Redacted JandA.pdf

Brand Name Turbot Cloud Governance Tool Control Number VA-24-00047205

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 will be a firm-fixed price order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) to acquire a Brand Name Turbot Cloud Governance Tool (CGT) to assist the VA in governing the use of cloud resources in VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC).

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information & Technology (OIT) Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office (ECSO) requires a Brand Name Turbot Cloud Governance Tool to manage, control, operate, optimize, and secure cloud infrastructure and application within VA’s two Cloud Service Providers (CSP’s), which are Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Azure. The VA requires a Commercial Off the Shelf Turbot license and support to assist in governing the use of cloud resource in the VAEC and CSP’s. This action represents one (1) annual Turbot Guardrails Enterprise license subscription renewal with unlimited usage. The action also includes Turbot Enterprise maintenance and operational support services. Turbot is an annual fixed price subscription for unlimited use. The VA is not adding but continuing renewing the same license and support each year. The solution shall provide the VA the ability to govern cost, budget, operations, security, risk, and compliance within the VAEC. The Turbot solution is a software application that currently managing, controlling, and overseeing VA cloud computing services. The solution shall work in concert with existing VA tools (Key Stack, ServiceNow etc.) and strategically linked to current VA’s Cloud management tools that make up the VAEC, and VAEC Cloud Management Platform. The solution shall meet VA’s requirement capability to act as a central point of support of continuous governance, compliance, and cost management. VA requires the annual renewal of one (1) Turbot license and required technical support, maintenance, and operation support to enhance Turbot use, and expanding the capability and governance across the VA. The period of performance is for a base period from September 20, 2024, to September 19, 2025, with two (2) 12-month options periods and four (4) optional tasks to be exercised at the Government’s discretion. The total estimated price of the proposed action including the base period, two (2) 12-month option periods, and four (4) optional tasks is

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 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 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 Above: Based on market research, as described in Section 8 of this justification, it was determined that there is no viable alternative for the required Turbot solution to assist the VA in governing the use of cloud data and resources in the VAEC. To date, VA has setup, configured, deployed and integrated Turbot with other VA systems/applications, this CGT solution includes the Turbot platform to manage, control, operate, optimize and secure cloud infrastructure and application in AWS and Azure. The Turbot solution provides the proven ability to govern cost, budget, operations, security, risk and compliance within the VAEC. The Turbot solution has proven to work in concert with existing VA management tools that make up the VAEC, and VAEC Cloud Management Platform.

The Turbot solution is currently providing the capability to act as a central point of support of continuous governance, compliance, and cost management. VA requires one (1) Turbot Guardrails Enterprise license subscription and Turbot Enterprise maintenance and operational support services. VA requires support assisting with required upgrades, setting policies, managing alerts, updating configurations, providing performance tune ups and identifying cost savings opportunities that can be leveraged with Turbot.

In addition to the above, Turbot has an active Authority to Operate (ATO) within the VA and currently, there are no alternative solutions that have an active ATO and can be setup and deployed and integrated with other cloud and infrastructure tools without a significant interruption in service. If an alternative solution is selected that does not have an active ATO, VA estimates it will require an average of nine (9)months just to obtain the ATO approval. The impacts of this include the following: high impact to the VA current governance process, VA’s Cloud governance, compliance and cost management processes would slow significantly due to new competing processes, priorities, and tools which would require time to configure, adopt, and achieve customer adoption and satisfaction, and Significant data architecture updates and refactoring of a new tool and existing integrations would be expected. The Turbot brand name tool has already been integrated with other VA tools to provide seamless workflows. The comprehensive current Turbot solution has been successfully integrated with other VA tools to ingest, analyze, and provide governance that assist VA in management and making decisions on security and cost management improvement opportunities. If a new cloud governance tool solution were found and replaced Turbot, VA estimates approximately 12-15 months interruption in the availability to cloud governance just for setup, configure, deploy another solution and integrate with existing VA tools to determine if it meets all VA’s requirements. In addition, a new solution would require a build out of cloud infrastructure, software installation, base configuration and ATO – which involves purchasing a new tool, testing and installing the tooling itself and then integrating it with our two (2) cloud service providers (and other systems).

Additionally, VA and contractor staff would have to be trained in the new tool (labor and training costs). Additionally, from a cost perspective, if VA continues to use the existing solution, there would be no implementation and training costs as Turbot brand name tool was purchased approximately five (5) years ago and configured to the VAEC. During that period, the VA purchased annually one (1) fixed price software subscription. There was/is no hardware purchase required. VA purchased only software, software maintenance support and technical support services to assist the VA in managing the environment.

