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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF MAY 25, 2017 FBO #5662
DOCUMENT

D -- Riverbed Steelcentral Aternity Software - Justification and Approval (J&A)

Notice Date

5/23/2017
 

Notice Type

Justification and Approval (J&A)
 

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

VA11817Q2089
 

Archive Date

6/6/2017
 

Point of Contact

Raymond Mesler, raymond.mesler@va.gov
 

E-Mail Address

Raymond.Mesler@va.gov
(Raymond.Mesler@va.gov)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

NNG15SD26B VA118-17-F-2016
 

Award Date

5/23/2017
 

Description

Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity Software and Maintenance Support TAC-17-41552 2 of 3 Control Number TAC-17-41552 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: This proposed action is for firm-fixed-price Delivery Order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government wide AcquisitionContract (GWAC) for the procurement of 1,000 Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity software licenses, maintenance and technical support. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology(OI&T), Information Technology Operation Services (ITOPS), Veterans Affairs Central Office (VACO) Information Technology Services and Support (ITSS) requires 1,000 Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity perpetual software licenses and one year of software maintenance support for these licenses that can only be provided by original software developer, Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity or its authorized resellers. The SteelCentral Aternity End Point software is a desktop agent approach to application performance management. This is achieved by uniquely monitoring, aggregating, analyzing, and correlating all metrics associated with three components (Application, Desktop, and User Performance) that constantly interact to both define and impact end user experience. The Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity provides precise insights into how applications are used, enabling organizations to understand the usage trends of their users, the number of business processes executed, and the details of any usability issues. Previously, VA struggled with correlating end user experience on VA Intranet applications with the performance metrics obtained from backend monitoring of the application, application servers, and databases, and eventually became a critical issue for the critical VACO applications such as Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS). Without actual monitoring of application performance on the desktop, OI&T and the Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) were unable to proactively monitor end user issues. In 2013, VA acquired 2,000 Aternity APM software licenses to resolve this issue by providing the capability to monitor the actual experience of the user on a workstation on a per application specific basis. In April 2015, 4,000 additional licenses were acquired. As a result of utilizing this software, OI&T and the ESD are immediately aware of end user issues and are able to correlate that to the information technology infrastructure and any associated service degradation. VA requires an additional 1,000 SteelCentral Aternity End Point licenses to provide these capabilities. Additionally, the maintenance services are required to ensure that the software remains operational by providing product updates and bug fixes. Delivery of software licenses is required 30 days after contract award. The period of performance for the maintenance is 12 months beginning on June 1, 2017 and includes four 12-months option periods. The total estimated value of this action is $XX, inclusive of options. 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) 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 market research, as described in section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition is available for Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point software licenses and associated maintenance among authorized resellers. This procurement supports expansion of VA s existing Aternity desktop agents, back end servers, software and databases. The Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point is the only software in the application monitoring marketplace that can meet VA s functional requirements for monitoring end-user experience on a per custom application and custom transaction basis, while at the same time, monitoring and relating the end users desktop hardware performance to instances of application performance degradation. No other software meets this VA functional requirement. In addition, a prior implementation of Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point platform licenses already exists in Information Technology Operations and Services (ITOPS). Acquisition of different licenses, even if another product existed with capabilities that meet VA s requirements for desktop monitoring, would require a completely separate infrastructure to support a new software product. No other licenses are compatible or interoperable with the existing Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity infrastructure due to Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity s proprietary source code and application programming interfaces (API s). The API s are composed of proprietary source code and will only integrate with other Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity proprietary software. This is common in the marketplace that each source maintains its own proprietary source code and APIs, which doesn t allow other products to interoperate. Therefore, the Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point platform software is the only product currently capable of meeting VA s requirements, as no other product is capable of monitoring VA s full suite of applications on user desktops. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted in April 2017, details of which are in section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government s requirements. Although the Government is limiting competition, there are multiple authorized resellers of the required licenses and maintenance on the NASA SEWP V GWAC. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), this action will be synopsized and the justification will be made publicly available on the Federal Business Opportunities Page within 14 days after award. In addition, this justification shall be posted with the solicitation on the NASA SEWP V GWAC. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: To remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the agency will continue to perform market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. 8. Market Research: In April 2017, the Government s technical experts reviewed similar software products to ascertain if they could meet VA s requirements. The Government s technical experts utilized numerous publications, to include Forrester Research and Gartner Research, and conducted web-based research on technical monitoring websites and forums related to desktop side monitoring to identify potential software solutions. This market research has identified only two products in the desktop monitoring space, Riverbed Aternity and KNOA, both of which were reviewed. Of the products that were identified, only the Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point platform is capable of meeting the Government s requirements for desktop application monitoring of user experience on a per application and per transaction basis. KNOA s software cannot provide the monitoring required for the applications used by VA, because KNOA s software is only capable of working with Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing (SAP) Societas Europaea (SE) systems, which are not used by OI&T. Additionally, the KNOA software is not compatible or interoperable with ITOPS existing Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point Platform license infrastructure. KNOA s product is designed to work with SAP SE, whereas VA systems are not SAP based. VA s systems are stand-alone custom applications running on Apache Web Server, WebLogic, WebSphere, or Internet Information Server. Therefore, KNOA s software cannot support VA s non-SAP environment. Finally, KNOA cannot monitor end-user experience on a per custom application and custom transaction basis, while at the same time, monitoring and relating the end users desktop hardware performance to instances of application performance degradation. Riverbed Steel Case, Inc. was contacted on March 16, 2017, to inquire whether Aternity s source code was for sale. Aternity confirmed that the FPI source code is proprietary and not for sale. Therefore, only Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point software is capable of meeting the Government s requirements. Additional market research was conducted in April 2017 via the NASA SEWP Provider Lookup Tool. It was determined that there are two NASA SEWP V GWAC holders that are resellers of Riverbed SteelCentral Aternity End Point licenses and maintenance. Therefore limited competition is anticipated. 9. Other Facts: None
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/97c385eab837508d4ede5121ec109b18)
 

Document(s)

Justification and Approval (J&A)
 

File Name: NNG15SD26B VA118-17-F-2016 NNG15SD26B VA118-17-F-2016_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3521409&FileName=NNG15SD26B-093.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3521409&FileName=NNG15SD26B-093.docx

 

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

Record

SN04518757-W 20170525/170523235210-97c385eab837508d4ede5121ec109b18 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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