Redacted JA and Sig Page Combined.pdf

JA24-082 MOD 01 EM4 Engineering, Integration and Sustainment

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that is scheduled to sunset once the modernization system, EM5, is deployed. The EM Program Management (PMO) has incurred a projected 6.5-month delay to the original baseline schedule for both the EM Impact Level (IL5)/NIPR and IL6/SIPR environments due to development, deployment, and connectivity issues. The EM PMO requested a Milestone Decisional Authority (MDA) approval to re-baseline the EM4 Sunset and EM5 Initial Operating Capability (IOC) and Full Operational Capability (FOC) schedules, which were not attained. The EM PMO completed the Program Executive Office (PEO) Services Acquisition Review Board, and the EM re-baseline MDA approval was received on October 24, 2024. The purpose of this modification is to extend the EM4 Sustainment Contract period of performance (PoP) for two (2) additional months (from February 17, 2025, through April 16, 2025) in order to provide the requisite amount of time for EM5, mission partners to successfully migrate from EM4 to EM5, and to prevent a break in service based on the EM re-baseline of EM5 IOC, FOC, and EM4 Sunset dates.

The purpose of JA24-082 MOD 01 is to update the estimated value as a result of the contractor's technically acceptable evaluated proposal, and to update the PoP as described above.

Period of Performance: 7/17/2024 - 4/16/2025

This TO is required to continue the services currently provided under TO HC1028-18-D- 0013/HC1047-19-F-0001. Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Operations & Maintenance (O&M) appropriations will be used to fund this effort.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES:

The DISA SD4 manages and sustains a diverse portfolio of capabilities to the Department of Defense (DoD) that enhances operational effectiveness, cross-organizational collaboration, and cybersecurity. The portfolio of applications provides critical enterprise services to the Warfighter, Business and Intelligence end-users and is maintained to meet current mission requirements yet remain agile and mobile-enabled to meet real-world events and shifts in department mission sets. These services are provided on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and/or the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet).

EM4 is an enterprise service provided by DISA SD4 promoting data sharing for increased mission effectiveness of and enhanced process execution across the DoD. The program is based on a net-centric model to enable systems to provide the right information to the right people at the right time.

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EM4 is designed to effectively distribute information between decoupled users and applications within a Community of Interest (COI). COIs are collaborative groups of users who exchange information in pursuit of their shared goals, interests, missions, or business processes. COI-specific information can be "exposed" either within the COI or across the Enterprise via subscriptions or by posting their information assets into a shared topic/channel provided by Enterprise Messaging. COIs are established in a variety of ways and may be composed of members from one or more functions and organizations as needed to accomplish a shared mission.

This TO is to provide additional time for the mission partners to migrate over from the old system (EM4) to the new one (EM5). The C2 Portfolio needs to ensure mission partners have sufficient time to make that transition, and the only way to complete that is to continue support for EM4 through a short-term, sole source TO. The PoP is 17 July 2024 – 16 April 2025, with an estimated cost of $

4. SUPPORTING RATIONALE, INCLUDING A DEMONSTRATION THAT THE

PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE

ACQUISITION REQUIRES USE OF AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

(a) Exception to Fair Opportunity.

The agency need for the supplies or services is so urgent that providing a fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays.

(b) Justification.

(1) Description of Justification and discussion regarding cause of the sole source situation.

There is an urgent need for the continued support of EM4 as defined in the original TO, HC1028-18-D-0013/HC1047-19-F-0001. No new requirements have been added to the scope, and the estimated contract value is proportionate and prorated to align with the period of performance required for this order.

In 2021, a Joint Emergent Operational Need and revalidation was requested by the requirements sponsor, STRATCOM and NORTHCOM, to stand up the Modernization of EM4, and to have an active high availability within two years of new contract award. The new EM5 contract was awarded August 2022, and the timeline was planned according to that suspense.

