SOLICITATION NOTICE
70 -- VMware ELA - Approved J&A
- Notice Date
- 9/9/2009
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 511210
— Software Publishers
- Contracting Office
- U.S. Department of State, Office of Logistics Management, Acquisition Management, P.O. Box 9115, Rosslyn Station, Arlington, Virginia, 22219
- ZIP Code
- 22219
- Solicitation Number
- SAQMMA09D0102
- Archive Date
- 10/1/2009
- Point of Contact
- Cynthia I Harper, Phone: 7038756218
- E-Mail Address
-
harperc@state.gov
(harperc@state.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL The United States Department of State (DOS) has a requirement for a qualified, authorized Partner/Reseller of VMware to provide licenses, support services and maintenance for DOS. The procurement will be on a BRAND NAME only basis pursuant to FAR 6.302-1(4)(c). See attached Justification and Approval (J&A). The approximate acquisition schedule will be as follows: The synopsis will be posted for approximately 8 to 10 days. On or about September 14, 2009, the Government plans to post the solicitation using the venue of Fed Bid. No paper copies will be mailed to any contractor or vendor. The solicitation (Buy) will be on Fed Bid from September 14, 2009 and close on September 21, 2009. An award is anticipated by September 30, 2009. The acquisition strategy will be indentified at a later time. All dates are tentative and subject to change. The questions and answers (Q&A) period will be open with the posting of the synopsis and will close 7 days after the site visit. Offerors may inquire via email ONLY to address authorized VMware vendor questions or submission questions. The solicitation will also be available on www.fbo.gov during this time; however, all proposal submissions with quotes will be submitted through Fed Bid at www.fedbid.com If a Contract/Vendor has questions concerning the operation or establishing an account on Fed Bid, please contact them directly at www.fedbid.com or 877-9FEDBID (toll free) or clientservices@fedbid.com JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION BRAND NAME 1. The Office of Acquisition Management is conducting this acquisition for: DOS 2.Nature and/or description of the action being approved: The GITM and ESOC Programs recommend a brand name procurement of the following: VMware Infrastructure virtualization software (Enterprise Agreement) 3.A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value): IRM/OPS/ITI/GITM and IRM/OPS/SIO/ESOC have identified VMware’s line of virtualization software as meeting the requirements for virtualization on the Department’s classified and sensitive-but-unclassified networks at domestic and overseas locations. The primary VMware products permit the conversion of what are today separate physical servers to virtual machines, many of which can operate on a small number (two or three) of physical hosts in a clustered environment. Such an arrangement provides for far more efficient utilization of physical resources, greatly improved redundancy and disaster avoidance/recovery, and significantly enhanced remote monitoring and control. The Department wishes to enter into an enterprise license for the use of VMware software Department-wide so as to provide the above benefits in the most cost-effective manner. GITM anticipates a discount from 25 to 35% on the large quantity to be purchased. 4. An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition. As per FAR, 41 USC 253(c)(l), Only one reasonable source and no other suppliers will satisfy agency requirements, implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 6.302-1(4)(c),Application for brand name descriptions, is cited as the statutory authority. 5.A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited. As this is a brand name only justification, no one contractor’s unique qualifications are cited as the basis for this justification. Rather, the products identified by brand name herein have been determined to be the only items that meet the Department’s requirements as a key component of the Department’s networking system. This determination was made through analysis based upon a publicly posted RFI conducted in early 2009 that solicited competitive responses based upon the Department of State’s business requirements with regard to security, management, compatibility, and disaster recovery. Based on the responses to the RFI, and GITM and ESOC’s research into the market for server virtualization software, VMware is the only vendor that can meet the following DoS requirements. -Common Criteria Certification (Evaluation Assurance Level 4): This is a long-standing, FAM-based requirement from Diplomatic Security that requires an operating system (which virtualization software is considered to be) be Common Criteria Certified. Initial certification can take a year or more, but upgraded versions can be re-certified in somewhat less time. Since no other vendor besides VMware has any version of their virtualization software even submitted for initial review, no one is going to have a product that can meet this critical requirement for at least a year or more. -VM access control through Active Directory and Active Directory integration: The Department’s networks employ Microsoft’s Active Directory as the mechanism for providing control over access to network objects, such as allowing local administrators at post the ability to view (but not modify) certain aspects of their virtual servers, while allowing DC-based administrators full control for the purpose of maintenance and troubleshooting. Without such controls, it would be necessary