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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 FBO #6138
DOCUMENT

D -- GEN2 Storage (Netapp) - Attachment

Notice Date

9/11/2018
 

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

36C10B18Q3071
 

Archive Date

11/10/2018
 

Point of Contact

Joseph.Pignataro@va.gov
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

NNG15SD30B 36C10B18F2872
 

Award Date

9/11/2018
 

Awardee

EPOCH CONCEPTS, LLC;8920 BARRONS BLVD STE 100;HIGHLANDS RANCH;CO;80129
 

Award Amount

$3,893,324.91
 

Description

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY 1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724 2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), for the procurement of brand name NetApp hardware and software, along with installation and configuration services, maintenance and technical support. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The VA, Enterprise Operations (EO) and National Data Center Program Operation and Logistics has a requirement to increase the storage capacity of two existing FledPod Converged Virtual Infrastructures (CVIs) which are located at the Philadelphia Information Technology Center (PITC) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Defense Enterprise Commuting Center (DECC) in St. Louis, Missouri. The Flexpods are a converged virtual infrastructure that combines Cisco networking and compute components with NetApp storage elements in an all in one engineered platform. The Cisco elements provide the networking communications between all of the hardware and the compute servers while the NetApp products provide the storage required for the environment. The Flex pod is specifically engineered to provide high performance all in one rack of hardware. This requirement is to procure only brand name NetApp hardware and software along with installation and configuration services, maintenance and technical support to increase the NetApp storage capacity of the CVI s. Specifically, VA will procure 14,802 various NetApp hardware items and associated software. VA will only be increasing capacity on the existing NetApp storage within the Flexpod infrastructure, no Cisco components will be purchased within this procurement. The CVI s current and only workload is hosting the Region 2 and 3 Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) applications. VistA applications are the core operating systems of VA hospitals across the nation and the need to maintain reliable up to date systems is of utmost importance and serves a great value to our Veterans. The DISA DECC stores sensitive patient care information for Region 2 and 3 healthcare facilities, and PITC is the disaster recovery location for DISA DECC. Additionally, VA requires support services to identify security vulnerabilities and defect resolutions, while ensuring all hardware runs efficiently for all hospitals within Regions 2 and 3. Accordingly,the maintenance and technical support services consist of NetApp SupportEdge hardware and software maintenance, which includes 24x7x365 remote assistance (with a 4-hour response time), patches, bug fixes, software upgrades, as well as NetApp Consult Day support which includes converged solution storage virtualization, switching, and fabric interconnect troubleshooting. All hardware shall be delivered within 30 days and installation and configuration shall be due 90 days after receipt of order. The associated hardware includes a 12-month NetApp warranty along with technical and maintenance support. The total estimated price of the proposed action is $. 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 paragraph 8 of this document, it was determined that competition is viable among authorized resellers for brand name NetApp hardware and software, installation and configuration services, maintenance and technical support. Only brand name NetApp hardware and software, along with installation and configuration services, maintenance and technical support can meet the Government s technical requirements for increasing capacity within the existing infrastructure which currently consists of two FlexPod systems at PITC and DISA DECC. Only brand name Netapp storage can be utilized for the additional capacity due to the proprietary NetApp Data on Tap operating system which is specific to NetApp storage hardware. Other manufacturers do not have the proprietary source code and hardware necessary to provide the required operations and technical support. Access to the proprietary source code is required to ensure all services provided on the NetApp products are properly configured. Increasing the capacity of two FlexPod CVI s consisting of NetApp products will ensure significant reduction of risk of patient care data from being corrupted or lost. Other vendor storage controllers and disk shelves are not compatible as each vendor has their own proprietary hardware and software in providing storage, and therefore would not integrate with the currently fielded Region 2 and Region 3 NetApp VistA application hardware and software. Also, other brand name software would not be able to communicate with the exisiting NetApp items fielded due to the properitary constraints. In addition, use of any other brand name items will result in having to replace all the exisiting NetApp items currently urilized in the fielded FlexPod System. This would result in extensive delivery delays and duplicated costs that would not be recovered through competition. Further, due to the proprietary nature of the hardware and software, only NetApp or its authorized resellers can provide the required support for the NetApp components of the environment, and the licenses keys necessary for the products to operate. NetApp or its authorized resellers are the only sources available that can provide software updates, troubleshooting, patches, and version releases as well as authorize hardware replacement and remediation services. Other manufacturers do not have the proprietary source code and hardware replacement parts necessary to provide the required maintenance and support. Access to the proprietary code is required to ensure all services provided on the NetApp products are properly configured. Support services performed by parties not authorized by NetApp invalidate product warranties and remove liability for performance from the manufacturer. Procurement of the required maintenance and support will ensure that the storage systems remain operational, without interruption. If VA were to utilize any other brand name hardware and software, it would not operate in the current infrastructure due to the proprietary constraints. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this justification. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), the resultant delivery order 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. In addition, this Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity will be posted on the NASA SEWP V website with the solicitation. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: In order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the Government will continue to perform market research to determine if there are any new products or maintenance services available that will fulfill the Government s need. 8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by VA technical experts in May 2018 to ascertain the ability of any other products/services other than brand name NetApp can meet the Government's requirements. EO subject matter experts researched the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) called Vblock, a data storage solution comprised of NetApp, Cisco, and EMC Corporation hardware and software. After review, the Government s technical experts determined that the Vblock solution does not meet the Government s needs. For example, Vblock uses EMC Corporation storage (versus the FlexPod NetApp storage components) and the Unified Infrastructure Manager for a single pane of glass management (Flexpod includes NetApp MultiStore that allows for multiple virtual storage arrays). These do not allow for integration into the existing CVIs at the PITC and DISA DECC as outlined in Section 5 of this Justification. Since the VCE is comprised of different components, management, and support, the Government has determined that the VCE Vblock is not interoperable with the CVIs currently in place. In July 2018, the Contract Specialist conducted market research to ascertain the extent of limited competition among resellers. Through the use of the Provider Look-up tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website, 16 Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) were identified as resellers of the required Netapp hardware and software, installation and configuration services, maintenance and technical support. Therefore, limited competition is anticipated. 9. Other Facts: None. 10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Date: ______________________ Program Manager Signature: ______________________ 11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on anticipated competition. Additionally, NASA SEWP V has already determined the prices on contract to be fair and reasonable. Finally, the successful quote will be compared with the Independent Government Cost Estimate. Date: ________________________________ Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________ 12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Date: ________________________________ Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________ Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name Netapp hardware and software, along with installation and configuration services, maintenance and technical support on a limited competition basis pursuant to the statutory authority cited in paragraph 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition. Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics JUSTIFICATION Justification For An Exception To Fair Opportunity Coordination Matrix Date Concur/Non-Concur Director, Procurement Services F Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics Department of Veterans Affairs
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/c551413be3e72589a4b36de74ce5952b)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: NNG15SD30B 36C10B18F2872 NNG15SD30B 36C10B18F2872_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=4585457&FileName=NNG15SD30B-018.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=4585457&FileName=NNG15SD30B-018.docx

 

Note: If links are broken, refer to Point of Contact above or contact the FBO Help Desk at 877-472-3779.
 

Record

SN05084422-W 20180913/180911231541-c551413be3e72589a4b36de74ce5952b (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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