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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 FBO #5423
DOCUMENT

70 -- TAC-16-38186 PKI HSM Hardware - Attachment

Notice Date

9/26/2016
 

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

VA11816Q1713
 

Archive Date

10/26/2016
 

Point of Contact

Sterlyn Frazier
 

E-Mail Address

8-1540<br
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

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-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 upgrade of SafeNet Luna Hardware Security Modules (HMS), maintenance support, and professional services. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Information Technology (OI&T), Enterprise Systems Engineering (ESE) requires VA-owned SafeNet Luna 4 HSMs to be upgraded to SafeNet Luna 5 HSMs at the data center in Hines, Illinois and at the Capital Region Readiness Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The HSMs are network-attached hardware security appliances which provide cryptographic acceleration, hardware key management, and multiple configuration profiles for VA's Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). These SafeNet Luna 4 HSMs are reaching end of life and need to be upgraded to SafeNet Luna 5 HSM which consists of both hardware and software upgrades. In addition the upgrades shall include professional services for the installation and upgrade of the HSMs and the migration of PKI keys/certificates. PKI keys/certificates are required for VA users to sign and encrypt data. PKI keys/certificates are required for confidentiality, non-repudiation, authorization, and authentication, and data integrity. ESE also requires maintenance support of the HSM upgrades which includes 24 hours a day x 7 days a week x 365 days per year with one hour telephone and/or email response time. The hardware maintenance shall include major releases, point releases, service releases of applicable hardware updates. All delivery and professional services shall be completed within 30 days. The period of performance for the maintenance shall commence upon successful installation, upgrade, and migration of the HSMs for a duration of 12- months. 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)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 SafeNet. Updating the HSMs requires a migration of the existing encryption key material from the existing HSM to the new HSM. Only SafeNet's HSM upgrade will allow for the seamless migration of the PKI keys/certificates from one SafeNet HSM to another SafeNet HSM. PKI Keys/certificates cannot be migrated from a SafeNet HSM to a another manufacturer's HSM due to the proprietary nature of the SafeNet HSMs. As such, use of another manufacture's HSM would result in a duplicative effort as VA would be required to maintain the existing end of life HSMs to provide the storage, security and encryption for existing PKI keys/certificates while simultaneously maintaining the new HSMs for any new PKI keys/certificates. VA would be required to stop issuing certificates on the existing SafeNet platform and install the new HSM requiring a dual environment. This would cause VA to maintain two certificate issuance platforms simultaneously up until the last certificate on the current platform expires which would be at least two years out. Therefore, VA would not be able to see efficient operations while maintaining both dual platforms. Additionally, this duplication of effort results in duplicative costs and resources which cannot be recouped through completion. Furthermore, continuing the use of the end of life equipment introduces risk of the operational integrity of the HSM which could result in service outages to the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) infrastructure. Outages to the PIV infrastructure adversely affect VA operations as VA users would not be able to login to their workstations and may adversely impact patient care. Additionally, VA requires hardware maintenance support to include major releases, point releases, service releases of applicable hardware updates and support services to include installation and migration. Only SafeNet or an authorized reseller can provide the necessary support because of the propriety nature of the technology required to troubleshoot, diagnose and configure the storage arrays. Because of the proprietary nature of SafeNet HSMs other manufacturers will not have access to the source code required to provide the required support. Based on market research, as described in Section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), this action will be synopsized within 14 days of award on the Federal Business Opportunities Page (FBO). In addition, the Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity shall be posted to NASA SEWP IV GWAC website at time the solicitation is posted. 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 products and/or source providers available that will enable future requirements to be competed. 8. Market Research: The Government's technical experts conducted market research in March 2016 to ascertain the ability of any other source besides SafeNet or an authorized reseller to provide the aforementioned HSMs and support services. Market research consisted of internet research and direct communication with other HSM manufactures such as DocuSign, Inc. and Thales Group. Based on the market research conducted by the Government's technical experts, it has been determined that no other HSM manufacture can migrate the keys from SafeNet's HSM to its own HSM and meet the Government's upgrade requirement due to the due to the need to access the source code and other proprietary data of the SafeNet HSM. Additional market research was conducted during September 2016 by utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup Tool. The Provider Lookup Tool yielded 11 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) Group B(2) contract holders offering SafeNet brand name products. There is reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC amongst Group B(2) SDVOSB concerns for SafeNet HSMs. 9. Other Facts: N/A
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/aa26a24a4adbc48d735c0fcccf2e3121)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: NNG15SD26B VA118-16-F-1577 NNG15SD26B VA118-16-F-1577_2.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3026079&FileName=NNG15SD26B-067.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3026079&FileName=NNG15SD26B-067.docx

 

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

Record

SN04288030-W 20160928/160926235034-aa26a24a4adbc48d735c0fcccf2e3121 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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