing platform and redesigning associated operational configurations. Based on market research, the Government’s technical representatives determined that only brand name Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade hardware, maintenance and support services, and associated components could meet the Government’s minimum operational standards.

Furthermore, the Contract Specialist conducted market research in May 2026 utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup and Market Research tools, resulting in multiple prospective contract holders who are resellers of the required brand name Pure Storage products and services. Based on this market research, CS discovered several SDVOSB contract holders capable of meeting the requirement. Furthermore, the NASA SEWP V GWAC features a dynamic catalog in which line items can be added based on customer requests; hence, as long as the required items or services are within the scope of the NASA SEWP V GWAC, they can be added to the catalog on a daily basis.

This requirement was determined to be within the scope of the NASA SEWP V GWAC.

According to the aforementioned market research, there is a reasonable expectation of competition on the NASA SEWP V GWAC among two or more SDVOSB contract holders for the brand name Pure Storage products and services, which include Pure Storage X90 FlashArray and FlashBlade hardware, controller upgrades, storage infrastructure expansion components, cabling, accessories, maintenance services, and associated support services. This effort will be released to all SDVOSBs in groups B, C, and D on the NASA SEWP V GWAC.

9. Other Facts: None.