The original TO, HC1028-18-D-0013/HC1047-19-F-0001, was to expire on 16 January 2024. FAR 52.217-8 was exercised to extend sustainment services, allowing time to meet full operational capability for the follow-on, EM5, and to allow completion of user migration. This follow-on TO is estimated to be awarded mid-July 2024.

(2) Minimum Government requirements.

The minimum requirement is to provide services for the required engineering, integration, operations, and sustainment of EM4. These requirements include the

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following:

Manage and maintain software and hardware components of the services in all hosted environments.

Support ongoing operations as well as future hardware and software upgrades including changes to the hosting facility.

Support Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) activities.

Provide tier II and III technical service desk support for customer support.

Provide technical support for application development, integration, and sustainment.

Provide metrics on system utilization and operations.

Provide for Mission Partner integration and account management.

Conduct developer testing for system changes, and support government testing activities.

Provide certification and accreditation support.

Provide Information Assurance Vulnerability Management (IAVM).

Develop Risk Management Framework (RMF) documentation and support the RMF process. Update and address security controls, support security related testing, and update key cybersecurity documentation. Execute planning, RMF documentation, and coordination necessary to maintain a favorable Authorization to Operate (ATO) and Approval to Connect (ATC) in support of the applications.

Support project management processes and activities.

Support customer conferences and user outreach activities.

Support system enhancements.

Establish and maintain a test, integration, and development environment separate from the operational and COOP environments which replicate production hardware and software to include critical network equipment and security posture.

Establish and maintain the ability to perform functional, regression, load, and stress testing in the development environment.

Maintain, track, and report System Security Certificates and Application Passwords.

Execute and maintain Application Backups.

Have and maintain a functioning SIPRNet drop with access to the production system.

Establish and maintain the ability to send and receive encrypted E-mail with the Government’s E-mail systems; this includes classified and unclassified.

Sunset EM4.

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(3) Proposed sole source contractor and demonstration of unique source. The proposed sole source contractor for this effort is:

Leidos Inc.

1750 Presidents Street Floor 10 Reston, Virginia 20190-5617

CAGE: 5UTE0

UEID: UE9QJD4KK1L6

Leidos is the vendor under the current EM4 TO, HC1028-18-D-0013/HC1047-19-F- 0001. EM4 is a mission critical system and there will be negative real-world consequences should EM4 service be disrupted before transitioning to EM4.

Therefore, avoiding a lapse in service is necessary. The enterprise messaging services provided by EM4 are critical to daily operations and essential communications within the agency. A gap in service during the transition from EM4 to EM5 would severely disrupt communications channels, impacting operational efficiency and potentially compromising mission-critical activities. The urgency of maintaining continuous service without interruption justifies bypassing the fair opportunity process to extend the EM4 services during this transition.

Leidos’ continued support is required to maintain EM4 for hundreds of Mission Partners and to allow for the EM program to meet its scheduled sunset date. While waiting for the modernized EM5 system to be fielded, the legacy EM4 system needs to remain fully operational along with its associated support to allow for mission partners to transition from EM4 to EM5.

In the best interest of unacceptable delays, it would be of benefit to the Government for Leidos to continue work. A recompete would risk running into unacceptable delays that would extend far beyond the schedule requirements for the transition to EM5. Due to the strict schedule that must be adhered, no interruption of services can be afforded without impacting mission needs and incurring substantial costs to the Government.

The current EM4 TO, HC1028-18-D-0013/HC1047-19-F-0001, ends on 16 July 2024.

With the compressed timeline, the urgent need for continuation of services would not provide time to compete this requirement among other offerors. If there is any discontinuance in Leidos’ services, there is a very high risk and huge impact to the on-going support to EM4’s mission partners and the completion of migration to EM5.

