Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF JUNE 09, 2011 FBO #3484
SOLICITATION NOTICE

70 -- National Gateway Centers Defense Messaging System

Notice Date

6/7/2011
 

Notice Type

Justification and Approval (J&A)
 

NAICS

541519 — Other Computer Related Services
 

Contracting Office

Defense Information Systems Agency, Procurement Directorate, DITCO-Scott, 2300 East Dr., Building 3600, Scott AFB, Illinois, 62225-5406, United States
 

ZIP Code

62225-5406
 

Solicitation Number

HC1028-11-R-0102
 

Archive Date

6/30/2011
 

Point of Contact

Michelle R Crain, Phone: 618-229-2566, Anne M Hellman, Phone: 618-229-9596
 

E-Mail Address

michelle.crain@disa.mil, anne.hellman@disa.mil
(michelle.crain@disa.mil, anne.hellman@disa.mil)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

HC1028-11-C-0116
 

Award Date

5/31/2011
 

Description

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (OTFAOC) Justification for OTFAOC Number: Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as Head of the Contracting Activity, hereby approve the use of other than full and open competition for the proposed contractual action pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1). FAR Subpart 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. JUSTIFICATION 1. Requiring Agency and Contracting Activity Requiring Activity : Defense Information Systems Agency Network Services - Defense Message System Division (NSD) Building 1671 Fort Detrick, Maryland Contracting Activity : Defense Information Systems Agency Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, Code PL8332 2300 East Drive Scott AFB, IL 62225 2. Nature/Description of Action This justification is for the award of a sole-source, Firm Fixed Price contract, for a base year plus four option years i.e., Date of Award thru 31 May 2016, to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Information Systems, LLC of Chantilly, VA. The scope of work is for the continued support of equipment at the National Gateway Center (NGC), Fort Detrick Maryland. Additionally, this acquisition will require the vendor to provide limited system engineering support, limited software support, logistical and depot support and services, offsite technical assistance, and site closure support. The NGC provides a critical role in allowing the National Command Authorities to execute the Single Integrated Operations Plan by providing guaranteed, timely, and secure delivery of messages of all classifications between the Unified and Specified Commands, their supporting Defense Agencies, and our allied coalitions. Additionally, the NGC provides the interoperability between those DoD activities that have not transitioned to the Defense Message System (DMS) and those still dependent upon legacy messaging, which includes tactical, non-DoD government, and Intelligence Community (IC) organizations. It is important to note that the remaining legacy users of the NGC have acquired MILDEP/Agency validation and Joint Staff concurrence that the mission supported is critical to the defense of the United States, and approval at the ASD/C3I level. 3. Description of Supplies/Services a. This acquisition provides for the continuation of the maintenance and system level technical support and services required for the continued operation of the equipment at the NGC at Fort Detrick, MD. All operational legacy message-switching hardware must be operational so as to achieve a hardware availability of 99.9%, the DISA Management Threshold for Command and Control Communications. During the performance period, the Vendor must provide a maintenance staff capable of performing the required equipment maintenance as well as performing system analysis and engineering, taking action for the restoration of failed transmission circuits, provide technical support for the Top Secret - Collateral encryption devices, provide support for the Nuclear Command Control & Communications (NC3) Hybrid solution, and provide software support for the NGC Patch and Test Facility (PTF) equipment. The vendor shall provide maintenance services and manning on a 24 x 7 basis, 365/366 days per year. Additionally, the Vendor will assist DISA with a minimally disruptive phase-out of the legacy messaging system. b. The type of contract vehicle for this acquisition effort will be a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Contract with (2) Cost Reimbursable (CR) CLINS. These are a Travel CLIN and a replaceable parts CLIN. The CR CLINs will have a Not to Exceed (NTE) amount assigned. The acquisition will have a Site closure CLIN which will be an optional CLIN. If DISA chooses to exercise this CLIN, the vendor will perform a site survey of the work required for closure so that a price can be negotiated. The optional CLIN will be funded separately. The contract year runs from date of award through 31 May. 4. Identification of Statutory Authority : Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, 10 U.S.C. 2304 (c) (1). (FAR 6.302-1/DFAR206.302-1). 5. Demonstration of Contractor's Unique Qualifications a. Background information The DMS is currently supported by CSC, which consists of logistical support, engineering services, and software database support at the Fort Detrick NGC. The messaging software has been developed specifically for this legacy system hardware and has been certified/accredited to meet stringent security requirements, including those of the Intelligence Community. In addition, CSC provides on-site technical support for major maintenance problems and performs all equipment swap-outs in the NGC. CSC personnel have current security clearances that allow them 24x7 NGC site access, essential for maintaining the NGC's required high level of system availability, and provides depot-level logistical support for the NGC for legacy message switching and DMS transitional messaging components. This supports the rapid repair and restoration of failed equipment. CSC provides system level engineering support to DISA operations for system modifications relating to circuit reconfiguration of the legacy subscribers who have not transitioned to DMS. Examples of this kind of work include engineering analysis to determine performance impact of using the Integrated Digital Network exchange (IDNX, programmable demand bandwidth digital multiplexers) backbone for migration of subscriber circuits, and testing of a new lower cost version of AUTODIN Satellite Compensation Interface Devices (ASCIDs) used to compensate for propagation delays over long haul circuit paths. The previous CONUS AUTODIN contract, HC1013-05-C-2020 (plus 4 Option Years), was awarded as a sole source. b. Unique qualifications The NGC message-switching suite is highly specialized and is a one-of-a kind