final_redaction_A02-Stromasys_Charon_JA_PLAD_22151_30July2019__Final_with_signatures_Redacted.pdf

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT

FAR SUBPART 13.5 SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

– SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

Program/Equipment: Stromasys Charon VAX Emulator for the Satellite Communication Set (SCS) program

Authority: Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Certain Commercial Items, 41 U.S.C. 1901(a)(1) as implemented by FAR Subpart 13.501(a)(1)(i).

Amount:

Prepared by:

Email:

DSN:

Date: 26 Apr 2019

Contracting Officer:

Procuring Contracting Officer

Email:

DSN:

Date: 11 July 2019

Technical:

Project Lead

Email:

Date: 31 May 2019

Requirements:

Software Team Lead

Email:

Date: 11 July 2019

Reviews: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support sole source.

Program Manager:

7/31/2019

X

Team Lead, FAR Subpart 13.5 Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items – Sole Source

Justification and Approval

Total: $

This estimated was based on the IGCE which was derived from the budgetary quotes obtained as part of the market research performed by the Government.

4. Authority Cited: Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Certain Commercial Items, 41 U.S.C.

1901(a)(1) as implemented by FAR Subpart 13.501(a)(1)

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

(a) The use of a brand name description in this acquisition is essential to the Governments requirements, thereby precluding consideration of a product manufactured by another company.

Stromasys SA, a Swiss software company which has its headquarters in Cointrin, near Geneva, is the manufacturer of the brand name Charon software products. CHARON-VAX is an emulator software product owned, sold, and serviced by Stromasys.

The Software Engineering Center (SEC) supports the Contingency Defense Satellite Control System

(DSCS) Operational Control System (CDOCS). The use of the Charon VAX Emulator software for

VAX Operating Systems in CDOCS is essential in meeting the needs for the US Army. The software has already been deployed to the field. The redundant systems must mirror the fielded systems. The licenses getting renewed cover all assets, fielded and SEC/Tobyhanna Army Depot systems. Using a different product will impact the configuration baseline and require re-engineering. This is why

Charon VAX Emulator is the only product that meets the aforementioned requirements in Section 3 of this J&A. The impact of not receiving Charon VAX Emulator annual software and support would be detrimental to the day to day operation at Army installations and to the Department of the Army as a whole. If CDOCS does not receive this software for SCS to operate it will not function and satellite communication will halt.

The CHARON-VAX emulator is a complex software package that emulates the hardware of a legacy computer system, a MicroVAX II, originally running an OpenVMS operating system. It provides an exact model of the emulated hardware system, which runs as a normal application on a host system.

The important advantage of hardware emulation is that existing binary systems and application code of the old system will execute as long as the emulator model is built correctly. Re-implementation of the old operating systems’ complexity on the new platform isn’t necessary, and the existing application behavior and user interface are preserved exactly. No changes to the original software code are required. While technical information of older systems is often in the public domain, the interaction between emulated components in real time is very complicated. This is especially true if the components of the emulator are designed to operate asynchronously, as is the case with CHARON-

VAX. This asynchronous operation permits efficient utilization of the host system, and allows obtaining a reasonable performance of the emulated environment.

The detailed cost to re-engineer the baseline system to not utilize CHARON-VAX is estimated to be 1

FTE for of engineering plus associated costs and overhead. For it would be approximately dollars. The dollar value is based on r for contractor support.

[K = thousand, M = million]

Engineering/Integration (based on months) $ K

Configuration Management $ K

Engineering Verification & Validation $ K

Information Assurance & IAVA/STIG $ K

Integration $ K

Independent Verification & Validation $ K

Fielding and Support $ K

TOTAL ESTIMATED COST OF REENGINNERING EFFORT $ K

(b) Alternatives: The only COTS alternative that is comparable to CHARON-VAX that can be located is vtVAX by Vere Technologies, www.vax-alpha-emulation.com. The above estimate of would be required to engineer, test and field this software. There are 2 open source VAX emulators that can be located, SIMH and eVAX. IAW AR25-2: Use of “open source” software (for example, Red Hat Linux) is permitted when the source code is available for examination of malicious content, applicable configuration implementation guidance is available and implemented, a protection profile is in existence, or a risk and vulnerability assessment has been conducted with mitigation strategies implemented with Designated Approving Authority and Configuration Control Board approval and documentation in the Certification & Accreditation package. The use of open source software would introduce additional challenges and risks, thus increasing the cost to re-engineer the system but without the purchase cost.

