SSJ- GATE U Bridge.pdf

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of the Chief Procurement Officer

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition J&A No: FY21-05

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION – 41 U.S.C. § 3304(a)(2)

Pursuant to the requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 6.3 and in accordance with the requirements of FAR 6.303-1, the justification for the use of the statutory authority under FAR Subpart 6.3 is justified by the following facts and rationale required under FAR 6.303-2 as follows:

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

The Department of Homeland Security, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD)) Acquisition Division proposes to into enter a time and materials contract for support to the GATE-U AWS software engineering activities on a basis other than full and open competition.

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

CWMD intends to procure on a sole source basis technical and software engineering support services for the GATE-U AWS program. The purpose of this proposed contract is to meet existing and emerging information sharing and interoperability needs of the programs and projects of the radiological, nuclear, and chemical portfolio within CWMD. The proposed contractor is Enterprise Information Services, Incorporated (EIS), 1945 Old Gallows Road, Suite 500, Vienna, Virginia 22218-3996. EIS has been providing these services to CWMD under competitively awarded Contract HSHQDC-15-J-00451. The period of performance under this legacy contract will terminate on November 2, 2020. As discussed below, the competitive award of a successor contract has been unexpectedly delayed. Therefore, CWMD intends to award a time and materials bridge contract using Fiscal Year 2020 Research and Development Funds pursuant to Solicitation Number 70RWMD21R00000001 for a nine-week based period of performance and a four-week optional period of performance. Specifically:

Item Description Quantity Unit of

Issue Estimated Unit Cost

Discount Estimated Discounted Unit Price

Estimated Fixed Price Per Line Item

Base Period: Nov 3, 2020 - Jan 4, 2021 (Nine weeks)

Information Sharing Support IT Infrastructure Support Mission Support Application Administration

1 EA $473,806.00 0% $473,806.00 $473,806.00

Option Period One: Jan 5, 2021 – Feb 2, 2021 (Four Weeks)

Information Sharing Support IT Infrastructure Support Mission Support Application Administration

1 EA $210,580.28 0% $210,580.28 $210,580.28

Estimated Total $684,386.28

The CWMD Mission IT Environment is in prototype and is in the Unclassified/Sensitive security domain. The diverse assets—desktops, laptops, servers, network devices, and

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition software—of the physical prototype are within CWMD facilities as is one of several prototype virtualization environments. The physical prototype includes:

• Interconnected and isolated desktop computers

• Virtualization infrastructure with virtual storage area network and virtual data protection

• Physical and virtualized servers

• Core services (including Active Directory, LDAP, anti-malware, and security information and event management)

• Mission Support Applications for o Architecture and architecture visualization – IBM Rational System Architect XT, Troux Architect, System Architect;

o Producing and validating NIEM artifacts – IEPD Factory;

o ANSI N42.42 compliance – ANSI N42.42 Validator;

o Business intelligence – Logi Analytics Info Server, Logi Analytics Info Studio;

o Data modeling – CA ERwin Data Modeler;

o Data visualization and analysis Tableau Server, Tableau Desktop;

o Requirements management – IBM Rational Requirements Composer/DOORS Next

Generation; and Modeling, simulation, and analysis – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Radiological and Nuclear Risk Analysis Model (RNRAM), Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Probabilistic Effectiveness Methodology (PEM), LANL’s Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code, Naval Research Laboratory’s SoftWare for Optimization of Radiation Detectors (SWORD), and MathWorks’ MATLAB; and ImagineThat’s ExtendSim.

3. Description of Supplies/Services

The Contractor shall provide technical services in support to CWMD for governance and compliance, interoperability, tools and technologies, information technology infrastructure, and information security.

The Contractor shall review, understand, and apply CWMD, DHS, and Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA) strategies, implementation plans, and processes in its technical services to the CWMD.

The Contractor shall understand and apply the principles, practices, and tools of CWMD and DHS systems engineering life cycle, enterprise architecture, data architecture, data management, information technology investment management, accessibility, information security, and information sharing in its technical services to CWMD

The Contractor shall also understand and apply principles, best practices, and tools in the life cycle support to the CWMD Mission IT Environment.

4. Identification of Statutory Authority Permitting Other Than Full and Open

Competition.

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(2), pursuant to FAR 6.302-2, Unusual and Compelling Urgency. The bridge contract award is not in

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition direct response to or recovery from a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other manmade disaster.

The period of performance limitations in the FAR, rather than the Department of Homeland Security Acquisition Regulation (HSAR), apply to this procurement.

5. Demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited.

Situation: CWMD is in the process of competitively awarding a Cloud Software Engineering Services contract that will cover the scope of the GATE-U AWS requirement for software engineering services and ultimately replace the bridge contract that is the subject of this justification as well as the legacy contract for the GATE-U AWS requirement which will expire on November 2, 2020. Due to unanticipated and unexpected delays and difficulties resulting from the COVID 19 pandemic, CWMD was not able to issue the solicitation for the competitive follow-on contract until August 28, 2020, two months later than planned. While CWMD nonetheless believed it would be able to timely award the competitive follow-on contract, continued logistical difficulties resulting from the COVID 19 pandemic as well as receipt of a significantly larger number of offers than anticipated based on market research has further unexpectedly delayed the award of the competitive follow-on contract. As a result of these unanticipated delays, the estimated award date for the CWMD Cloud Software Engineering Services contract is now December 15, 2020. Given that the legacy GATE-U AWS software engineering services contract ends on November 2, 2020, to include the exercise of all options, a new bridge contract must be awarded to ensure there is no break in service as well as provide a necessary two-week transition period. The timeline to do so before the end of the current performance period precludes a full and open competition as well as an award to any contractor other than the incumbent, EIS.

