SSJ_Redacted.pdf

This is a Single Source Justification (Simplified Acquisition) document for a federal contract award. The contracting activity is AFRL/PZLET, and the project is Aerospace Vehicles Computational Facilities Support. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) requires maintenance support for its HPC resources, specifically the HAP (High-Performance Computing) cluster system, which was acquired on-board around 2021. The HAP system utilizes a proprietary storage architecture designed and manufactured by DataDirect Networks (DDN), and the RQHAP cluster requires a critical firmware and software update to move to RHEL 8.10 kernels compatible with newer versions of the core OS 9. The acquisition will be funded using FY26 3600 funds.

The justification establishes that DDN Federal, LLC is the sole source reasonably available to perform the required maintenance and firmware updates. DDN retains proprietary rights to the source code, internal firmware, and diagnostic tools necessary for these updates, and the HAP system is currently under a 3-Year BSPO Support agreement (SO# 125514) ending 2/25/2026. The document notes that introducing third-party, non-certified technicians to perform core system updates would void existing support agreements and hardware warranties, and that DDN is the only source with certified Professional Services personnel authorized to perform version updates while maintaining operational certification within the AFRL/IZ and RQV environments. Market research confirmed no other IT service providers are authorized by the OEM to perform these specific system-level modifications. Section E outlines plans to preclude future single-source awards by monitoring HPC and data storage markets and ensuring future acquisitions are structured to allow full and open competition among qualified vendors.