AWARD
D -- Citrix software maintenance
- Notice Date
- 3/25/2020 1:01:41 PM
- 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
- 36C10B20Q0195
- Archive Date
- 04/24/2020
- Point of Contact
- Kathryn.Pantages@va.gov Joseph.Pignataro@va.gov
- E-Mail Address
-
joseph.pignataro@va.gov
(joseph.pignataro@va.gov)
- Award Number
- NNG15SD22B36C10B20F0102
- Award Date
- 03/25/2020
- Awardee
- FOUR POINTS TECHNOLOGY, L.L.C.;14900 CONFERENCE CENTER DR STE 100;CHANTILLY;VA;20151
- Award Amount
- 19152471.07000000
- Description
- 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, New Jersey 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 Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Citrix software licenses, hardware, and associated maintenance and technical support to include Citrix Technical Account Manager (TAM) services for both software and hardware as well as consulting and training services. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Information and Technology (OI&T), Infrastructure Operations (IO) has a requirement for the renewal of maintenance support for existing brand name Citrix software licenses and hardware as well as the purchase of new hardware and Citrix analysis software to include associated technical support inclusive of Citrix TAM services for both software and hardware as well as consulting, and training services. Citrix software is currently installed throughout the existing VA virtual server infrastructure and provides virtual application and virtual desktop access to endpoint devices inside and outside the VA network. VA s current use of Citrix provides virtual secure accessibility to servers hosting Computerized Patient Records System (CPRS), Veterans Benefit Management System (VBMS), and Burial Operations Support System (BOSS) databases, as well as over 400 other VA applications published to users off existing VA Citrix data center locations. This allows VA to centrally deploy and manage software applications while providing secure, on-demand access to critical business resources accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by internal and external employees, contractors, as well as key external partners such as Veterans Service Organizations. In order to ensure continuity of operations for these critical systems and databases, VA OI&T IO requires the renewal of 30,000 existing Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Premium Edition software licenses. Additionally, VA requires 260,000 net new Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops On-Prem Platinum Edition licenses in order to accommodate a surge in the number of remote users due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With respect to hardware, VA currently owns 36 Citrix Application Delivery Controllers that will require continued maintenance. VA requires brand name Citrix software licenses and maintenance for the 36 existing VA Citrix Application Delivery Controllers that are dedicated to Citrix application backend environment used for high availability in order to provide more than 95% uptime. In addition, VA requires the procurement of 240 new Citrix analysis and monitoring software licenses to monitor, manage, and troubleshoot end to end from the client to Citrix servers and Citrix Application Delivery Controllers. Further, in the base period, VA requires the purchase of 10 new Citrix Application Delivery Controllers (hardware) and maintenance which is required to upgrade the VA system. These items will be used to upgrade the current deployed remote user access system, software maintenance subscriptions and provide the preferred extended hours maintenance services for the currently installed Citrix software licenses and hardware throughout the VA enterprise. The associated maintenance support for both software and hardware includes downloads, minor software upgrades, troubleshooting features, and 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year technical support for all required Citrix software licenses and hardware. Additionally, VA requires technical support which includes dedicated Citrix TAM services for both software and hardware as well as consulting and training services to support the existing and new Citrix software licenses and hardware products installed throughout VA. This shall include full-time dedicated software and hardware TAM services to assist VA staff in ensuring high availability of the Citrix environment while utilizing the least number of servers. This avoids unnecessary cost in underutilized hardware and software and ensures business operations are not negatively impacted by any unscheduled downtime that occurs. The TAMs have access to key internal Citrix resources that only Citrix or an authorized reseller of Citrix products and services can provide and assign correct priorities to any technical case VA opens to mitigate system issues. Because VA implements only a subset of Citrix s hardware and software capabilities, customized training classes are required to teach employees and contract staff maintaining Citrix environments in order to better maintain and improve their operation for end users. It would be inefficient to train VA staff in Citrix features that VA will not be utilizing. Only Citrix Education can provide customized Citrix course content, including the ability to skip standard course content that public training centers are required to teach, which allows VA to reduce the time commitment of standard Citrix courses from 40 to 30 hours of training per attendee. The Citrix consulting services are required and provide for architecture, design, and implementation support for the 30 Citrix environments located throughout the continental United States at VA data center locations. The consulting and training services are procured via Citrix Consulting Vouchers which are redeemed as the training classes and consulting engagements are scheduled. The base period of performance