In addition to these unacceptable delays, duplicated cost, effort, and risk would be incurred as a result of having to maintain support for both the modernized EM5 system, the legacy EM4 system, and transfer of knowledge to new awardee. Engaging in a new procurement process under the current circumstances would not only be time-consuming but also inefficient. The cost and administrative burden associated with conducting a new competition could outweigh the benefits, especially when the

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incumbent contractor is already positioned to continue the services seamlessly. Once EM5 is fielded and Mission Partners transitioned, the support for EM4 will no longer be required and support outside of this window will be unutilized.

(4) Procurement discussion.

The decision to sole source this requirement is based on the need to maintain the EM4 capability and its ongoing support of hundreds of Mission Partners while the EM5 is in development.

The schedule is to field EM5 on 22 October 2024, have dual operations for 3 months, complete user migration from EM4 to EM5 and sunset EM4 by 10 April 2025, and complete post sunset activities by 16 April 2025. To transition from EM4 to EM5 without gaps, additional time is needed for the EM4 contract. Communication for contract extension was expressed to PSD in FY23 as the original EM4 contract ended 17 January 24. A six-month option was exercised in accordance with FAR 52.217-8 and a seven-month follow-on TO is recommended to address the EM4 contract gap for migration since the EM5 contract does not have a transition-in plan to support EM4.

Additionally, the cost of the EM5 contract is higher than the EM4 contract.

Currently, EM5 is scheduled to begin production at the end of October 2024, assuming that an ATO is received as well as approval through the Operational Acceptance Board. After the system is in production, mission partners can complete the migration to utilize the new EM5 end points. There are some challenges to this that may impact the ability to sunset EM4 by April 2025.

Mission Partners will need to update their security packages to allow routing to the new IPs and end points over the ports.

Any update will also require some development support on part of the mission partners, whether they take the path of the drop in Java Archive (.jar) which they need to add to their code base to provide backwards compatibility or using Wireless Sensor Networks or Secure Advanced Message Queuing Protocol they need to make sure their code is updated to point to those locations.

Some mission partners are unable to do "dual ops", which means they can't send messages on both EM5 and EM4 at the same time. Therefore, some subscribers likely need to coordinate with the publishers to migrate at a similar time or messages will be missed.

Some mission partners have already voiced concerns with these dates based on availability of development/sustainment staff to make changes or with the ability to make cyber updates.

The Leidos team currently supports the EM4 application in task areas of Software Maintenance, Operations Support, Cybersecurity Support, and Customer and

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Integration Support. The purpose of the TO is to maintain a stable, fully operational EM4 capability while the Government completes the development and transition to Enterprise Messaging, Version 5 (EM5) application. At the completion of the EM5 transition, the EM4 application will be sunset. The Leidos team possesses the resources, facility, and technical knowledge to maintain the EM4 application without impact to a stable and fully operational capacity for the user community. Selecting another vendor to perform the EM4 support during the TO period of performance would require a transition of technical knowledge and equipment, in addition to onboarding newly assigned personnel. The current support contract expires on July 16, 2024 and the restrictive time limit for solicitation and vendor transition poses a potential impact risk on the stability of EM4 operations.

(5) Impact.

If the TO is not awarded, there will not be any support for EM4 during one of its most crucial moments. This ongoing support is required by hundreds of Mission Partners to meet its mission needs and necessary to ensure a smooth transition from the EM4 to EM5 system.

The potential operational risks associated with the transition gap cannot be overstated.

Any interruption in messaging services poses a threat to the agency and its Mission Partner’s ability to communicate effectively, manage critical incidents, and maintain operational readiness. Extending the existing EM4 services is the most prudent approach to mitigating these risks until EM5 is fully operational.

If an exception to fair opportunity is not pursued, the EM4 program runs the risk of not meeting its mission-essential requirements, the timely fielding of EM5 would be in jeopardy, as EM5 cannot declare FOC until all mission partners have migrated from EM4 to EM5, and duplicated cost and effort would be incurred by the Government if a recompete of EM4 is required.

