Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF MAY 29, 2014 FBO #4569
DOCUMENT

D -- COTS Licenses - PDP Axiomatics - Increment III - Attachment

Notice Date

5/27/2014
 

Notice Type

Attachment
 

NAICS

541519 — Other Computer Related Services
 

Contracting Office

Department of Veterans Affairs;Technology Acquisition Center;23 Christopher Way;Eatontown NJ 07724
 

ZIP Code

07724
 

Solicitation Number

VA11814Q0195
 

Archive Date

6/22/2014
 

Point of Contact

alainah.robillard@va.gov
 

E-Mail Address

alainah.robillard@va.gov
(alainah.robillard@va.gov)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

NNG07DA46B VA118-14-F-0212
 

Award Date

5/23/2014
 

Awardee

ALVAREZ & ASSOCIATES, LLC;8251 GREENSBORO DR STE 230;TYSONS CORNER;VA;221023817
 

Award Amount

$650,043.09
 

Description

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY 1. Contracting Activity:Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition Operations Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724 2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) Delivery Order (DO) for brand name Axiomatics Software Maintenance Support as well as the procurement of additional Axiomatics Software Subscriptions including including two Policy Server production licenses, four non-production licenses, one Reverse Query non-production license, two Policy Auditor licenses and software maintenance support. The proposed effort will be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurements (SEWP) IV Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC). The period of performance (PoP) for the software maintenance support shall be 12 months from date of award. Furthermore, there will be three 12-month option periods for continued software maintenance support. Delivery of the additional Axiomatics Software Subscriptions including two Policy Server production licenses, four non-production licenses shall occur within 30 days of receipt and processing of the DO. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The proposed action is for for brand name Axiomatics Software Maintenance Support as well as the procurement of additional Axiomatics Software Subscriptions including two Policy Server production licenses, four non-production licenses, one Reverse Query non-production license, two Policy Auditor licenses and software maintenance support. The additional licenses allow VA to meet growing capacity demands as the number of consuming applications continues to increase, resulting in an ever growing Veteran population requiring authorization to access these applications. The Axiomatics tool suite provides a centralized capability to satisfy the specific requirements of the Specialized Access Control (SAC) service such as attribute and rule based access control by supporting policy creation, maintenance, decision, and enforcement functionality. SAC provides a centralized, fine-grained authorization capability furnishing enterprise applications with the ability to externalize authorization and related audit functionality from the application logic. It offers a greater and more granular degree of control on both access rights and the information that is being protected. It is based on the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) 3.0 standards. 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) 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: Based on extensive market research, as described in paragraph eight of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for this brand name item and associated services. This is a brand name justification in support of FAR 11.105, Items Peculiar to One Manufacturer. In 2013, VA procured the original Axiomatics software licenses based on a brand name or equivalent basis, to provide SAC solutions to VA. Subsequently, the entire SAC system has been developed using Axiomatics as a foundational component. Only Axiomatics or its resellers have access to Axiomatics' proprietary software maintenance support. Therefore the brand name or equivalent approach was not followed for this action. Without the renewal of the Axiomatics software maintenance support services for the existing licenses VA will not be able to receive critical software updates, enhancements, software corrections, and technical support; posing an immediate risk to VA's Authentication and Authorization capabilities. A failure of the Axiomatics Tool Suite could render VA applications, systems, and data inaccessible to authorized users; potentially compromising Veterans safety. Conversely, a system failure increases the potential for unauthorized users to access these same systems, putting at risk all data, including Personal Health Information (PHI) and Personal Identifiable Information (PII). As the number of consuming applications, and by extension, the number of end users increases exponentially, investments in additional capacity are critical to meet that demand. Since the Axiomatics software is proprietary, third parties cannot simply provide patches that alter the ability of the software to allow for increased volume. In regards to scaling horizontally, the purchase of additional Policy Decision Points (PDP) and associated licenses from a vendor other than Axiomatics or its resellers would effectively complicate SAC by making it a multi-vendor offering. Utilizing any other brand name would result in interoperability and compatibility issues with the currently fielded Axiomatics software. Specifically, this is the only product that can meet all of VA's functional requirements, for example allowing authorized users access to both required data and various VA applications which currently only work with policies developed with Axiomatics software. Note: A policy is a rule or set of rules that provide authorization to an end user to access a system/application. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. It was determined however that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for this brand name item. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), this action will be synopsized at award on the Federal Business Opportunities Page (FBO) and the justification will be made publicly available. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: Although the Government is limiting competition as a result of specifying a brand name item, there are several authorized resellers of the Axiomatics products on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC. Limited competition for this requirement among these vendors is anticipated. Finally, 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 so that other solutions can be considered. 8. Market Research: Market research was initially conducted in December 2013 by the Government's technical experts to ascertain the ability of any source other than an Axiomatics reseller that can provide the aforementioned services. They confirmed that the software currently contains proprietary information and only Axiomatics and its resellers can provide the necessary software maintenance support and software subcriptions. While other sources possess general capabilities needed to provide similar services, no other source was found to meet VA's needs without access to the Axiomatics proprietary data. The Government's technical experts updated their market research in April of 2014 by researching other similar brand name items. Specifically the Government reviewed software from Oracle (Oracle Entitlements Server) and IBM (IBM Tivoli Security Policy Manager) however these companies' items could not operate in the current environment due to the interoperability and compatibility issues previously discussed in paragraph five of this document. Furthermore, given that the Axiomatics product is a proprietary solution, there are no other authorized vendors that can provide maintenance licenses without voiding the licenses currently in use. Additional market research was conducted by utilizing the Manufacturer Look up tool on the NASA SEWP website. This search revealed that there are two authorized Axiomatics resellers; zero in Group A Value Added Resellers (VARs), one in Group B Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business VARs, one in Group C Small Business VARs, and zero in Group D Large Business VARs. 9. Other Facts: N/A
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/901cd2ace15f612101861a3e2e44734a)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: NNG07DA46B VA118-14-F-0212 NNG07DA46B VA118-14-F-0212_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=1385460&FileName=NNG07DA46B-076.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=1385460&FileName=NNG07DA46B-076.docx

 

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

Record

SN03376993-W 20140529/140527234749-901cd2ace15f612101861a3e2e44734a (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

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

---

| FSG Index  |  This Issue's Index  |  Today's FBO Daily Index Page |