shall be March 29, 2020 through March 28, 2021 with one 12-month option period for the continuation of Citrix brand name software licenses, hardware, associated maintenance and technical support, including TAM services, as well as consulting and training. In addition, there are optional tasks for additional quantities of consulting, training support, and additional software license and hardware quantities that may be exercised at any time during contract performance as the need arises. Further, VA requires optional tasks during the contract period of performance to meet future demands for Citrix Application Delivery Controllers software, hardware and technical support for anticipated system upgrades, datacenter migrations, and to support additional applications and desktops that are anticipated to be added over the period of performance. The total estimated price of the proposed action, inclusive of all options, is $ 4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by 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 document, it has been determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for the required Citrix software licenses, hardware, and associated maintenance and technical support. Only Citrix brand name items and services meet all of VA s requirements, specifically compatibility and interoperability with VA s existing virtual infrastructure integrated with critical business systems including CPRS, VBMS, and BOSS. Due to Citrix s patents, copyrights, proprietary database structures, proprietary communication protocols, and proprietary software application programming interfaces, no other source is able to provide the software and support required for maintaining these high availability information systems. The Citrix software licenses provide the underlying core functionality necessary for application and desktop virtualization currently being utilized in support of VA s datacenter consolidation efforts. Additionally, VA s current remote access infrastructure, comprised of Citrix software licenses and hardware, is configured to only support Citrix software through Citrix Application Delivery Controller appliances deployed in VA s internet gateways. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, VA OI&T has been requested to support 500,000 teleworkers, 290,000 of which will be supported through the Citrix Gateway solution. Use of any other brand software or hardware would result in serious interoperability and compatibility issues with the current infrastructure as the solution is reliant on custom web pages and scripts that are currently support by Citrix. Specifically, the current Citrix infrastructure consists of over 1,400 servers spread across the VA enterprise that can only work with Citrix software inclusive of the solution providing parsing ability for proxy server sessions to assist in troubleshooting, network analysis and end-to-end performance for Virtual Apps and Desktop sessions to include historical data The Citrix solution provides the capability of enabling traffic visibility; inclusive of management software, which is based on user Application flow statistics in measuring and determining latency on the client side, network side, and application side of the connection. Citrix has proprietary constraints within its software. No other brand name software would be able to communicate with these servers. If another brand name software was to be utilized the current infrastructure would have to be completely replaced with a non-Citrix based solution which would require a similar number of servers to be procured, along with all the associated software and remote access software. This solution would need to be deployed parallel to the existing Citrix solutions to ensure there was seamless coverage. The Government estimates that this effort would take over one year to design, implement and test before it would be available to support production user load and would result in significant costs to restructure the entire infrastructure. Only Citrix is utilized for remote access to over 400 applications, which include CPRS, VBMS and BOSS. Users from non-VA furnished endpoint devices are required to utilize Citrix for remote access to these applications and approximately 110,000 unique remote access users use Citrix on a monthly basis from non-VA issued endpoints thus avoiding the need for VA to purchase, deploy, and maintain an equivalent number of VA issued endpoint devices and associated software licensure for these users at a sizable capital and operational expense to OI&T. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the VA is adding 5,000-7,000 Citrix remote access enabled users a day. The purchase of VA issued endpoints and associated software licenses for 110,000 new endpoint devices for remote users would cost VA in excess of $220M in duplicated cost. This duplicated cost estimate is based on previous efforts in obtaining the VA issued endpoints and associated software licenses. Additionally, under this procurement, VA has a requirement to procure and provide technical support for up to an additional 10 Citrix Application Delivery Controllers. VA requires these Citrix Application Delivery Controller appliances to satisfy several security and functional requirements. These appliances are the basis for VA s utilization of the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Premium Edition software licenses. Specifically, VA utilizes Citrix Application Delivery Controller appliances in its Trusted Internet Connection gateway in providing remote accessibility from internet endpoints to 15 internal Citrix data center locations across the enterprise since 2009. Additional internal load balancing capabilities are required for Citrix XML broker services and TFTP services. Load balancing features must be able to provide specific monitoring probes for Citrix XML service and the ability to provide data to a VA Application Delivery