DOCUMENT
70 -- TAC-16-37728 Community Care Enterprise Contact Center (CCECC) - Attachment
- Notice Date
- 9/21/2016
- Notice Type
- Attachment
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Veterans Affairs;Technology Acquisition Center;23 Christopher Way;Eatontown NJ 07724
- ZIP Code
- 07724
- Solicitation Number
- VA11816Q1644
- Archive Date
- 10/21/2016
- Point of Contact
- Jessica.Adamitis@va.gov
- E-Mail Address
-
jessica.adamitis@va.gov
(jessica.adamitis@va.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Award Number
- NNG15SD26B VA118-16-F-1496
- Award Date
- 9/21/2016
- Awardee
- THUNDERCAT TECHNOLOGY, LLC;1925 ISAAC NEWTON SQ STE 180;RESTON;VA;20190
- Award Amount
- $508,829.38
- Description
- JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY 1. Contracting Activity:Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition Operations Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724 2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-priced delivery order, issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Servers hardware and hardware maintenance, NetApp storage appliances hardware, hardware maintenance, software, and software maintenance. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology (OI&T), Service Delivery and Engineering (SDE), Enterprise Operations, Field Operations, Region 6 has a requirement for 16 Cisco UCS servers, NetApp storage components, a NetApp enterprise software license, and maintenance support that will augment the existing Region 6 Converged Virtual Infrastructure (CVI) systems located at Waco, TX, Denver, CO, and Topeka, KS which consists of Cisco USC servers and NetApp Storage Appliances. The augmentation is necessary to support more than 100 additional virtual servers needed for the current CVI Flexpod infrastructure in order to, in turn, support the Community Care Enterprise Contact Center (CCECC) project. The CVI systems currently installed at these sites are based in a Flexpods infrastructure. These Flexpods consist of three subsystems, Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects, Cisco UCS servers, and NetApp Storage Appliances. The maintenance support shall consist of hardware and software support to include software upgrades and security patch requirements. Maintenance support shall include 24x7 onsite service commitments with a response time of four hours and technical phone support 24x7x365. Due to the high level of interdependency between the devices and systems that comprise this augmentation in support of the CCECC project the Government requires a single integrator to provide and install, hardware, software licensing, and maintenance support for the Cisco and NetApp components to ensure the successful implementation of the CCECC project and to ensure VA has a single source for resolution of any conflicts or interoperability issues that may arise during installation and deployment. The CVI Flexpod is an integrated computing, networking, and storage solutions, in which its configurations are published as a Cisco Validated Design (CVD). This CVD ensures that the Flexpod system remains in compliance within the functional operating configurations of the solution and ensures the continued operability of the current infrastructure and converged infrastructure components. As such, the Government requires a single integrator to ensure proper integration and acceptance of augmentation that is fully compliant with the CVD. The use of multiple integrators would prevent the Government from providing a holistic testing for successful installation of the Flexpod augmentation components and increase risk of crossover technical issues of between dual integrators. By utilizing a single integrator, it ensures that the Flexpod maintains its CVD compliance and allows for the continuance of the holistic support offered by the unique partnership between Cisco and NetApp. A single vendor that can provide all of the hardware, software, maintenance, and installation is critical to the overall success of the CCECC project and continued operation of the current CVI Flexpod infrastructure. All delivery, installation services shall be completed within 90 days after receipt of order. The period of performance for all maintenance support shall be for 12 months from installation. 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C 4106(c)(2) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Section 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) entitled, "Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized." 5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on extensive market research, as described in section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for the aforementioned Cisco and NetApp items. Only Cisco and authorized resellers of Cisco products and NetApp and authorized resellers of NetApp products can provide the required Cisco USC Servers, storage appliances and that are fully interoperable and compatible with the CVI Flexpods infrastructure currently in place at VA Region 6. VA is not replacing its entire CVI Flexpods infrastructure, but rather is augmenting it. Therefore, any servers, storage appliances and/or software procured must interoperate and be compatible with the existing CVI Flexpods infrastructure. Only Cisco brand UCS servers are compatible with the proprietary Cisco UCS Manager software that runs on the current CVI Flexpod infrastructure. The CVI Flexpod Cisco UCS provides a single point of connectivity and management via the Cisco UCS Manager software. The Cisco UCS software and current Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects is based in coding that is proprietary to Cisco. The Fabric Interconnects and associated Cisco UCS Manager software manages the physical Cisco server blades and Cisco rack mount server components via service profiles. These service profiles, which are only compatible with Cisco UCS servers, manage everything from simply connectivity options, CPU memory DIMM and motherboard options, to firmware levels. Due to this low level integration only Cisco hardware is compatible with existing Cisco UCS Manager managed environments. Only Cisco and authorized resellers of Cisco can provide hardware and hardware maintenance that is fully compatible within the current CVI Flexpod infrastructure and Cisco UCS Manager software. Another brand would not be supported by the service profiles created by the USC Manager software, causing incompatibility within the system. Therefore only Cisco and authorized resellers of Cisco can meet the Government's requirements for server hardware for full integration into the Flexpod system residing at Waco and Denver datacenters. Furthermore, the