Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF OCTOBER 01, 2011 FBO #3598
DOCUMENT

70 -- Quest for SharePoint Monitoring Tools (FY11 OIT Funding) - Justification and Approval (J&A)

Notice Date

9/29/2011
 

Notice Type

Justification and Approval (J&A)
 

NAICS

541519 — Other Computer Related Services
 

Contracting Office

Department of Veterans Affairs;Center for Acquisition Innovation-Austin;1701 Directors Blvd;Suite 600;Austin TX 78744
 

ZIP Code

78744
 

Solicitation Number

70
 

Archive Date

10/28/2011
 

Point of Contact

Kari L Cozzens
 

E-Mail Address

1-4413<br
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

NNG07DA46B VA118A-11-F-0201
 

Award Date

9/28/2011
 

Description

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY 1.Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition and Logistics Center for Acquisition Innovation 1701 Director's Blvd., Suite 600 Austin, TX 78744 2.Description of Action: The proposed action is for a Firm-Fixed-Price Delivery Order (DO) issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for Quest brand name software licenses, software maintenance, and professional services. 3.Description of Supplies or Services: The aforementioned Quest brand name software licenses will enhance VA's ability to monitor and manage the VA Enterprise Electronic Collaboration and Messaging Systems (EECMS). The objective is to deploy the software across the entire VA enterprise to support all VA EECMS. The aforementioned Quest brand name software licenses are required to implement more advanced monitoring tools for critical electronic collaboration systems used throughout VA. The requirement is for the following Quest brand software licenses: 111 each Site Administrator for SharePoint; 98 each Deployment Manager for SharePoint, 24 each Migration Manager for SharePoint, 85 each Web Parts for SharePoint, 4 each Public Folder Migrator for SharePoint, 18 each File Migrator for SharePoint111 each Recovery Manager for SharePoint. The initial procurement of these licenses will include one year of software maintenance which includes Software Release upgrades. The software shall be delivered within 30 days after receipt of the DO. The contractor shall deliver the software and arrange with the manufacturer for the initial 12-month warranty support. In addition, professional services are required in order to install, configure, and perform knowledge transfer for the SharePoint products being purchased. The total estimated price of the proposed action is redacted. 4.Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is 41 U.S.C. 253(j)(b) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 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 paragraph 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available for these brand name items and services. VA relies heavily on the use of electronic collaboration messaging systems across the enterprise to support mission critical business functions. This capability is critical to monitoring the entire VA EECMS currently in use. System availability is required at a minimum 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with a 99.9% target reliability. Currently, VA does not have the ability to monitor SharePoint in order to ensure we can meet system availability requirements. The Quest brand name software is the only brand name software that would provide VA all the monitoring, administration, migration and reporting tools needed to monitor and report on its complete agency wide SharePoint environment. Based on market research, no other products in this market space provide the full scope of all services VA requires. Other products evaluated included Metalogix, Avepoint and Axceler. None of these products met VA's minimum requirements as described below. "No other evaluated product allows for a non-intrusive discovery of servers and sites across the agency "No other evaluated product in this space allows for the migration of Public folders from Exchange to SharePoint "All web parts are configured the same way and are consistent through the product "No other evaluated solution allows the agency to leverage existing back-ups for indexing and restoration "Other evaluated products do not allow the ability to scan the network in a discovery mode for rogue or unauthorized SharePoint installations "No other product will allow for the integration of the Quest Exchange management tools that the agency already has in use "No other evaluated product provides the extensive set of web parts; inclusion of these web parts will significantly reduce application development time "No other evaluated product allows the user to preview documents before restoration to a production site; this comparison is also available across multiple back-ups ensuring the proper version/revision is restored "No other evaluated product allows the ability to restore (recover) data when SharePoint is down "No other evaluated product uses a Web Interface for site administration, outside of SharePoint; allowing Administrators to have access to information for troubleshooting if the SharePoint system is down "No other evaluated product has a completely agentless architecture In addition, the Office of Information and Technology, Enterprise Systems Engineering Core Infrastructure Services currently has QUEST brand software and is using these tools to monitor the agencies Exchange systems. The professional services and software included in this initiative must be compatible with these existing software products. All services must be run utilizing one product suite. Based on the market research mentioned above, other brand name products do not interface with one another. The use of multiple vendors and disparate systems dramatically increases the risk to the systems VA manages and supports, and to the services VA provides its customers. Another issue is how other brand name software products will be architecturally setup in the VA environment. It is likely these other products will have separate requirements from an enterprise standpoint. This would create even more overhead in the day-to-day management of the environment that they will reside in, since the setup for all the disparate products may be different and would require additional hardware and support. For example, some products require a central installation where others are require to be physically installed at the location of the hardware that is being monitored. The Quest products proposed are all unique in that no other brand name product provides the same level of functionality. In addition, the complete package proposed is unique in that all of the products will be supported by a single Original Equipment Manufacturer and authorized reseller under a standard maintenance and support plan in an integrated fashion. VA cannot procure the integrated and supported solution for any other brand name software. 6.Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. Based on this research, it was determined that limited competition is anticipated for this proposed action. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.3, the DO award will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) Page. This Justification and Approval (J&A) will also be made publicly available on the FBO Page. 7.Actions to Increase competition: Although the Government is limiting competition as a result of specifying a brand name item, there are multiple authorized resellers of the brand name items on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC. Limited competition among these vendors is anticipated. The J&A and Request for Quote will be submitted to NASA SEWP IV GWAC Group B, Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) in order to fully notify all interested parties. Any proposals received will be evaluated. Furthermore, in order to remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the agency will work with the program office to perform additional market research in a timely manner so that other solutions can be considered. 8.Market Research: Market Research was performed to comply with the FAR and to ensure the Government receives the best value for this procurement. Market research was completed in May 2011; during the course of this research staff participated in multiple webinars and demonstrations, performed exhaustive internet research and spoke to peers and vendors with products in the workspace and experience with these products. Staff attended various trade shows, including TechEd and SharePoint User Group meetings. Additionally, the Government's technical experts reviewed similar software from AvePoint, Metalogix and Axceler and the results indicated that the Quest brand name software was the only software that met all of the agencies needs; as well as integrated with the existing Quest Exchange tools for an all inclusive management and monitoring solution. 9.Other Facts: Market research in March 2011 utilizing the NASA SEWP IV GWAC Manufacturer Lookup tool determined six Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses contract holders are authorized resellers of the Quest brand name items. Therefore, limited competition is expected for this proposed action.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/bca462e915e506d52b4971fb2fe61728)
 

Document(s)

Justification and Approval (J&A)
 

File Name: NNG07DA46B VA118A-11-F-0201 NNG07DA46B VA118A-11-F-0201_LSJ POSTING.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=263898&FileName=NNG07DA46B-004.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=263898&FileName=NNG07DA46B-004.docx

 

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

Record

SN02597573-W 20111001/110929235613-bca462e915e506d52b4971fb2fe61728 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

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

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