Sole Source Justification RM-Google.Earth - SIGNED.pdf

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

MANDATORY TEMPLATE FOR FEDERAL PROCUREMENTS UNDER THE SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD

1. Estimated Dollar Value: $99,999.96

2. Anticipated Period of Performance: 1/28/2021 – 1/27/2022

3. Does the anticipated Period of Performance include option years? If no, explain. This acquisition is for one base year. The platform that is being procured is a new service and it is anticipated that competition will be available near the end of 2021.

4. Sources Sought Notice posted to Contract Opportunities and attached to this document?

Yes No

5. Market Research conducted and attached to this document? If not, explain.

A review of the Google Cloud Partner lists was completed as well as a review of the System For Award Management (SAM) and the GSA e-Library. Although there are other entities with GSA contracts who are authorized Google Cloud Partners none are authorized resellers of the specific Google Earth Platform. An e-mail requesting a notice of interest was sent to those Google Cloud Partners with GSA contracts and it has been confirmed that none, other than NT Concepts are authorized resellers of the Google Earth Platform. A sources sought was posted to GSA eBuy on 12/21/2020 and closed on 12/28/2020 and although three vendors expressed interest none are authorized resellers of the Google Earth Platform.

Additionally, a notice of intent to sole source the Google Earth Engine Platform to Next Tier Concepts was issued to Beta.Sam on 1/15/2021 with notice that interested parties responses were due 1/22/2021. Two entities responded to the notice of intent but neither are authorized resellers of the Google Earth Platform.

6. Is this a new requirement or a follow-on to an expiring award?

New requirement Follow-on to an expiring award

7. Describe the requirement. Please note that the requirement is the minimum acceptable specification or capability, and is not necessarily the best in the industry. Please note whether any additional follow-on work is anticipated in response to the current proposed effort.

USDA/NASS proposes to enter into a firm fixed-price contract with Next Tier Concepts for one base year. Next Tier Concepts (NTC) is the exclusive authorized reseller for the product Google Cloud Platform – including; Google Earth Engine, Google Cloud Storage, Google Compute Engine, Google BigQuery GIS, Google Cloud AI Platform Google, Cloud Identity limited to "Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Workloads.”

This requirement had previously been approved and awarded as a task order to Next Tier Concepts as a sole source under their GSA contract #: GS-35F-0543R. After the notice to the contractor Next Tier Concepts reached out and stated that the Google Earth Engine Platform Services did not fall under the GSA contract and they would not be able to provide service under the task order and requested a new contract be issued as an open market purchase.

Description of Supplies/Services

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) seeks a cloud-based remote sensing image processing platform that can be accessed using a browser and a user account only.

• Storage—the platform should have, in its archive, global (where possible) coverage of a broad expanse of earth observation and terrain data at various spatial resolutions. For example:

• High Spatial Resolution Imagery

NAIP: The platform should include all available NAIP image collections (RGB and NIR).

• Moderate Spatial Resolution Imagery

Landsat: The platform should mirror the archive available from USGS-EROS (Landsat 4 – 8 covering the years 1984 – present). Offerings should include L1T, atmospheric reflectance, and surface reflectance versions of the images.

Sentinel: The platform should include all available Sentinel 1 and 2 imagery.

• Coarse Spatial Resolution Imagery

Aqua and Terra MODIS: The platform should include the full suite of daily, eight, and sixteen-day Land Products.

Must include Surface Reflectance, Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity, Land Cover Products, Vegetation Index Products, Thermal Anomalies, FPAR, LAI, ET, GPP, BRDF, VCF, Water Mask, and Burned Area Products.

Suomi NPP VIIRS Land Products: The platform should have the ability to ingest the suite of NPP Earth observing system products.

• Other Data:

Climate, Rainfall and Weather: The platform should include a variety of global climate and weather layers, including: PRISM, CHIRPS, GPM IMERG, Daymet, GRIDMET, CMORPH Topographic: The platform should include elevation models such as the USGS NED (all scales) and SRTM layers.

Soil Moisture: NASA SMAP, NASA SMOS, NASS Crop-CASMA

Drought: NOAA – CPC, CHIRPS, NASA ESI, NDMC VEGDRI and Drought Monitor Landcover: The platform should include the full MRLC/NLCD and NASS/CDL suite of products, USDA NCCPI, IIASA Hybrid 2015 Crops, EC/JRC/ASAP Crops, GFSAD30 2015 Crops.

User-created: 1) The platform should provide the ability for users to process data that they upload. For example, if a user procures or creates a raster dataset (e.g., Cropland Data Layer, they should be able to upload those data and use the server-side processing capabilities of the platform to analyze the data. These data can remain privately accessed by the user and not shared with other platform users to alleviate commercial or government licensing concerns.

The platform should provide other high-resolution image offerings, such as Planet, or similar, if they become freely available.

