Redacted_JA.docx

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER AIRCRAFT DIVISION

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN

EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity.

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWC-AD) Lakehurst, NJ

2. Nature and/or Description of Action being Approved.

This Justification and Approval authorizes the issuance of a Firm Fixed Price delivery order for the procurement of the Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) Advanced (brand name), software and maintenance support. The Naval Air Systems Command Depot Maintenance System (NDMS) Program for software development and project management activities among Fleet Readiness Center Southeast (FRCSE) development teams utilize the Docker EE Advanced software and maintenance. It is the intent of the Government to issue a solicitation via the Unison website for participation in a reverse auction. This requirement will be issued only to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) holders. The period of performance of this effort will be a twelve (12) month base period and four (4) twelve (12) month option periods.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services Required to Meet the Agency’s Needs (including the estimated value).

FRCSE Information Technology (IT) Department is being tasked with providing the Docker EE Advanced software and maintenance to support the development of the NDMS applications. Docker EE Advanced software and maintenance includes three main technology components: the Docker daemon (aka "Engine") container, which acts as a client-server application, which allows the developers, to run applications as a standalone on their computer; the Docker Trusted Registry, which is used to store and manage enterprise Docker images that are used in the NDMS applications; and the Docker Universal Control Plane, which is used for centralized cluster management allowing the IT staff to group together physical or virtual machines to create a container cluster allowing the ability to deploy applications at length.

4. Identification of the Justification Rationale (see FAR 16.505(b)(2)) and, if applicable, a Demonstration of the Proposed Contractor's Unique Qualifications to Provide the Required Supply or Service.

FAR 16.505(a)(4) – The requirement is for an item peculiar to one manufacturer.

Docker is the only manufacturer capable of meeting the requirements for the NDMS Program that is currently integrated throughout the existing FRCSE networks as well as other DoD networks. Additionally, since the Docker brand name software and maintenance support is already fielded throughout FRCSE they are the only manufacturer that is interchangeable within the FRCSE network that allows for continued support while avoiding a break in service as a break in service that would result in vulnerability to the network infrastructure.

5. A Determination by the Contracting Officer that the Anticipated Cost to the Government will be Fair and Reasonable.

The contracting officer has determined that awarding a delivery order for the required Docker EE Advanced brand name software and maintenance off the NASA SEWP V GWAC vehicle represents the best value and will result in the lowest overall cost alternative to meet the mission requirements. The price design for NASA SEWP V is a proposed discount off the offeror’s commercial price list. A price analysis for NASA SEWP V contracts was conducted in accordance with FAR 15.305(a)(1), to ensure that a fair and reasonable price is paid by the Government.

NASA SEWP V has already determined the prices contained within its vendors’ contracts to be fair and reasonable. Reasonableness of proposed prices was established in accordance with FAR 15.403-1(c)(1)(i)(B), which provides that a price is based on adequate price competition if two or more responsible offerors, competing independently, submit priced offers that satisfy the Government’s expressed requirement and there is not any finding that the price of an otherwise successful offer is unreasonable. To verify price reasonableness, offerors were instructed to submit their published price catalog or published schedule of list prices in a form regularly maintained by the manufacturer or offerors, such as a catalog, price list, schedule, or other verifiable and established record. Additionally, each contractor proposed a discount off product categories of Information Technology equipment.

The use of the Unison website is anticipated to result in additional cost savings to the Government due to the offeror’s ability to provide increased competitive pricing due to the unique structure of the reverse auction tool. In addition, for this action, the Contract Specialist will conduct a price analysis which shall include a review of commercial price lists and historical purchases.

6. Any other Facts Supporting the Justification.

Market research was conducted to identify commercially available equipment compatible with the Docker EE Advanced software and maintenance. No other sources were identified that meet the Government’s technical requirements and is interoperable with the Docker EE Advanced software.

Further market research was conducted to identify vendors capable of providing the requested Docker brand name maintenance and software support. Multiple vendors were identified through their SEWP V contracts as capable of providing the Docker brand name maintenance and software support including Govsmart, Inc., FCN, Inc. and Four Point Technology.

Selecting another manufacturer’s software and maintenance support would cause the Government to incur irrecoverable, duplicative costs. If the Government were to procure another brand name other than Docker EE Advanced software and maintenance support, they would incur the cost as FRCSE would need to procure new software licenses throughout the network. In addition, the FRCSE IT team members would require extensive training. If an alternate brand name was procured, IT team members would require new training to learn a new platform. The resulting costs noted in the above paragraph would not be recouped through competition.

On top of these additional costs, FRCSE would need additional time to submit a new Information Technology Procurement Request (ITPR) for approval in order for clearance to operate on the NMCI network. If a new ITPR needs to be processed this would leave the program without a software and maintenance support agreement, which could create a system vulnerability if the latest security updates are not provided and the required maintenance and software support is not performed.

FRCSE has integrated the brand name Docker with their Atlassian Jira suite, Atlassian Confluence suite and ELK Stack. FRCSE would have to ensure another product would have the compatibility with the Atlassian products and ELK Stack. The Docker software and maintenance is currently being utilized for the conversion project and any change to a new software suite could cause data migration issues or significant delays. The Government would incur a lapse in service if another product other than the Docker EE Advanced software and maintenance support was procured. The resulting schedule delays noted in the above paragraphs would result in system vulnerabilities.

A synopsis was not posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website because NASA SEWP contracts have been synopsized in FedBizOpps and satisfy the requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act (Pub. Law 98-369) and FAR Part 5, Publicizing Contract Actions.

7. A Statement of the Actions, if any, the Agency May Take to Remove or Overcome any Barriers that Led to the Exception to Fair Opportunity before any Subsequent Acquisition for the Supplies or Services is Made.

For the reasons stated above, at this time, only the Docker EE Advanced brand name software and maintenance support can meet the requirements of this effort. The Government will continue to evaluate other technologies that would allow future competition by attending industry trade shows and hosting on-site vendor visits to learn more about specific manufacturers and products.

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