AWARD
D -- SAS Maintenance Recompete (Renewal) (VA-20-00077339)
- Notice Date
- 10/1/2020 6:38:45 AM
- Notice Type
- Award Notice
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- TECHNOLOGY ACQUISITION CENTER NJ (36C10B) EATONTOWN NJ 07724 USA
- ZIP Code
- 07724
- Solicitation Number
- 36C10B20Q0447
- Archive Date
- 10/31/2020
- Point of Contact
- Joseph.Pignataro@va.gov, Kathryn.Pantages@va.gov, Phone: 732-795-1115
- E-Mail Address
-
joseph.pignataro@va.gov
(joseph.pignataro@va.gov)
- Award Number
- 47QTCA18D008136C10B21F0005
- Award Date
- 10/01/2020
- Awardee
- EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS, LLC BETHESDA 20817
- Award Amount
- 946889.10000000
- Description
- LIMITED-SOURCES JUSTIFICATION 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 contract action is for a firm-fixed price delivery order to be issued on a sole source basis to Executive Information Systems (EIS), Limited Liability Company under contract number 47QTCA18D0081 on the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) 70, Special Item Number 132-33, for renewal of brand name Statistical Analytical System (SAS) software licenses and software maintenance support. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology, Service Delivery and Engineering, Infrastructure Operations (IO) requires renewal of 30 SAS software licenses and software maintenance support for data analysis activities serving the users within the Office of Productivity and Efficient Staffing, Inpatient Evaluation Center, VA Central Office, and Veterans Health Administration Support Service Center. The SAS software licenses provide VA with several high-profile business intelligence data analytics, some of which are updated daily and utilized by VA senior leadership. Departments that utilize the SAS software include the Office of Productivity and Efficient Staffing, Inpatient Evaluation Center, VA Central Office, and Veterans Health Administration Support Service Center. Annual maintenance is required to receive software upgrades and support to include major releases, point releases, service, and security releases of applicable software on a quarterly basis, and/or within 48 hours in cases in which a high-risk vulnerability fix becomes available. The period of performance for this action is twelve months from October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021 with two 12-month option periods, if exercised. The total estimated price of the proposed action inclusive of all options is $ 4. Authority: This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program. The specific authority providing for a limited source award is Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B), Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized. 5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this action is Executive Information Systems (EIS), 6901 Rockledge Drive, Suite 600, Bethesda, Maryland. Based on extensive market research, as described in Section 8 of this justification, it was determined that there is no competition among vendors for the required software licenses renewals and software maintenance as EIS is the sole Government provider of SAS software licenses and maintenance support. SAS software is proprietary in nature and is not released to any other party. Only SAS or its authorized reseller, EIS, have the required access to the source code and other proprietary software data to be able to meet the Government s needs. No other firm has the capability to develop and issue software updates and fixes for SAS software necessary to support existing statistical and analytical requirements without access to SAS proprietary software code. SAS software maintenance will ensure that all support services are performed and properly configured to the VA-owned SAS software which can only be provided by those who have access to the proprietary software code. VA requires brand name SAS software because only brand name SAS software can meet VA s functional requirement to enable VA researchers to analyze and extract meaningful information from extremely large data sets up to five terabytes. VA requires a mainframe compatible software to analyze and extract data from these data sets, and only brand name SAS software has the performance and capability for handling the vast amounts of data required by the VA. Additionally, even if an alternative software was capable of handling the large data sets required by VA, deployment of the alternative software would require reconfiguration of millions of lines of code across the over 60 applications that currently use SAS software. This reconfiguration would be necessary to adjust scripts, or a sequence of instructions, that have been set up to run automatically utilizing the SAS products. If VA utilized an alternative brand software, changes to scripts would be necessary to utilize the new software, and to have that new software provide the required functionality. This reconfiguration process is very labor intensive and would require a minimum of three years to complete. This estimate is based on prior reconfiguration efforts of similar magnitude. Further, while the necessary reconfiguration was being performed, both SAS and the new software would need to be executing in parallel to ensure data integrity. The cost of running both products simultaneously is estimated to be double the current renewal license fee. These costs would not be recovered through competition. Additionally, training would need to be provided for VA analysts to be able to write code on the new software. This would require extensive training to enable staff to duplicate many of the more complex solutions and would incur additional costs, in the form of loss of programming manhours as the thousands of VA SAS programmers would be trained on the new software. SAS software is proprietary in nature and is not released to any other party. Only SAS or its authorized reseller have the required access to the source code and other proprietary software data to be able to meet the Government s needs. No other firm has the capability to develop and issue software updates and fixes for SAS software necessary to support existing statistical and analytical requirements without access to SAS proprietary software code. SAS software maintenance will ensure that all support services are performed and properly configured to the SAS software which can only be provided by those who have access to the proprietary software code. Only SAS software maintenance will meet the Government s needs for data availability, reliability, and product support of the existing SAS licenses. Since EIS is SAS s sole Government provider, only EIS can provide the maintenance and support that meets the Government s requirements for the renewal of software licenses and maintenance support for existing SAS software. 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. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 8.405-6(a)(2) the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. Specifically, the Government will continue to monitor the marketplace to determine whether other brand software could meet VA s requirements or if additional resellers become available. 8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by VA technical experts in July 2020. The market research reviewed similar software packages and associated software maintenance such as Sisense, Anaconda, Rocket Software R, and International Business Machines Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Statistics to ascertain if these software products can meet the Government s requirement. After review, VA technical experts concluded that no other brand name software can meet VA s functional requirement to enable VA researchers to analyze and extract meaningful information from extremely large data sets up to five terabytes. Additionally, the Government s technical experts also researched trade publications such Gartner Research, WatsonWalker.com and technical mainframe websites along with web-based forums related to the mainframe to identify other potential software solutions that could meet the Government s requirements. As a result of the market research, VA technical experts confirmed that no other provider or software product is capable of meeting the Governments functional requirements or performing the services requested due to the proprietary source code required to issue updates. SAS is the only source capable of providing the required maintenance and upgrades for SAS software. No other firm has the capability of developing and issuing software updates and fixes for SAS software necessary to support existing IO requirements. Based on this market research, the Government s technical experts determined that only SAS software can meet all the Government s requirements. EIS is the only authorized reseller of SAS software and maintenance. At the time of the writing of this Justification, there have been no new entrants to the marketplace that can provide these services. VA performed further market research in July 2020, by conducting a search on the GSA e-Library. Market research indicated SAS Institute is the sole manufacturer and publisher of SAS software, and EIS is SAS sole authorized reseller for Version 8 and later of the software and subsequent maintenance to Government entities. Finally, Government representatives received a letter on July 23, 2020 directly from SAS confirming EIS as the sole authorized reseller for SAS software to Government entities. Therefore, this proposed action will be a sole source task order issued under GSA FSS 70, contract number 47QTCA18D0081. 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. Dawn Sturtz Date: ______________________ Service Line Manager Signature: __________________ 11. Determination of Best Value: I hereby determine that the proposed contract action will represent the best value to the Government consistent with FAR 8.404(d). GSA has already determined that the prices on the FSS contract are fair and reasonable. Additionally, price discounts will be sought. Finally, the quote will be compared to the Independent Government Cost Estimate. Kathryn Pantages 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. Kathryn Pantages 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 for renewal of brand name SAS software licenses and software maintenance support on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the statutory authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition. Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Philip Weckesser Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics
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