A03_-_Redacted_J&A_over_$150K_18-C-0034.pdf

Control No: (JA-18-ADEL-485) Contractor Veranox Corporation:

Supply/Service: Service

JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT

FAR PART 6 JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN

FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Programs/Equipment:

Development, support, maintainenance, and operation of the Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) Processing, Explotation and Dissemination (PED) Tactical Edge Processing System

Authority:

10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1) as implemented by FAR Part 6.302-1 -- Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

Amount: [redacted]

Prepared by: [redacted] Contracting Officer: [redacted] Technical: [redacted] Requirements: [redacted]

Reviews: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support other than full and open competition.

Program Manager:

X Program Manager

Supply/Service: Service

FAR Part 6 Justification and Approval for Other than Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Activity: Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG), Adelphi Division (CCAP-SCA), 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD 20783-

2. Description of Action: The Intelligence, Sensors, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Technology Integration Branch, RDRL-SES-S, within the Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate (SEDD) at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) requests a non-commercial, firm-fixed price level of effort (FFP-LOE) and firm-fixed price (FFP) service contract with Veranox Corporation, 4560 King Edward Ct Annandale, VA, 22003-5710, USA. The Government projects award for July 2018 and fiscal year 2018, Army Research Development Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) funds will be used.

_X_ An acquisition plan is not required because this procurement either does not meet the threshold at Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 207.103(d)(i), or is an R&D acquisition and does not meet the definition of services in 10 U.S.C. 2330(c)(2).

3. Description of Supplies/Services:

The purpose of this effort is to further develop, support, maintain, and operate the Roll- On-Roll-Off (RORO) Processing, Explotation and Dissemination (PED) tactical edge processing system in support of ARL Programs that are intended to advance the state-of-the-art in their respective areas of concentration. The aforemention R&D services will enable ARL to further continue experimental mission research on the RORO system and quickly switch back and forth between research programs on RORO, while preserving individual program environments and minimizing the time and labor required to move between program-specific configurations. The continued development services will be procured as a Firm-Fixed Price Level of Effort (FFP-LOE) contract type (CLIN 0001), with the operation, support, and maintenance servicesl being procured as a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract type (CLIN 0002 and Travel CLIN 0003).

CLIN 0001: RORO System Development: [redacted] CLIN 0002: Operation, Support, Maintenance Services: [redacted] CLIN 0003: Travel: [redacted] Period of Performance: One (1) year from award of this contract.

Total Value: [redacted]

4. Authority Cited:

10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

Supply/Service: Service

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

The RORO system is based on a VMware vSphere environment supporting numerous Windows and Linux operating systems running a customized mixture of Commerical Off- The-Shelf (COTS) and Government Off-The-Shelf (GOTS) applications. These collective systems are used to provide analyst workstation environments; dynamic, on-demand system configuration and changes; back end processing; sensor support; data collection, storage and retrieval; networking and shared resource management; and similar functions during technology demonstration events and exercises. The RORO system was developed by Veranox Corporation as a result of a previous Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract. Veranox Corporation has demonstrated experience in further developing, operating, maintaining and supporting the RORO at such events for the past several years.

In particular, during the previous BAA contract, Veranox Corporation had supported the Contested Urban Environment (CUE) exercise in 2017 with our coalition partners, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Austraila. CUE is the key event of the Coliation Warfare Program (CWP) which ARL is a member. The aim of this excerise is to assess emerging technologies that could assist with addressing some of the challenges of operating in complex and often contested urban environments in particular denying access to areas when needed, assuring mobility of light forces and understanding such environments prior to operations. This support involved integration with specific sensor sytems, applications, protocols, and networks. Specific sensor systems include the Australian Wide Area Surveillance Activity Based Intelligence (WASBI), Evolutionary Layered ISR Integration Exemplar Architechiture (ELIXAR), Canadian Compact Unattended Persistent Surveillance System (CUPSS), and Network Enabled Soldier (NES). ARL is continuing the CUE exercise in September 2018.