for ESOC administrators to remotely manage separate accounts for both themselves and local administrators at over 450 posts worldwide, and this is not an acceptable option. VMware has had Active Directory integration for several years, while Citrix’ product still does not have it. -AppManager integration: The Department uses NetIQ’s AppManager to monitor the health of servers worldwide. The Citrix product lacks any means of being monitored by the tool, so monitoring of Citrix-based virtual machines would require the use of some other product, thus splitting the monitoring function into two parts and doubling the effort necessary to accomplish this task. VMware fully supports monitoring by AppManager. -Snapshots of virtual machines: The ability to instantly make a copy of a running virtual machine is essential for backup and disaster recovery purposes, and the Citrix product employs storage-based tools for this purpose. This ties the feature to a specific vendor’s hardware, and the Department’s requirement is that it be a feature of the product itself so as not to tie backup and recovery features to a specific storage device. VMware supports snapshots regardless of the hardware platform. -UPS integration: All of the Department’s servers are capable of monitoring an UPS for a signal to shutdown in the event of a power outage so as to avoid corruption during the power loss when the UPS battery is exhausted. VMware provides this capability natively, but Citrix only provides a programming interface through which one might be able to build a monitoring tool for this purpose. Such a home-grown monitoring tool would not be supported by the vendor, and this is unacceptable for use at the Department’s worldwide locations (many of which have extremely poor local power sources). -Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 support: The Department employs Symantec anti-virus products to protect its systems. In a virtual environment, both the host operating system (e.g., VMware or Citrix) and the guest/virtual systems (Windows-based servers) must be protected. VMware supports the use of Symantec anti-virus products, while Citrix does not (they suggest that the Symantec Linux anti-virus product should work on their system, but they do not formally support its use – nor do they identify any alternative product to provide anti-virus protection). The Department does not wish to have to deploy a different anti-virus product to protect its virtual hosts than it uses for its Windows-based systems, and it will not deploy such systems without anti-virus protection. 6. A description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable, including whether a FedBizOpps synopsis was or will be publicized as required by Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under 5.202 applies. Extensive market research had been done and a RFI was conducted in February 2009. There were two (2) vendors who showed interest in this type of requirement. Each of the two vendors was evaluated based on their capabilities to meet the requirements of this type of procurement. Of the two vendors, only one provided the necessary capabilities to meet the entire criteria for this requirement. The one vendor is VMware who is the manufacturer for the licenses and has extensive experience with virtualization. This solicitation will be competed among the current authorized VMware partners. 7.A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. 8.A description of the market research conducted and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted. GITM performed an RFI (SSN_Virtualization_Software, posted January 15th, 2009) to evaluate server virtualization software. Two vendors (VMware and Citrix) indicated that they believed they were capable of meeting the Department’s requirements, however only VMware was able to demonstrate that they indeed met all requirements. Citrix acknowledged that they were unable to meet the requirements as described in #5 above: No other vendors responded to the RFI except those listed above. GITM’s market research had indicated that Virtual Iron might also have been able to meet many of them, but the company was in the process of being acquired and dissolved at the time of the RFI, and no response was received from them. As a result of the responses received and the analysis above, it was concluded that VMware was the only vendor capable of meeting the Department’s requirements for virtualization software. 9.Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: No other information is provided to support the use of other than full and open competition. See detail in paragraphs (2) through (8) above. 10. A list of the sources, if any that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition. No other sources expressed interest in this acquisition except as noted above, Citrix and VMware. This is a Brand Name product and will be solicited among the VMware authorized partners. 11.A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required. The DoS and GITM will continue to research the IT field for products and services that may meet the needs and requirements for DoS.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/State/A-LM-AQM/A-LM-AQM/SAQMMA09D0102/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Department of State, 1701 Ft Myer Drive, Rosslyn Station, Virginia, 22219, United States
- Zip Code: 22219
- Zip Code: 22219
- Record
- SN01947519-W 20090911/090910001348-4f9873772adaf8c4146f82b65b4d4556 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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