NetApp storage expansions consist of NetApp Storage Controllers, NetApp Disk Shelves, and associated NetApp ONTAP Operating System (OS) software licensing. Only NetApp Disk Shelves and NetApp Controllers are interoperable and compatible within the existing CVI Flexpod infrastructure due to proprietary source coding of the software and hardware components. The NetApp ONTAP OS software runs on NetApp Controllers. This proprietary OS contains features such as deduplication, replication, backup and disaster recovery that are only interoperable within the existing NetApp storage systems. Only NetApp equipment and software running ONTAP OS are able to directly replicate data to and from the current CVI Flexpod infrastructure in place at the Waco, Denver, and Topeka datacenters. Additionally, only the NetApp ONTAP OS allows Region 6 Storage technical personnel to directly replicate/backup this data to any other of the 24 NetApp storage devices across the Region, which is a VA functional requirement of the CCECC project. Therefore, only NetApp and authorized resellers of NetApp can meet the Government's requirements for storage appliances and software for full integration into the CVI Flexpod infrastructure residing at Waco, Denver, and Topeka datacenters. Additionally, only Cisco, NetApp and their authorized resellers can provide the necessary software and hardware maintenance due to the proprietary source code required to develop and implement updates and maintenance support. Furthermore, the Cisco and NetApp maintenance will ensure all support services are performed and properly customized to the hardware and software components that are being augmented to the CVI Flexpod infrastructure. Additionally, the CVI Flexpod system provides a holistic support agreement for the entire CVI Flexpod infrastructure as a result of a partnership between Cisco and NetApp. This holistic support agreement provides access to multivendor (Cisco and NetApp) support engineers that allow resolution of issues within the complete CVI Flexpod system, rather than individual OEM maintenance agreements that can only address resolution of issues within their individual components of the infrastructure. This unique partnership between Cisco and NetApp allows VA technicians to resolve issues efficiently and avoid undue risk in discrepancies between different OEM support calls to diagnose problems that may exist between multiple layers of the technology. Therefore, only brand name Cisco, NetApp software and hardware maintenance can meet the Government's requirements. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. It was determined, however, that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for these brand name requirements. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), this action will be synopsized and the justification will be made publicly available on the Federal Business Opportunities Page within 14 days of award of the order, and this justification will also be posted to the NASA SEWP V GWAC website along with the Request for Quotation. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: This procurement is for an augmentation of CVI Flexpod systems that were initially competed and purchased by VA OI&T SDE in FY2015 via CEC. Government technical experts reviewed the CEC contract and determined that the Government's requirements are not available on the CEC as augmentation components cannot be procured separately and can only be procured as a whole Flexpod system. Additionally, the required Cisco and NetApp brand hardware, components, such as the servers and storage appliances, and maintenance support services are not available on the CEC contract. While augmentation of these current systems requires brand name products, when these systems are due for their lifecycle replacement, which is typically 3 to 5 years, it is not anticipated there will be a requirement for a brand name procurement. Furthermore, VA technicians will continue to monitor the marketplace for alternative solutions and technologies that will fit into the VA owned Flexpod configurations. 8. Market Research: Government technical experts conducted market research during August 2016 by reviewing similar products and services to ascertain if these items could meet the Government's requirements. Specifically, the Government's technical experts conducted web-based research on other commercial products including blade and standalone servers from Dell, IBM, Hewlett Packard, and EMC to determine if they could meet the Government's interoperability and compatibility requirements. Additionally the Government technical experts contacted technical engineers from two vendors, WWT and Affigent LLC to conduct further technical research and verify interoperability requirements of the Flexpod infrastructure. As a result of this market research, for the reasons stated above, the Government's technical experts confirmed that only Cisco UCS hardware is fully compatible within the existing Flexpod infrastructure. The Government's technical experts also determined that none of the products or solutions offered by these potential competitors could meet the necessary requirements due to their incompatibility with the existing NetApp Storage as well as their inability to replicate and recover data from the NetApp hardware. Furthermore, it was found that the software upgrades and security patch requirements of the maintenance agreement could only be fulfilled by NetApp due to the software's proprietary nature. Additional market research was conducted during August 2016 by utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool. The Provider Lookup Tool yielded 18 Group B2 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business contract holders offering both Cisco and NetApp brand name products. There is reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC amongst Group B(2) SDVOSB concerns for Cisco and NetApp hardware, software, and maintenance. 9. Other Facts: N/A
- Web Link
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FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/3173e53d2b43dafa95b88b457ac92a4f)
- Document(s)
- Attachment
- File Name: NNG15SD26B VA118-16-F-1496 NNG15SD26B VA118-16-F-1496_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3018665&FileName=NNG15SD26B-057.docx)
- Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3018665&FileName=NNG15SD26B-057.docx
- Note: If links are broken, refer to Point of Contact above or contact the FBO Help Desk at 877-472-3779.
- Record
- SN04281291-W 20160923/160921234657-3173e53d2b43dafa95b88b457ac92a4f (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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