Moreover, Veranox possesses extensive technical expertise in the technologies utilized on the RORO system and ARL analyst environments, including VMware vSphere (e.g., ESXi hypervisor, vCenter Server, Horizon View), NVIDIA GPU hardware and software, Wyse Zero client terminals, Windows Operating Systems (Win7, Win10, Windows Server 2008/2012), Linux Operating Systems (e.g., RHEL and CentOS), Microsoft SQL Server, Cisco data center class switches (NX-OS), and MIT’s APIX software among others. In addition, over the past several years Veranox Corporation has gained extensive expertise with the GOTS, ARL analyst environment toolset, including data set loading, DTED loading and configuration, map server loading, configuration and management, network optimization for sensor applications, and physical deployment of analyst systems and networks in field environments. Veranox Corporation has provided technical support in terms of system configurations as well as end user support directly to analysts. Moreover, Veranox Corporation has acquired significant experience in supporting the structure, operations tempo, methodologies, processes and priorities of CUE event(s). Veranox Corporation is the sole source based upon experimental continuity of the RORO mission. No other source could possibly hold this mix of technical expertise, RORO system-specific operation experience, and CUE event support experience. In order for ARL to maximize success and accomplish all objectives for the capstone CUE 2018 event in Montreal, the Government requires continuity of operations, experimentation, and support for the current RORO PED. Any other contractor would

Supply/Service: Service require exorbitant ramp-up time and substantial additional labor costs that would delay and potentially derail ARL from accomplishing its goals for CUE 2018. Furthermore, providing training to another source for the aforementioned specific sensor systems, GOTS applications, protocols, and networks that Veranox Corportaiton already wields, would cost the Government $100,000.00, expended over 550 hours (3.5 months) of lost time and manpower assuming a rate of [redacted].

The CUE 2018 event is scheduled for September 2018. The technical and operations requirements for CUE 18, and the cost to the government to award to another source, necessitates that only Veranox Corporation is capable of satisfying the Government’s needs and is the sole source for this action. It is in the best interest of the Government to have the research and development services for the development, support, maintenance, and operation of the Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) system completed by Veranox Corporation.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Effective competition is not anticipated for this procurement based on the market research performed (see section 8). Based on the results of the market research performed, there are currently no other sources capable of meeting the Government’s aforementioned requirements. In addition, a formal Synopsis was posted on May 31, 2018 for 15 days under the announcement number W911QX-18- R-0025 to the Government Point of Entry (GPE) FedBizOpps.gov (FBO.gov) with a Notice of Intent to Sole Source to Veranox Corporation and no responses were received.

In addition, the BAA invitation for technical solutions (W911NF-17-S-0003) remains open and over the past 12 months no additional responses have been received.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: Itis assumed there will be a future need for operating, maintaining,further developing the RORO system, and transitioning this technology to other DoD components and partners. Also, it is anticipated there will be a need for continued support for the CUE exercise in 2019. The government will actively conduct extensive market research to locate other sources with similar capabilities and will continually survey the marketplace in order to determine whether any other source has emerged that can fulfill the Government’s requirements. ARL will continue to pursue web searches and hold discussions among the engineering community (particularly at events such as CUE) to help locate other sources that can provide compatible development, support, operation, and maintenance services to the RORO system.

Potential future sources would need to be able to demostrate knowledge of the aforementioned technologies utilized on the RORO system. In addition, ARL anticipates further developments and breakthroughs for comparable services performed on similar RORO systems designed for use in contested and austere environments. Any known sources that can provide the necessary development, support, operation, and maintenance will be sought after for competitive interest in the future. To date, no other vendor has been identified that has the ability to provide the required research and development services for the RORO system.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted between January 2018 and March 2018 by [redacted]. [redacted] a Systems Engineer within the Sensor and Electrons Devices Directorate (SEDD) of the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) with fifteen (15)

Supply/Service: Service years of experience in the respective field, and is the laboratory point of contact for the Army Laboratory’s RORO system. The market research techniques used consisted of consulting with various subject matter experts in the field of portable PED systems along with Information Assurance personnel at ARL. [redacted] and [redacted], at ARL ,were both consulted to gain more information on industry and possible sources. Both [redacted] and [redacted] have over 15 years of experience in the ISR Technology branch. Two companies (Calnet, Inc. and Booz Allen) were also reviewed and found to not be able to meet the requirements. [redacted] spoke to management of both companies and it was stated that in order to provide the aforementioned skillsets (VM WARE, Linux Support, Risk Management Framework, etc.), 4-5 employees at a minimum would need to be provided, not including the ramp up resources and training.