Access – the processing capabilities should have immediate or online access to the imagery and data layers as outlined in the Storage section. Access could be offered through a browser graphical user interface like other GIS software packages, or through a code-based application program interface (API).

Custom Processing—the platform should provide custom server-side processing abilities to analyze data at local, continent, and global scales using both internal and user-supplied scripts or tools. The end user should access the processing platform from a web-enabled browser or interface. The only client-side processing required is the API coding or human interaction through a graphical user interface.

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

MANDATORY TEMPLATE FOR FEDERAL PROCUREMENTS UNDER THE SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD

Google Geocoding API – the GEE platform shall provide access to the Google Geocoding API though the Google

Cloud for the NASS CropScape https://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/.CropScape platform hosted at George Mason University.

Google Colab - is included to implement deep learning in the NASS GEE Enterprise license.

Dissemination—the platform should allow users to export data in formats generally accepted in the geospatial industry (e.g., GEO Tagged Image File Format [GEOTIFF]) for use in other GIS or image processing software packages such as QGIS, ArcGIS, or ERDAS Imagine. The platform should allow government users to export data using tools accessible to them without incurring additional personal costs.

Technical Requirements

The vendor needs to outline all costs incurred by the Government in accessing any of the capabilities of the proposed system. At a minimum, the vendor needs to define or suggest a pricing structure for the following:

20 simultaneous NASS registered users Inclusive of all costs to the Government from the platform standpoint – including storage (upload and access to stored or derived data), access, processing, and dissemination.

Technical support is required for all technical questions that may arise from use of the platform.

5. Justification Rationale

NT Concepts (NTC) is the only authorized reseller of Google Earth. An email dated Mon 12/16/2020 9:25 AM from Google Representative Michael Barnes mikebarnes@google.com reconfirmed the assertion that NTC is the only authorized reseller of Google Earth Engine for the cloud based remote sensing platform that can provide the requirements needed by the Government. GEE is a commercial off the shelf platform that has all the required geospatial data and analysis capabilities that meets NASS business requirements. GEE is the only platform that offers the comprehensive datasets to meet NASS business needs. For other vendors to have the same comprehensive of set of data, their prices, which are already substantially more than GEE, would very likely increase and they would have to build the capability. The following are data specific requirements of the NASS that only GEE offers:

• A complete inventory of Landsat and Sentinel data

• A complete inventory of MODIS data

• All dates of NAIP imagery (2007 to current).

In addition to requirements and pricing, the purchase of new software/platform would require the redevelopment of software efforts, including research, development, integration, and verification and validation tasks performed over multiple years. Changing the underlying vendor platform for such a vital piece of the system at this stage in the process would not be possible

8. List the proposed vendor and contact information.

Next Tier Concepts, 8150 Leesburg Pike, Suite 1400, Vienna, VA 22182 POC: Daniel Dougherty – 443-983-9090

9. Describe why the proposed vendor is the only vendor from which the requirement can be obtained. Examples of acceptable justifications include but are not limited to: sole manufacturer and seller, adherence to warranty provisions, urgency, etc. If other vendors can provide similar products or services, describe why they cannot meet our particular requirement.

NT Concepts (NTC) is the only authorized reseller of Google Earth. An email dated Mon 12/16/2020 9:25 AM from Google Representative Michael Barnes mikebarnes@google.com reconfirmed the assertion that NTC is the only authorized reseller of Google Earth Engine for the cloud based remote sensing platform that can provide the requirements needed by the Government. GEE is a commercial off the shelf platform that has all the required geospatial data and analysis capabilities that meets NASS business requirements. GEE is the only platform that offers the comprehensive datasets to meet NASS business needs. For other vendors to have the same comprehensive of set of data, their prices, which are already substantially more than GEE, would very likely increase and they would have to build the capability. The following are data specific requirements of the NASS that only GEE offers:

• A complete inventory of Landsat and Sentinel data

• A complete inventory of MODIS data

• All dates of NAIP imagery (2007 to current).

In addition to requirements and pricing, the purchase of new software/platform would require the redevelopment of software efforts, including research, development, integration, and verification and validation tasks performed over multiple years. Changing the underlying vendor platform for such a vital piece of the system at this stage in the process would not be possible

10. Certification:

I hereby certify that the information provided above is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Rick Mueller Date Technical Representative

11. CO Certification:

I hereby determine that the circumstances of this procurement action deem only one source reasonably available. Also, the quoted price is determined to be fair and reasonable as documented on the SAP e-File Checklist and Award Summary.

Jessica Edwards Date Contracting Officer

12. Branch Chief Certification

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

Jessica Hadley Date Branch Chief Contracting Operations Branch 301-504-4300

RICHARD MUELLER Digitally signed by RICHARD MUELLER Date: 2021.01.25 10:47:44 -06'00'

1/25/2021

01/26/2021