Management system for real-time client and network latency metrics, historical reports, end-to-end performance data and troubleshooting, to ensure that individual server software or hardware failures do not negatively impact user access to Citrix from inside or outside the VA network. Additionally, only Citrix Application Delivery Controllers provide required VA security features called Smart Access filters. This feature provides VA with a centrally managed, policy-based access control. VA leverages Smart Access filters to restrict the ability of users in less secure environments to copy, email or print data, or to save confidential files to removable media. These restrictions are leveraged heavily by VA Citrix administrators in restricting endpoint actions for externally (internet) connected endpoints as well as kiosks within the VA environment. Only Citrix brand name software and associated hardware can provide the required capabilities. Specifically, the ability to provide advanced troubleshooting capabilities on the proprietary Citrix Independent Computing Architecture and High Definition Experience protocols in use by VA. The Citrix Application Delivery Controllers advanced knowledge of how the proprietary protocol should function from various endpoints and under various operating and network conditions provides VA administrators graphical performance monitoring and troubleshooting metrics valuable in ensuring end user satisfaction. These advanced troubleshooting metrics have proven invaluable in assisting VA technical experts to rapidly determine the root cause of end user performance issues by pinpointing the source of the issues from the user endpoint, to the network connection from the users endpoint to the VA internet gateway, to the network performance across the VA wide area network or to the Citrix servers themselves in VA datacenters and consolidation points. No other vendor has the ability to provide the proprietary performance analysis features Citrix can provide due to their unique knowledge of the proprietary protocols in use. Citrix recommends a pair of appliances in front of each VA Citrix server farm as well as a pair in each internet gateway for remote access to ensure maximum performance with respect to high availability and disaster recovery. As VA has Citrix environments in 15 separate datacenter locations and VA has four internet gateways, plus VA s engineering department has the need for a development and test environment, VA determined that up to 150 Citrix Application Delivery Controllers may be needed over time as budget permits their purchase. Additionally, Citrix brand name Application Delivery Controller appliances provide the only supported method to proxy proprietary Citrix protocols. The use of non-Citrix appliances is an unsupported operation and would invalidate the Citrix software support agreement. Furthermore, Citrix Application Delivery Controllers have the unique integrated capability with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Premium Edition software licenses to monitor application and desktop performance by sending specific application level requests to ensure security and efficiency and only when a proper response is received from the Citrix hosted application, the application is considered fully functional. Non-Citrix appliances only monitor the reachability of the server resource, not whether the server itself is properly responding to user commands and requests due to their inability to see inside the proprietary Citrix communication protocols. Any other brand would not meet VA s requirements. The Citrix brand name software licenses and associated hardware require technical support. Citrix has proprietary rights to the software licenses and associated technical support. Therefore, the required associated technical support must be compatible with the existing software licenses. Only Citrix, or an authorized Citrix reseller, has the rights to perform the associated technical support. Any other source must have access to the proprietary rights to ensure all the associated technical support provided is properly configured to both the software and infrastructure. Without access to the proprietary rights, another source would not be able to push through updates. Due to VA s large complex Citrix environment, customized training is required. Standard Citrix Authorized Learning Centers (CALCs), offered by many Citrix Certified Instructors, are not permitted to customize course content. Citrix Education is the only authorized provider of Citrix Customized Training and is the only source that can offer the appropriate tailored training for VA, through a variety of methods, such as customized lectures and tailored hands-on labs to meet VA s technical training requirement in support of VA s Citrix environment. The tailored training better prepares the VA staff to maintain and improve VA s Citrix environments than they would receive by taking generic, off-the-shelf training. By choosing Citrix Education s customized training, VA reduces the length of a standard Citrix offering from 40 to 30 hours a week allowing staff to continue to support existing Citrix environments part time even while in training. A Citrix training partner is required to teach the full 40-hour course exposing VA staff to material that they will not use as VA often uses a reduced subset of Citrix s product capabilities due to the uniqueness of VA s requirements. The impact of not renewing the Citrix software licenses and associated technical support would result in a loss of the ability for VA to migrate to a new operating system on endpoint devices being implemented with zero disruption to users, downtime, or loss of data provided by Citrix application and desktop virtualization solutions. Furthermore, if Citrix software licenses were not renewed, VA s entire remote access infrastructure would need to be re-engineered and revalidated or VA would