(DRAFT) DELL J A.pdf

29 September 2010

DLA DOCUMENT SERVICES IT

MEMORANDUM FOR DLA DOCUMENT SERVICES CONTRACTING

SUBJECT: Justification for Other Than Full And Open Competition for Information Technology Purchases

1. In accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, Section 6.302-1(b)(4) and Section 6.303, justification is submitted to acquire appropriate information technology purchases from a single source.

2. The basis for this justification is the establishment of the DLA Documents Services’ (herein referenced to as Agency) Information Technology Enterprise Architecture .

3. An Enterprise Architecture defines the Agency-wide roadmap to achieve an Agency’s mission through optimal performance of its core business processes within an efficient information technology environment.

a. Simply stated, enterprise architectures are blueprints for systematically and completely defining an organization’s current (baseline) or desired (target) environment. Enterprise architectures are essential for evolving information systems and developing new systems that optimize their mission value. This is accomplished in logical or business terms (e.g., mission, business functions, information flows, and systems environments) and technical terms (e.g., software, hardware, communications).

b. Once defined, maintained, and implemented effectively, these institutional blueprints are a key tenant for optimizing the interdependencies and interrelationships among an organization’s business operations and the underlying technology that support those operations.

c. The Federal Enterprise Architecture as mandated by statutory code as a result of the

Clinger Cohen Act of 1996 and is codified in policies established by both the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the federal sector and the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Department of Defense. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has shown that “without a complete and enforced Federal Enterprise Architecture, federal agencies run the risk of buying and building systems that are duplicative, incompatible, and unnecessarily costly to maintain and integrate.”

d. Specifically, Clinger Cohen Act of 1996, Title 40, Subtitle III, Chapter 113, Subchapter

II, Section 11315 (b) states:

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

DLA DOCUMENT SERVICES

5450 CARLISLE PIKE, BUILDING 09

P.O. BOX 2020

MECHANICSBURG, PA 17055-0778

IN REPLY

REFER TO

General Responsibilities - The Chief Information Officer of an executive agency is responsible for –

(1) providing advice and other assistance to the head of the executive agency and other senior management personnel of the executive agency to ensure that information technology is acquired and information resources are managed for the executive agency in a manner that implements the policies and procedures of this subtitle, consistent with chapter 35 of title 44 and the priorities established by the head of the executive agency;

(2) developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of a sound and integrated information technology architecture for the executive agency; and

(3) promoting the effective and efficient design and operation of all major information resources management processes for the executive agency, including improvements to work processes of the executive agency.

e. Additionally, a defined enterprise architecture standard offers the following tangible benefits to DLA Document Services:

(1) Captures facts about the mission, functions, and business foundation in an understandable manner to promote better planning and decision making;

(2) Improves communication among the business organizations and IT organizations within the enterprise through a standardized vocabulary;

(3) Provides architectural views that help communicate the complexity of large systems and facilitate management of extensive, complex environments;

(4) Focuses on the strategic use of emerging technologies to better manage the enterprise’s information and consistently insert those technologies into the enterprise;

(5) Improves consistency, accuracy, timeliness, integrity, quality, availability, access, and sharing of IT-managed information across the enterprise;

(6) Supports budget processes by providing a tool for assessment of benefits, impacts, and capital investment measurements and supporting analyses of alternatives, risks, and tradeoff;

(7) Highlights opportunities for building greater quality and flexibility into applications without increasing cos;

(8) Achieve economies of scale by providing mechanisms for sharing services across the enterprise;

(9) Expedites integration of legacy, migration, and new systems;

(10) Helps ensure legal and regulatory compliance over a standard system set.

4. Additional justification for standardization in hardware which directly supports the Clinger Cohen Act of 1996 are:

a. Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA)

b. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Amendments

c. Government Performance Results Act of 1993 (GPRA)

d. OMB Circulars A-130 and A-11

e. GAO Guidance, Findings, and Recommendations

f. Federal CIO Council documents

5. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs is specifically the purchases of Agency desktop computers, laptops and servers. These purchases are made in accordance with routine industry accepted life cycles of said equipment and/or when deemed by competent authority that a replacement is needed. The dollar amounts will vary depending on the nature, quantity, specific mission requirements and urgency of the individual purchase.

6. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition for this justification is FAR Subpart 6.3 (Other Than Full and Open Competition), Section 6.302-1(b) (4) states:

(4) When the agency head has determined in accordance with the agency’s standardization program that only specified makes and models of technical equipment and parts will satisfy the agency’s needs for additional units or replacement items, and only one source is available.

7. The nature of this acquisition is to establish and standardize DLA Document Services enterprise architecture which requires use of the authority cited in paragraph 6 above. Additional justification includes:

a. The majority of DLA Document Services purchases of equipment identified in paragraph 5 above have been Dell equipment for the past three to five years. Because of this, IT personnel have become intimately familiar with the Dell products, how they interact within our unique production environment, maintenance life cycles, and vendor help desk and escalation procedures. Introducing a mixture of vendor models will only add extreme complexity to these areas not to mention unnecessary man-hours to learn different models and how interaction between various models will affect operational capability and correcting any issues thereof.

b. Dell Corporation employs an “Open Management” model which allows monitoring of servers through a Systems Center Operation Manager software suite which is the model that DLA is mandating. Other vendors do not have this functionality or are not compatible with this capability.

c. Dell allows for driver files to be automatically filed into DLA built system images versus other vendors which only allow for manual searches and insertions into system images which is a time-consuming process.

d. Dell provides many system and IT driven software tools that integrate into the Microsoft System Center Configuration Management suite which is mandated by DLA.

e. Dell will incorporate our unique system image with their Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) image of operating system and burn it to any DLA Document Services equipment buy before shipping, thus saving our IT department many man-hours in configuration management time. Other vendors have historically been hesitant or do not offer this service at all.

8. Market research (as set forth in Part 10 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation) for this brand-name justification is not needed. This brand-name is being used extensively throughout DLA Document Services headquarters and field offices, in part, due to an existing BPA at DLA HQ for desktop and laptop computers. Additionally, Dell Inc. has a GSA Schedule (GS-35F-0884P) which establishes baseline government pricing for the commodities this Agency wishes to standardize purchases for.

I certify this statement is technically complete and accurate as set forth above.

PATRICK O. MCCABE

Director, DLA Document Services IT Division

Approval:

I certify that the justification set forth in this document is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Price reasonableness will be determined and documented with each resulting award for Dell equipment.

STEVEN W. HAWKINS

Deputy Chief of Contracting, DLA Document Services