system. This legacy message-switching system (formerly named AUTODIN) was designed, engineered, installed and maintained by CSC at sites throughout the world. CSC operations program management has extensive system level experience and expertise, factors that have become increasingly critical to sustain a legacy system which, as an aging system for which no major upgrades are planned, has become more difficult to support logistically and will undoubtedly become more maintenance intensive. CSC has consistently met the required hardware system availability threshold at every legacy (formerly AUTODIN) message switching site it has maintained. Through CSC's support for site closures and re-homing subscribers, CSC has a unique understanding of the system level considerations involved in re-distributing system load and allocating maintenance and logistics at a system level to provide the best possible service with limited available NGC resources. In instances where major NGC maintenance problems must be expeditiously resolved, and where highly critical engineering modifications are necessary, only CSC has the staff with sufficient expertise and the required security clearances to resolve the problems with minimum impact to the system and to the subscribers. CSC has unique experience maintaining the DMS assets used by the NGC, which provide a DMS transitional messaging capability. Due to their being in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), the DMS assets in the NGC cannot be maintained using the maintenance provisions of the DMS contract with Lockheed Martin. CSC also has unique technical and logistical expertise, based upon their experience in staging and deploying NGC DMS components. c. Discussion of circumstances /situations justifying sole source procurement. •(1) Proprietary, highly specialized system requiring unique expertise. CSC maintains proprietary data rights both to equipment and site specific engineering records. CSC also fabricated much of the hardware that is used in the NGC (e.g., all of the line termination microprocessor logic and circuit boards, of which there are several hundred units in the system) and is the only known repair source for this unique, highly specialized hardware. (2) Unique software developed for the NGC hardware suite. The Government owns the legacy messaging portion of the NGC software. This software is completely unique and was specifically developed to run on the CSC suite of equipment. Replacement of the CSC message-switching suite with new hardware which could be maintained by another vendor is not a viable option for several reasons. First, the physical plant, which belongs to CSC, took a long time to install and debug. It includes legacy computers, circuit interfaces, crypto interfaces, fiber optic interfaces, cables, frames, connectors, cabinets, power supplies, power panels, clocking equipment, circuit selection equipment Tech Control consoles, Operations consoles, Maintenance consoles, monitors, printers, alarm panels, test equipment, and patch panels. The replacement of the CSC physical plant would cost several millions of dollars and take up to a year to design, install and debug. Also, the design and installation of a replacement system would have to consider the separation of the Intelligence Community message traffic from the General Service (GENSER) community message traffic, which adds to the installation costs. Second, there would be a major expense of re-writing and re-hosting the Government-owned messaging software. Due to system security constraints, the messaging software operates without a commercial operating system and was therefore developed specifically for the existing hardware suite. As a result, moving it to a new hardware suite would involve a virtually total re-write. Third, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) would have to recertify the system software and hardware for processing of Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), as required supporting the IC's NGC messaging requirements. This development, recertification and associated reaccreditation would be a complex, elongated, costly, and extremely high risk effort. To minimize the impact to DMS and the legacy subscribers, an effort to replace the current software and hardware suite would need to be accomplished in parallel with current operations, which would double the current operations/maintenance costs. There is neither funding nor resources available to initiate such an effort at the present time. (3) No other viable maintenance alternative. Another scenario would be to purchase both the data rights and the assets from CSC, thereby increasing the cost to DISA. There is no realistic incentive for the Vendor to offer this equipment and data rights to the Government at a price favorable to the Government, even if funds could be made available to make such a purchase. Means would also have to be provided to train the new Vendor's maintenance staff, again, a significant cost. Finally, there is an increased performance risk to the Government, since a new Vendor might have difficulty maintaining 99.9% availability and reasonably claim that the technical data provided by the Government was inadequate to perform the maintenance function. d. Conclusion. Creating the conditions under which the highly specialized maintenance of the NGC could be competed is not feasible, given pre-existing circumstances of assets, proprietary data, and Government software that meets specialized security requirements and operates only with the unique existing hardware suite. Even if the Government were to purchase the assets and technical data, substantial duplication of cost would result, and it is improbable that the Government would receive any cost benefit or enhance its ability to perform the mission of operating the NGC by competing the requirement. CSC is the only vendor that can reasonably perform maintenance services for the NGC at a reasonable price. Obtaining the system operational synergy required to sustain the NGC, while ensuring continued interoperability with DMS messaging, requires an integrated approach to system maintenance management, as well as broad system level expertise. CSC is uniquely qualified to assume this role.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DISA/D4AD/DITCO/HC1028-11-R-0102/listing.html)
 

Place of Performance

Address: Defense Information System Agency, National Gateway Center, 216 Nelson St. Building 1671, Fort Detrick, MD 21702-5002, Fort Detrick, Maryland, 21702, United States

Zip Code: 21702
 

Record

SN02466414-W 20110609/110607235220-61d27c4f6311c08917d8b98e2f7a8b1e (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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