have to purchase, deploy and maintain 110,000 additional endpoint devices. Failure to renew Citrix software licenses would impact 24x7 application accessibility from outside the VA firewall to key critical and business applications including CPRS, VBMS and BOSS utilized by a large number of medical, benefits and burial personnel daily. In addition, Citrix virtual desktops are currently a key component of VA s telework and continuity of operations strategy and is utilized daily for both remote network and system access needs of staff and in emergent situations when weather or other disasters impact abilities of VA personnel to report to physical office spaces. Thus, technical support of existing Citrix software licenses is vital to ensure the security and availability of VA s information technology infrastructure for over 120,000+ Citrix users, 110,000+ of which access Citrix remotely. If VA does not renew technical support on existing Citrix software licenses annually, VA will be required to purchase brand new licenses each year at a substantial cost in order to use the supported version. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition amongst authorized Citrix resellers is available for this brand name acquisition. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award. 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 new products or maintenance services available in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be fully competed. 8. Market Research: During September 2019, the Government technical experts reviewed similar software and technical support and determined that no other products or services would be compatible or interoperable with VA s existing virtual infrastructure consisting of Citrix hardware and software. The software reviewed by the Government technical experts included Microsoft Terminal Services and VMware Horizon both of which provide similar capabilities, however, neither of these solutions are compatible or interoperable with the existing architecture established within VA necessitating the building of a parallel infrastructure if VA were to migrate from Citrix to one of these alternatives. The costs of standing up new Microsoft Terminal Services or VMware Horizon infrastructure would require extensive duplicated back office infrastructure as detailed in Section 5. Citrix has proprietary rights to the software licenses and associated hardware currently being used by VA throughout the virtual infrastructure. Given that only Citrix has the proprietary rights, there are no other authorized vendors that can provide the technical support services without voiding the licenses currently in use. Only Citrix, or an authorized Citrix reseller, has the right to provide Citrix license technical support renewals, and only they can provide the required training, consulting, and dedicated technical support. Citrix Application Delivery Controllers are the only solution that fully satisfy VA s requirements as documented in Section 5 above. Citrix Application Delivery Controllers are the only supported appliances that Citrix supports for use with its software products and deep integration is provided between the Application Delivery Controller hardware and the Citrix proprietary software and proprietary protocols. Although there are other vendors within the marketplace, such as F5, VA has determined that only the Citrix Application Delivery Controller, as documented in Section 5 above, is compatible with the existing Citrix environments in production today due to the proprietary nature of the Citrix protocols in use. In December 2019, the Contract Specialist conducted market research to ascertain the extent of limited competition among resellers of the required software, hardware, and associated maintenance and technical support. Through the use of the Provider Look-up tool on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website, 16 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses were identified as resellers of the required Citrix software, hardware, and associated maintenance and technical support. Therefore, limited competition is anticipated. 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. Date: ________________________________ Signature: ____________________________ 11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on anticipated limited competition. Additionally, NASA SEWP V has already determined the prices on contract to be fair and reasonable and more competitive pricing may result from competition. Finally, the successful quote will be compared with the Independent Government Cost Estimate. 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. Date: ________________________________ Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________ 13. Legal Sufficiency Certification: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support an exception to fair opportunity and deem it legally sufficient. Date: ________________________________ Legal Counsel Signature: ____________________________ Concurrence In my role as Head of the Contracting Activity, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby concur with the acquisition of brand name Citrix software licenses, hardware, and associated maintenance and technical support on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition. Date: ____________ Signature: __________________________________ Head of the Contracting Activity Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Approval In my role as Agency Senior Procurement Executive, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name Citrix software licenses, hardware, and associated maintenance and technical support on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition. Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Executive Director and Senior Procurement Executive Office of Acquisition and Logistics Veterans Affairs
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