SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- New Contract - FPO Data Center CPAC EMC Storage Hardware
- Notice Date
- 7/22/2013
- Notice Type
- Justification and Approval (J&A)
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Veterans Affairs;Technology Acquisition Center;260 Industrial Way West;Eatontown NJ 07724
- ZIP Code
- 07724
- Solicitation Number
- VA11813Q0357
- Archive Date
- 9/10/2013
- Point of Contact
- Eric Boden
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Award Number
- NNG07DA44B VA118-13-F-0278
- Award Date
- 7/12/2013
- Description
- JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY 1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition Operations Technology Acquisition Center 260 Industrial Way West Eatontown, NJ 07724 2. Description of Action: This 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 the procurement of EMC Corporation (EMC) VNX storage array disk shelves and drives that will be integrated into the existing storage infrastructure at the VA, Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Chief Business Office (CBO) Consolidated Patient Account Center (CPAC) and Health Administration Center (HAC). Installation services are also required. Delivery and installation of the disk shelves and drives shall be 30 days after receipt of order. 3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is to procure additional EMC VNX Disk Array Enclosures (DAEs) and additional hard disks to enhance the existing infrastructure at VHA CBO CPAC and HAC Field Program Offices (FPO) located in Denver, CO and Asheville NC. The role of the CPAC includes first and third party billing to both insurance providers and Veterans alike, also known as revenue collection. The HAC's mission is health plan and benefit management on behalf of the VA. The required EMC DAEs will be integrated into existing EMC VNX Series storage arrays at the FPOs and will strengthen Disaster Recover (DR) and Continuity of Operations (COOP) capabilities as well as provide operational relief to FPO sites whose storage infrastructure is currently overtaxed. 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c) as implemented by the 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: This is a brand name justification in support of FAR 11.105, Items Peculiar to One Manufacturer. Based on extensive market research, as described in paragraph 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available for this brand name equipment. The required EMC VNX Series DAEs and disks will be integrated into the existing storage infrastructure consisting of EMC VNX 5700 arrays that are not compatible with any other brand name drives or drive shelves. Specifically, the current storage infrastructure is comprised of EMC storage and only EMC components are compatible. The supporting EMC enterprise software, replication technology, and storage subsystems have been successfully integrated into the CPAC and HAC storage networks and have been approved to operate. The management and monitoring of data migration and data replication, including recovery plans, have been built surrounding the utilization of the existing EMC enterprise software and replication technology. No other brand of storage and appliances are compatible with this the existing EMC technology and are therefore unsupported for integration into the existing infrastructure. Only EMC brand name storage and replication appliances can be added to the network. Using another brand would require a complete tear out and redesign of the network infrastructure which would pose an unacceptable level of risk to revenue collection, health administration, and patient enrollment operations. Finally, any source providing the installation services and maintenance support must have full access to the EMC equipment in order to install, configure, update and repair the equipment which requires access to EMC's proprietary source code. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. Although the Government is limiting competition as a result of specifying unique or highly specialized equipment, there are multiple authorized resellers of the equipment on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC. Additionally, in accordance with NASA SEWP guidance, this Justification and Approval will be submitted to all four NASA SEWP IV GWAC groups prior to release of the Request for Quote (RFQ) in order to fully notify all interested parties. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301 and FAR 16.505(b)(2), this action will be synopsized at award on the Federal Business Opportunity Page (FBO) and the justification will be made publicly available within 14 days after award. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to determine if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. 8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by the Government's technical experts in January 2013. Solutions from NetApp and Dell for enterprise augmentation or replacement of existing EMC storage equipment were reviewed. Both solutions were investigated for compatibility with the existing replication technology and were found to be unsupported for integration. A Hewlett Packard solution was also assessed for additional market research purposes and was also found to be unsupported for integration. None of the aforementioned brand name items were found to be compatible with the current replication system or configuration and management software. NetApp stated that it could offer a comparable system including replication. The Government's technical expert explained that this would require a complete redesign which poses anunacceptable risk to the Government's revenue collections. The NetApp representative found the Government's technical reasoning to be acceptable. Additional market research was conducting by utilizing the Product Verification and Manufacturer Lookup Tools on the NASA SEWP IV website on May 23, 2013. This search resulted in 34 resellers of EMC Corporation's products including Alvarez & Associates (Group B Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) Value Added Reseller (VAR)), FedStore Corporation (Group B SDVOSB VAR), MicroTech (Group B SDVOSB VAR), ThreeWire (Group B SDVOSB VAR), and ThunderCat Technology (Group B SDVOSB VAR).
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