S03_JA_FINAL_VistA Imaging Recoverall Augmentation_RFQ Redacted final.pdf

VistA Imaging Recoverall Augmentation Control Number: VA-20-00037305

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition Operations

Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for 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) for the purchase of brand name Hewlett Packard (HP) hardware.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is for the purchase of brand name Hewlett Packard (HP) hardware that will be used for spare parts and storage expansion in support of VA’s Recoverall system, which is an essential part of the maintenance and support concept for VA’s Veteran Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) operating system (OS). The Government will purchase four HP 300GB firmware hard drives, two HP midline self-encrypted hard drives, two 800 Watt power supplies. These items will be spares for the legacy Virtual Memory System (VMS) based VistA Systems still being supported under the Recoverall contract.

Additionally, the Government will purchase 270 brand name HP small form factor hard drives with 12 months of Defective Media Retention support. In order to comply with Government regulations, the drives will not be returned to the manufacturer should they fail. These will be used to expand the storage capabilities of the Vista Imaging Tier 1 Recoverall systems. The requirement to update the Recoverall drives is essential since the Recoverall system is past its normal end of life. VA’s Recoverall system is a disaster contingency system designed to provide the necessary computer components and operational systems nationwide to VA medical centers (VAMCs) in order to restore hardware infrastructure supporting VistA instances used by the VAMCs to full operational capabilities after a catastrophe such as flood, fire, tornado or hurricane.

Delivery of the required augmentation hardware is 30 days after contract award. The period of performance for the Defective Media Retention support shall be 12 months after receipt of hardware.

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: Based on market research, as described in section 8 of this document, the Government has determined that limited competition is available for this proposed action. The VAs VistA Imaging system is a two-tiered medical storage system. It is the medical storage system of record for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s a U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) certified medical system requiring the use of parts listed in the FDA’s 510K premarket submission. Even though other manufacturers make disk drives, only the drives certified with the system can be used without violating Federal Law. As such, only the specified brand name HP drives are permitted to be used on the Vista imaging Tier systems. The VistA operating system legacy environment primarily consists of HP’s proprietary Alpha servers running HP’s proprietary VMS operating system. HP developed the Alpha servers specifically for VA’s VMS operating system in support of VistA. Accordingly, HP has propriety rights and is the only source capable of providing compatible hardware for the current VMS operating systems. The VMS system is a mission critical system that provides storage and access of electronic medical records and associated data for all patients treated at VA medical facilities nationwide. Operational anomalies and downtime of these systems create life-threatening situations as timely access to mission critical electronic medical records directly affects timely diagnosis and delivery of patient healthcare. Maintaining a spare parts inventory and ready-to-ship operational platforms as part of the Recoverall system support concept is critical for operational stability and for rapid restoration of failed VistA infrastructure in the event of a catastrophic event.

The existing VistA Alpha servers and the Open VMS operating systems are HP proprietary products, thereby requiring VA to acquire HP brand name spare part components to support these products. In addition, VA technical personnel have stated that no other sources are capable of manufacturing the required inventory hardware because of the legacy technology of the HP Alpha server and VMS operating system. It is in the best interest of the Government to maintain the VistA hardware configuration currently installed and operational throughout VA as well as the Recoverall systems that provide support in the event of a catastrophic contingency. Failure to update and expand the Recoverall systems storage would hamper VA in its efforts to restore operations to facilities impacted by catastrophic events, incurring extended VistA instance downtime and compromising the integrity and delivery of healthcare to Veterans and their families

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. 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 is viable among authorized resellers for the brand name HP hardware. 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. 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 Federal Business Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: VA is migrating from the current proprietary VistA platforms to alternate operating environments (FEDRAMP Cloud Services) and anticipates continuation of this migration until all existing HP VMS OS proprietary platforms are replaced. VA has anticipated this migration effort will take two to three years at which time VA will be in a position to execute future competitive acquisitions for requirements similar to those described herein.

As of February 2020, VA OIT has initiated a procurement process to lease a cloud based storage solution. Funding has been provided and an IPT has been formed.

8. Market Research: In an effort to find alternative solutions, Government’s technical experts conducted market research by posting a Request for Information (RFI) on the NASA SEWP V website in March 2020. In the RFI, the Government requested capability statements from vendors that could demonstrate their existing ability to provide systems and storage hardware with incidental installation for implementation into the MSV Recoverall platform. Three responses were received with proposed HP hardware from Carahsoft, BlueTech and Minburn Technology Group. No other alternative solution was proposed even though the RFI asked respondents to indicate if they could demonstrate their existing ability to provide systems and storage hardware with incidental installation for implementation into the MSV Recoverall platform.

Additional market research was conducted by the Contracting Officer’s Representative in March 2020 to identify possible sources of the required brand name hardware on the NASA SEWP V GWAC. Utilizing the Quick RFI tool on the NASA SEWP GWAC website, there were numerous authorized HP value added resellers identified.

9. Other Facts: None