Veranox is providing 2 employees with these skills which reduces the local and travel costs and more importantly allows attendance to offsite events, such as CUE 18, which limit attendance. Also, while both companies may have technical expertise in the technologies utilized on the RORO system, they would require lengthy ramp up time for the RORO system-specific operation and CUE event support experience. Market research concluded that Veranox Corporation is the only sole source capable of providing research and development services for continued development, support, maintenance, and operation of the RORO system.

9. Interested Sources: In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.201, a synopsis was posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) on May 31, 2018 for 15 days to announce the Government’s intent to sole source to Veranox Corporation. At the closing of this synopsis it resulted in no interested vendors responding.And to date, no other sources have written or expressed any interest in this acquisition.

10. Other Facts:

a. Procurement history. Reasonable efforts to retrieve the following items from computer records, contract files, competition advocate office files or other sources are expected:

Contract: W911QX-13-C-0165 (Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract awarded in response to Competitive Solicitation #ARL BAA W911NF-12-R-0011) Contractor: Veranox Corporation (Small Business) Award Date: 8/28/2013 Period of Performance: 8/28/2013 to 8/31/2018 Dollar Value: $611,646.26 Competitive Status: Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)

(1) Contract numbers and dates of the last several contracts for these same requirements:

Contract Number W911QX-13-C-0165 (Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract awarded in response to Competitive Solicitation #ARL BAA W911NF- 12-R-0011)

Supply/Service: Service

(2) The competitive status of these actions.

W911QX-13-C-0165 full and open competition

(3) Authority previously cited if less than full and open competition was used.

Not applicable – full and open competition was used.

(4) If a justification was prepared to support the procurement made before this one, a summary of the contents of paragraph 7 of the justification for that procurement and an explanation of the results.

Not applicable – full and open competition was used.

(5) If any prior contract for this requirement was accomplished using full and open competition, include a detailed explanation of the changed circumstances causing this action to now limit the sources.

Prior procurement was ordered under contract W911QX-13-C-0165. The objective of this contract was to design, configure, and test a prototype hardware infrastructure in support of a virtualization layer upon which any number of research programs can deploy individualized systems and configurations in a rapid and repeatable manner, while preserving the core configuration of the PED testbed. This will enable ARL to quickly switch back and forth between research programs in the testbed, while preserving individual program environments and minimizing the time and labor required to move between program-specific configurations. The contractor, Veranox Corporation, was successful in the developing the Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED) tactical edge processing system. This preceding contract was a BAA contract effort.

(6) An explanation of any unusual patterns that may be revealed by the history, e.g., several consecutive, urgent buys.

Not applicable – No unusual patterns.

(7) If a justification was prepared to support the procurement made before this one, briefly describe the circumstances justifying the procurement and whether there have been any significant changes.

Not applicable – The first effort was in response to an ARL BAA W911NF-12-R- 0011.

b. Other facts. Provide any other facts necessary to justify limiting competition that were not previously stated.

Not applicable – There are no other facts that were not previously stated.

Supply/Service: Service

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.

Signer’s Title: Systems Engineer

Technical Certifier (Tech)

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.

Signer’s Title: Systems Engineer

Requirements Certifier

Supply/Service: Service

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:

_X_ Cost analysis __ Price analysis __ Should cost

_X_ IGCE

__ Audit:

__ Other:

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

__ Will be required.

_X_ 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).

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

Contracting Officer (KO)

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

Supply/Service: Service

Supply/Service: Service

Approval Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of the development, support, maintainenance, and operation of the Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) Processing, Explotation and Dissemination (PED)Tactical Edge Processing System on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C.

2304(c)(1), subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services or supplies herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

(End of J&A)