AWARD
70 -- 36C10A22F0213 | IBM-PPA -Maintenance
- Notice Date
- 10/5/2022 7:56:03 AM
- Notice Type
- Award Notice
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- TECHNOLOGY ACQUISITION CENTER AUSTIN (36C10A) AUSTIN TX 78744 USA
- ZIP Code
- 78744
- Solicitation Number
- 36C10A23Q0002
- Archive Date
- 11/04/2022
- Point of Contact
- Tammy Claiborne, Contract Specialist, Phone: 512-981-4133
- E-Mail Address
-
Tammy.Claiborne@va.gov
(Tammy.Claiborne@va.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- SDVOSBC Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) Set-Aside (FAR 19.14)
- Award Number
- NNG15SD38B36C10A22F0213
- Award Date
- 09/29/2022
- Awardee
- REDHAWK IT SOLUTIONS LLC WOODBRIDGE 22192
- Award Amount
- 314639.25000000
- Description
- IBM Passport Advantage Software Maintenance VA-23-00001359 2 IBM Passport Advantage Software Maintenance VA-23-00001359 Page 2 of 2 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, NJ 07724 2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for International Business Machines (IBM) Passport Advantage (PPA) Software Maintenance. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Information and Technology, Service Operations, Enterprise Command Operations (ECO) has a requirement for software maintenance of IBM products that are only available under IBM's PPA Agreements program. These products include brand name IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Analytics and brand name IBM Connections Authorized Users. The software maintenance will consist of updates to include major releases, patch releases, service releases, and security releases of applicable software on a quarterly basis or within 48 hours in cases where high risk vulnerability fixes become available. This action is for software maintenance only. No software will be renewed or procured through this effort. The period of performance is October 1, 2022 September 30, 2023, with two 12-month option periods. 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 was determined that limited competition is available for the IBM PPA maintenance. Current IBM software licenses were purchased through the IBM PPA program and have been installed and integrated into Infrastructure Operations (IO's) IBM mainframe customer service packages. The current Command Center infrastructure is based on these existing IBM software product lines and VA requires support compatible with the existing infrastructure protocols and functionality for continued operational availability. Only IBM or a reseller can provide the required software maintenance because of the propriety source code required to develop and implement software updates and upgrades. Without access to this code, maintenance and support services provided on the software would not be properly configured and render the software inoperable. It is critical that this infrastructure remain operational at all times and maintenance and support services be continuously available. No other source is capable of providing the required software maintenance that meets the VA's unique functional requirement. Use of any alternative maintenance would necessitate a complete replacement of the existing IBM infrastructure in place. Specifically, if the IBM software licenses were abandoned in favor of a different product, IO would need to purchase new alternative brand software licenses and create a new infrastructure to support the new software. The new software would also have to meet the qualifications of VA's stated functional needs and would require its own support costs. No other license is compatible and interoperable with the existing IBM PPA proprietary database structures, protocols, and software application programming interfaces. In addition to the duplicative costs of reprocuring software licensing to replicate the functionality provided through IBM software VA already owns, data that currently resides in the IBM software would need to be migrated to any potential alternative software. Further, this effort would require coordination with multiple agencies to extract the specific data required for reporting to the Office of Management and Budget. This coordination effort took place during the initial configuration effort and this same effort would need to be duplicated if use of the existing IBM licenses were abandoned in favor of any other tool. This configuration and migration effort would require significant labor costs for developers that would have to be sourced to support this effort. In addition, this would also produce a severe negative impact as all of business metrics and reports generated through use of the IBM software would cease until any alternative software was fully configured and data was migrated. IBM PPA software maintenance is the only support that meets the Government's requirement. Failure to procure the required software maintenance would lead to degradation of the IBM software. If the VA was unable to continue utilization of existing IBM software licenses, it would cause immediate failure in VA s ability to provide benefits to Veterans. IBM Cognos is a business intelligence tool for web-based reporting and analytics. This enterprise software provides various features to perform data aggregation and create user-friendly detailed reports. Cognos also offers an option to export reports in XML or PDF format and view the reports in XML format. The Command Center infrastructure is based on these existing IBM software product lines. VA also requires IBM support compatibility be used with the existing infrastructure protocols and functionality for continued operational readiness. Only IBM or a reseller can provide the required software maintenance due to the propriety source code of which is required to develop and implement software updates and upgrades. Without access to this code, would detrimentally impact the software maintenance and support services provided, as any other software products cannot be properly configured and would render the software inoperable. It is critical that this IBM maintenance and support infrastructure remain operational at all times-if this item is not procured this would create a work stoppage situation that would affect the VA in providing support to our Nations Veterans. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, 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. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers. 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 Federal Business 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.
- Web Link
-
SAM.gov Permalink
(https://sam.gov/opp/d2513aba23844c89888d56fe63f15302/view)
- Record
- SN06486881-F 20221007/221005230108 (samdaily.us)
- Source
-
SAM.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's SAM Daily Index Page |