This could introduce even more developmental delays in EM5, and the Enterprise Messaging will also be at risk.

5. COST/PRICE FAIR AND REASONABLE DETERMINATION: The contracting officer will make a determination as to whether the anticipated price to the Government is fair and reasonable, based on comparison of the Independent Government Cost Estimate and published price lists. By placing an order against a multiple award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract using the procedures in Part 16.505, the contracting officer will be able to conclude whether an order represents the best value to the Government. Moreover, the rates have already been established with the basic contract vehicle and were determined to be fair and reasonable. Pursuant to DoD policy, the contracting officer will seek additional discounts prior to placing an order.

6. MARKET RESEARCH: The DISA Market Research Repository was queried as well as a

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review of recent market research results for similar or identical supplies/services and there was no relevant applicability found in the results. The Government also reviewed the market research report from the current contract and while that report falls outside the window for usability, it was reviewed to gain insight into the methodologies and considerations utilized as part of the previous acquisition and determine if any were still relevant to the follow-on effort. Additionally, a query of the Small Business Association (SBA) Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS) database was also conducted to determine any additional capable small business vendors and no capable vendors were identified. Given the specialized knowledge required to support this effort, Leidos is uniquely positioned to provide the rapid services required for EM4 as the Government transitions to the follow-on capability, EM5.

Based on current market research, dated January - February 2024, it has been determined that only the aforementioned EM4 sustainment and migration services provided by Leidos, can fully support the Government’s need.

7. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS: None

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

THAT LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

Procurement History.

The current contract/TO, HC1028-18-D-0013 / HC1047-19-F-0001, which is performed by Leidos will be completed by July 16, 2024.

Contract/TO: HC1028-18-D-0013 / HC1047-19-F-0001 Vendor: Leidos Business Type: Large Business Contract Value: $ Basis of Award: Full and Open Competition via ENCORE III Unrestricted Pool Contract Type: FFP Period of Performance: 17 Jan 2019 - 16 Jul 2024

Contract/TO: HC1028-08-D-2025 VC27 Contractor: Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Business Type: Large Contract Value: $ Basis of Award: Full and Open Competition via ENCORE II Unrestricted Pool Contract Type: FFP Period of Performance: 16 Jul 2016 – 16 Jan 2019

Contract/TO: HC1028-08-D-2012-VC03 Contractor: Solers Business Type: Large Contract Value: $

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Basis of Award: Small Business Set Aside via Encore II Small Business Contract Type: FFP Period of Performance: 17 Jan 2018 – 16 Jan 2019

(a) SD4 does not anticipate any future follow-on requirements beyond this proposed short-term TO as EM4 is slated to be sunset upon completing migration to EM5. It was determined that continued work to provide the required engineering, integration, and sustainment to EM4 was necessary until EM4 can be sunset. Therefore, there are no actions or barriers SD4 could complete to expand future competition.

(b) The current TO was competed through full and open competition via the ENCORE III

Unrestricted Pool. The decision to sole source this requirement was based on the need to maintain the EM4 capability and on-going service in supporting hundreds of mission partners until the EM5’s development is complete. The current TO provides services that affect timeframes both before and after EM5 is developed. Therefore, successful completion of this requirement is contingent upon the EM5’s development timeline.

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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: SIGNATURE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: EM4 Contracting Officer’s Representative

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: SIGNATURE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: EM4 Program Manager

PHONE:

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

NAME: SIGNATURE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: Contracting Officer, PSD/PS62 PHONE:

PROCURING ACTIVITY COMPETITION ADVOCATE (PACA) APPROVAL: I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Since this justification does not exceed $15M, this review serves as approval and my written determination that the aforementioned FAR circumstances apply.

NAME: SIGNATURE: See separate signature page

TITLE/ORGANIZATION: Procuring Activity Competition Advocate (PACA), PSD/PS21

PHONE:

ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS JUSTIFICATION ARE TO BE REFERRED TO

at and at