The sunset date for SCS is currently . With the cost for licenses and support through 30 Jul 2024 at purchasing a different product or utilizing open source software will result in an increased cost to the Government.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: The Contracting Officer shall publish the notices required by

FAR 5.201 and any bids or proposals received shall be considered. The Government will utilize a combined synopsis/solicitation to fulfill the requirements of 5.201 and therefore the notice will not be until solicitation release.

a. Effective Competition: This Brand Name requirement owned by Stromasys, Inc. who is uses only authorized resellers to provide pricing to the Army. Competition is limited to Stromays, Inc.

authorized resellers.

b. Subcontracting Competition: This is a Brand Name, proprietary, Commercial-Off-the-Shelf product line. The Government possesses only a commercial purchase description for the software. Technical data for the licenses is proprietary to Stromasys. The commercial purchase description does not provide enough technical information to allow other vendors to create the functionality of this product.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: Commercial software manufacturers are encouraged to increase the number of authorized resellers. Additionally, upon receipt of the requirement an authorized list of authorized distributors for this software is immediately requested from the original manufacturer. The manufacturer is also encouraged to pursue distribution of their products/services through Small

Businesses, Small Minority Owned Disadvantaged Businesses, HUBZONE, Service Disabled Veteran

Owned, and Woman Owned Small businesses. Market research will be conducted annually on the current baseline to determine if changes occur in the market place that would enable greater competition.

8. Market Research: Market research was performed by the Team in April 2019 with the intent to increase the number of authorized distributors, by increasing participation by small businesses, small disadvantaged small business, HUBZone, 8 (A), Service Disabled Veteran Owned, and Woman Owned Businesses and or to find companies that could provide Red Hat software.

Searches were performed on the Army Computer Hardware Enterprise Software Solutions (CHESS) on 12/20/2019, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise

Wide Procurement (SEWP) (RFQ#115970) on 04/12/2019, and General Services Administration

(GSA) Advantage (RFQ#1360213) on 04/12/2019, all requesting current budgetary pricing for the required software and alternate products. No alternate product was found in this market research.

The searches for Charon VAX software on the CHESS website resulted in a Statement of Non-

Availability, Number 216741347, dated 20 December 2018 being issued for this requirement.

Quayle Consulting, Inc. is the only vendor provided a budgetary quote in response to this market research.

The manufacturer, Stromasys, provided a preferred source letter, dated 23 April 2019, stating that

Quayle Consulting, Inc. is an authorized reseller of Stromasys products and support contracts, including CHARON-VAX/XM for Windows. On 10 July 2019, Stromasys provided an email to update the SEC CALM Action Officer that all of Stromasys partners are authorized to quote

Stromasys products and services, however only a few are certified to provide the actual support that the contract provides. Quayle Consulting, Software Concepts International, and eNVy Systems are approved to provide the actual technical support. Stromasys engineers provide support coverage for all other partners.

The additional search was performed by the Army Contracting Command - Division E at Aberdeen

Proving Ground, MD found 16 vendors were listed on the Partner Resource Center on the Stromasys website: Quayle Consulting, Software Concepts International, ENVY Systems, ASA Computers, CAS

Severn, Computer Engineering Services, CMA, Harbor Consulting, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mosaic Technology, M2 Technology, OneNeck IT Solutions, Protogate, Pyramid Technology

Services, Rolta Advizex Technologies, and VMS Software.

9. Interested Sources: The Government Point of Entry (GPE) notice required by FAR 5.201 will be published on the federal business opportunities page. To date, no other sources have written to express interest in the acquisition beyond the vendors listed in paragraph 8.

10. Other Facts:

a. Procurement History:

Contract/DO Number Contractor Award Date Procurement Type

W56JSR-17-P-0058 Quayle Consulting, Inc. 14 Sep 2017 FAR 13.5 Sole Source -

Brand Name

b. Acquisition Data Availability: The Government only possesses the commercially available technical data customarily provided with this COTS product. The commercial purchase description does not provide enough technical information to allow other vendors to create the functionality of this product.

c. Subcontracting Competition: Although there are no FAR subcontracting provisions that require competition among potential subcontractors for commercial contracts, the Government will seek to maximize subcontracting completion with a focus on subcontract to so small and small disadvantaged businesses.

11. Technical Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

12. Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

13. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated cost or price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable.

This determination will be made using the following: ☒ price analysis ☐ IGCE ☐ other:

As a part of this basis, certified cost or pricing data:

☐ will be required.

☒ will not be required and the following exception applies (FAR 15.403):

☐ Prices that will be agreed upon are based on adequate price competition.

☐ Prices that will be agreed upon are based on prices set by law or regulation.

☒ A commercial item is being acquired.

☐ A waiver has been granted by the head of the contracting activity (HCA) in accordance with

DFARS PGI 215.403-1.

☐ The contract action is a modification to a contract or subcontract for commercial item(s).

☐ The estimated cost of the contract action is less than the threshold for certified cost or pricing data.

14. Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

*Contracting Officer Signature at paragraph 14 (Contracting Officer Certification) constitutes approval. Approval page not required.*