VA estimates that if a new solution was selected, there will be duplicative costs of almost $2 million to only license, set-up and deploy a new solution without disruption. This estimate is based on analysis of historical costs data for the Turbot brand name solution accrued by VA, to just setup and deploy a new solution. This estimate does not include the cost or time to find a new solution, design, architect, develop, configure, integrate, and test. These duplicative set-up costs are not expected to be recovered through competition. In addition, during a transition to any new solution there would be duplicative costs to have them both running concurrently until the transition is complete adding another $1.3 million for support and maintenance of a second solution over at least a 12-month period.

In summary, the selection of a new solution would ultimately result in an interruption in service delivery estimated at 12-15 months to tailor, setup, configure, deploy and integrate the new solution. Currently, there are no other alternative solutions that have an active Authority to Operate (ATO) and can be setup, deployed and integrated with other cloud and infrastructure tools without a significant interruption in service. If an alternative solution is selected that does not have an active ATO. VA estimates it will require on average approximately nine (9) months to obtain ATO approval included in the estimated 12-15 months to tailor, setup, configure, deploy and integrate the new solution. The VA would have to procure a new COTS or custom tool, including any licenses for sustainment support or users. VA also estimates a cost in duplicative, non-recoverable cost, which would not be recouped through competition (if another solution was found to meet VA requirements). During the implementation of a new solution, VA would still require sustaining the current Turbot solution or risk changes to the environment, processes and other ECSO tool causing a loss of functionality. Gaps in service, will cause a risk of experiencing delays in application migrations and implementations, system security impacts and increased cloud costs. Turbot is the only solution that can satisfy VA’s current requirement and saliant characteristic without a significant performance, schedule, and cost impact. These delays would severely impact the ability of VA to track migrations and deployments and measure the Cloud Enterprise’s progress towards achieving its performance objectives (e.g., schedule, costs, quality). For the reasons stated above only Turbot solution and meet VA’s requirement.

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 may be available among authorized resellers for the brand name Turbot CGT solution. 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. The solicitation for the Brand Name Turbot CGT solution can be issued in accordance with the terms and conditions of the NASA SEWP V GWAC. 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 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: The Government technical experts conducted market research from December 2023 through March 2024 to identify industry CGT’s that may meet VA’s minimum requirements by reviewing vendor websites, downloadable product information materials, on-line research and reviewing other tools that can provide the software solutions and maintenance. The VA researched other tools including Divy Cloud, Savyint, Fugue, and PingSafe however, they did not meet the VA requirements. If an alternative solution were selected, these solutions would need to obtain an ATO, and the alternate solution(s) would have to be tested designed, setup, configured, deployed, and integrated without gap in service. Moving to any new solution would also incur additional cost to obtain an ATO, repeat the original configuration, implement, set-up, network configuration, rebuild requirements, train with a new solution and decommission old tool. VA estimates this effort would take 12-15 months to complete (while maintaining the old solution until operational)..

Turbot meets all the VA’s saliant characteristics. VA requires a solution to handle VA nuanced requirements through configuration and not script.

VA’s market research further focused on the government’s primary requirements, unique cloud governance tool product differences and salient characteristics identified in the Product Description. Other tools researched in the industry appear similar to a tool that can meet the VA requirements and protect and optimize cloud environment, however much of that is delivered by scanning the environment to report what's wrong on a few common best practices. VA requires a solution that provides guardrails to take action to fix problems as they occur with an architecture of a real-time. In addition, the other tools researched do not provide the unique product capabilities the VA desires to include the ability to scale, unique policy enforcements, automated action scale of coverage and guardrails the VA requires as an integral part of the cloud governance, operations, security, and FinOps controls.

In addition, a Request for Information (RFI) was posted on NASA SEWP V GWAC by the Contract Specialist on July 3, 2024 with a closing date of July 15, 2024. The Government received one capabilities statement from Four Points Technology, which is a service-disabled Veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) and an authorized reseller of Turbot licenses and services. The Governments technical experts determined Four Points Technology to be capable based upon the criteria provided in their RFI response. In addition, the NASA SEWP V GWAC has a dynamic catalog where line items can be added based on customer requests. Based on this information, there is a reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC for this requirement.

9. Other Facts: None

10. Technical/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 anticipated competition and discounts among multiple value added resellers of the required brand nameTurbot lincenses, technical, maintenance, and operational support. Additionally, further price analysis of quotes received will be conducted to determine fair and reasonable price. Finally, pricing of products awarded under NASA SEWP V GWAC have already been determined to be fair and reasonable.

12. Contracting Officer Certification/Approval:

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

13. Office of General Counsel (OGC) Review I have reviewed this document and find it legally sufficient, based on the representations set forth in the documents and, if any, attachments. The Competition Advocate approval is an independently supported decision not wholly reliant on the legal sufficiency determination.

Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of Brand Name Turbot Licenses, Technical, Maintenance and Operational Support to assist the VA in governing the use of cloud resources in VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) 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 property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.