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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 23, 2018 FBO #6148
DOCUMENT

D -- TBE Colocation hosting services - Attachment

Notice Date

9/21/2018
 

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

36C10B18Q3193
 

Archive Date

12/29/2018
 

Point of Contact

Contract Specialist: Christine Keen-Deputy
 

E-Mail Address

Christine.Keen-Deputy@va.gov<br
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

NNG15SD19B 36C10B18F2951
 

Award Date

9/21/2018
 

Awardee

ALVAREZ LLC;8251 GREENSBORO DR STE 230;TYSONS CORNER;VA;22102
 

Award Amount

$564,430.62
 

Description

TBE Colocation Hosting Services Control Number: TAC-18-52354 3 of 4 Control Number TAC-18- 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, NJ 07724 2. Description of Action: This 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 Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for the purchase of brand name Cytexa colocation services and fiber interconnect services at the Cyxtera datacenter colocation facilities in Chicago, IL and Sterling, VA. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA requires one datacenter colocation cage per location at the Cyxtera datacenters in Chicago, IL (ORD1) and Sterling, VA (IAD2). At each of the two datacenters, VA requires four point-to-point fiber interconnects between the new cage location and the existing VA cage location. These interconnects must support the 100GBASE-LR4 standard required to meet the VAs latency and throughput requirements. These services are required to install hardware necessary to bring VA into compliance with VA Security Directive 6500, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) special publications 800-34 and 800-53, and VA Continuous Readiness in Information Security Program. Specifically, this procurement will enable VA to implement standardized backups protected by 256-bit AES encryption using Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 validated cryptographic libraries for the VistA electronic health record system. The period of performance for this effort is 12 months. The total estimated value of Cyxtera brand name services included in this procurement is XXXXXXX 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an 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: VA Office of Information & Technology, Information Technology Operations Solutions Delivery currently leases datacenter colocation space at Cyxtera datacenters in Chicago, IL and Sterling, VA to support data backup server, storage appliances, and related network hardware. VA needs to install additional storage hardware to meet expanding data backup needs that will not fit within the existing cage space. Servers located in the existing cages will need to communicate with the storage hardware that will be placed in the new cages. Latency-sensitive operations performed between the servers and storage such as database queries and insertions require connectivity with less than five (5) milliseconds of total round-trip latency, thus requiring the new cage to be located sufficiently close to the existing hardware to permit unrouted point-to-point connectivity. Due to this limitation, the new cage space must be located within the same datacenter as the existing cage space. As a result, only brand name Cyxtera datacenter space and fiber interconnect services can meet the Government s need. VA would only be able to use a competing datacenter location by standing up a distinct secondary storage and computer server environment at each location. Adoption of a second datacenter colocation provider would require the Government to purchase substantial additional hardware assets including servers, disk drives, disk shelves, controllers, network adapters, flash-based caching media, network switches, transceivers, routers, and ancillary components. This additional hardware would further require additional space, power, and cooling to operate redundant equipment in space provided by both datacenter providers simultaneously. The estimated cost is approximately $3.9M to stand up a distinct secondary storage and computer servcer environment at each location, and it is not anticipated these additional expenses would be recovered through competition. If VA fails to obtain additional brand name Cytexa datacenter colocation space, Solutions Delivery will be unable to install the additional data storage hardware required to expand VA s backup infrastructure to support growing data capacities. VA estimates the existing data backup capacity will be exhausted by the end of fiscal year 2019. If the additional data storage hardware is not online and functional by that time, VA will be forced to reduce retention times or discontinue backups altogether, presenting an unacceptable risk to VA s ability to conduct normal business operations. 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 of the required Cyxtera datacenter services.   In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities Page (FBO) and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: VA-provided hardware has a product lifecycle of approximately five (5) years, which is estimated to expire in 2023. At the end of this lifecycle, the Government will determine if new equipment can be placed at an openly competed datacenter location. The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed. 8. Market Research: VA storage commodity Subject Matter Experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct Internet research to ascertain if any other colocation services are available to meet the Government s needs. In July 2018, these experts determined additional providers, including Level 3, Cogent, and Equinix, were capable of meeting the Government s security, power, space, and cooling needs, but only Cyxtera was capable of meeting the Government s proximity requirements. The Government s technical experts determined, as described in section 5 above, the storage, server, and switch hardware provided by the Government must be located within close physical proximity to the existing storage, server, and switch hardware already installed at the Cyxtera datacenters in order to permit unrouted connectivity between cages and ensure end-to-end latency remains below 5 milliseconds. Based on all of these market research efforts, the Government s technical experts have determined that only brand name Cyxtera datacenter colocation and fiber interconnect services can meet all of VA s needs. Additional market research was conducted via a request for information posted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) on August 19th, 2018, and responses were received from three (3) potential offerors. Of these, two (2) potential offerors were Vendor Information Page (VIP) registered and verified Service Disable Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SVOSBs). All three offers were found capable of meeting the datacenter colocation requirements. Based on the analysis of the responses, there is a reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC for the required brand name Cyxtera services. 9. Other Facts: None.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/4ccba0c56803a4201f576c348af0c901)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: NNG15SD19B 36C10B18F2951 NNG15SD19B 36C10B18F2951_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=4603527&FileName=NNG15SD19B-149.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=4603527&FileName=NNG15SD19B-149.docx

 

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

Record

SN05100970-W 20180923/180921231007-4ccba0c56803a4201f576c348af0c901 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

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

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