Rationale: The criticality of the software engineering services to the GATE-U AWS program, potential life threatening consequences of any gap in these services, and unanticipated delay in the competitive award of a successor contract have created an unusual and compelling urgency necessitating the award a non-competitive, sole source bridge contract to the current GATE-U AWS contractor, EIS, for up to a maximum of 13 weeks (nine-week base + four-week option). The base period of performance ensures that based on current estimates there will not be a gap in the performance of these critical CWMD Information Architecture support services between the termination of the current legacy contract and competitive award of the follow-on contract. The base period of performance also includes an essential two-week transition period following initiation of performance under the competitively awarded follow-on contract. If due to unanticipated circumstances the new CWMD Cloud Software Engineering Services contract is not awarded prior to December 15, 2020, then the four-week option period would be exercised to provide additional time to complete the award and maintain a two-week transition period.

Impact/Nature of Serious Injury: The GATE-U AWS system is the backbone of the CWMD Information Architecture. If there is any gap in software engineering support services, GATE-U AWS will be required to be shut down. If GATE-U AWS is shut down due to the lack of software engineering servicers support, then the CWMD Intelligence Analysts and Operational Support personnel will not have access to the intelligence and information carried by the CWMD Information Architecture. The analysis performed from the intelligence and

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition information contained in the CWMD Information Architecture provides early warning of a nuclear, chemical, or bioterrorism attack. The lack of this analysis capability severely reduces CWMD’s mission effectiveness and puts all Americans at greater risk of a weapons of mass destruction attack.

Qualifications of Proposed Contractor: Software engineering services provided to GATE-U AWS and the CWMD Information Architecture require highly skilled personnel with significant specialized experience. Staff must have the requisite subject matter expertise in multiple technical areas, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) software engineering, AWS system administration, and AWS cyber security. As the incumbent, EIS has the technical skills, subject matter expertise, and experience with software engineering for GATE-U AWS and the CWMD Information Architecture to maintain the GATE-U AWS program necessary for early detection and response to a nuclear, chemical, or biological terrorism event.

Alternatives: Given the unusual and compelling circumstances described above, no viable alternatives exist beyond a non-competitive, sole-source award to the current GATE-U AWS engineering support performer.

6. Description of Efforts Made to Ensure that Offers are Solicited from as Many Potential

Sources as is Practicable.

No announcement will be published for this solicitation. The applicable exception under FAR 5.202(a)(2) is the proposed contract action is made under the conditions described in 6.302-2 (or, for purchases conducted using simplified acquisition procedures, if unusual and compelling urgency precludes competition to the maximum extent practicable) and the Government would be seriously injured if the agency complies with the time periods specified in 5.203. Pursuant to FAR 6.305, DHS intends to make this justification publicly available following award in beta.SAM.gov under Contract Opportunities.

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

The contracting officer determines that the anticipated price will be fair and reasonable based on a comparison to the independent government cost estimate and the current, legacy contract rates, which were negotiated pursuant to a competitively awarded task order under the DHS HQ Eagle II strategic sourcing contract.

8. Description of Market Research.

CWMD did not conduct market research specific to this bridge contract. Based on market research conducted in advance of the solicitation for the pending, to be competitively awarded follow-on contract, as well as the higher than anticipated number of offers received in response to that solicitation, it is apparent that other sources could potentially perform these services under different circumstances. Due to severe time constraints, to include the inability to obtain DHS HQ suitability and in some cases secret clearances for contractor personal to be granted access to DHS systems, no other potential sources will be able to immediately perform the requested services at the level of skill necessary for this unique and highly specialized work until a competition and appropriate phase-in transition

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition period can occur.

9. Any Other Facts Supporting the Use of Other Than Full and Open Competition.

The exceptional circumstances of this requirement requires an award pursuant to FAR 6.302-2. This requirement implements and maintains the CWMD Mission IT Environment, which supports CWMD science, engineering, and architecture activities. In addition to the above described potential severe impacts resulting from a gap in service, a discontinuity of service would lead to a delay in the transition of the proposed system from prototype status to Authority to Operate and therefore, not meet existing and emerging information sharing and interoperability needs of the programs and projects of the radiological and nuclear portfolio.

10. A Listing of the Sources, if Any That Expressed, in Writing, an Interest in the

Acquisition.

N/A

11. A Statement of the Actions, if Any, the Agency May Take to Remove or Overcome Any Barriers to Competition Before Any Subsequent Acquisition for Supplies or Services Required.

A Request for Quote (RFQ) was released on August 26, 2020, to the vendors on GSA’s Strategic Sourcing Contracts IT Schedule 70 SIN 132-40 and Schedule 70 SIN 132-51 for the follow-on support to this current contract. This RFQ is currently going through the source selection process. The to-be-competitively awarded CWMD Cloud Engineering Services contract will provide expanded cloud software engineering services, cloud technical services, and supporting software for the fielding of a CWMD Information Architecture. The CWMD Cloud Engineering Services contract will have a five-year period of performance (one-year base and four one-year options) and is anticipated to be awarded on or about December 15, 2020.

Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition

12. Contracting Officer’s Certification. I certify that the data supporting the recommended use of other than full and open competition is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Jonathan Igwebueze Date Contracting Officer

13. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification. I certify this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which forms a basis for this justification, is complete and accurate.

James Reese Date Technical Representative

14. Legal Counsel Review. I reviewed this Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition in accordance with HSAM 3006.304-70 and find it legally sufficient.

Joseph Jankunis Date Legal Counsel

APPROVAL:

Jonathan Igwebueze Date Contracting Officer

Date: 2020.10.28 13:32:26 -04'00'

Date: 2020.10.28 13:36:46 -04'00'

Date: 2020.10.28 13:50:12 -04'00'