AWARD
D -- Renewal of VBrick Maintenance Support VA118-14-AP-0715
- Notice Date
- 7/8/2014
- Notice Type
- Award Notice
- 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
- VA11814Q0345
- Archive Date
- 8/30/2014
- 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
- NNG07DA45B VA118-14-F-0284
- Award Date
- 7/1/2014
- Awardee
- THUNDERCAT TECHNOLOGY, LLC;1775 WIEHLE AVE STE 101;RESTON;VA;201905109
- Award Amount
- $39,741.03
- 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 the renewal of brand name vBrick software and hardware maintenance support. The software and hardware maintenance support is for VA, Veterans Affairs Central Office (VACO) National Capital Region (NCR) Campus television deployment. This proposed action will be a Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) delivery order (DO) issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC). The period of performance for the software maintenance shall be from July 26, 2014 to July 25, 2015. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The proposed action is for the renewal of brand name vBrick software and hardware maintenance support. The software and hardware maintenance support is being procured for 30 vBrick video encoders, the software in the 30 video encoders, the enterprise application and the hardware for the three vBrick servers. 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: 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 eight of this document, limited competition is available among all the SEWP vendors as resellers for this brand name item. Only vBrick or its resellers can provide vBrick proprietary software and hardware maintenance support. Without the renewal of the vBrick software maintenance support, VA will not be able to receive critical software updates, enhancements, software corrections, and technical support. This is an immediate risk to VA and all the VACO tenants not being able to monitor the National disasters or critical news events that directly affect our Nation's Veterans. Furthermore, changing to another solution for software and hardware maintenance support would invalidate the previously purchased 30 codec, their licenses and an enterprise licenses for the server application that are currently in use. The renewal of vBrick software maintenance support is vital to VA for implementation of a standard, comprehensive, and consistent view of the data required by VA business processes and applications. Utilizing any other brand name would result in interoperability and compatibility issues with the currently fielded vBrick software. If another brand name item was to be utilized, it would not be able to communicate with the existing vBrick licenses due to the proprietary code of the software. 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 not be synopsized at award on the Federal Business Opportunities Page (FBO) and the justification will not 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 VBrick Maintenance Support 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: VA technical personnel conducted market research in March 2014. Market research consisted of VA technical personnel reviewing vendors that provide software and hardware maintenance service plans for video encoders similar to VBrick Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) equipment and software. Based on research which included previous use of these products, the Government's technical experts determined that neither the Cisco nor the AMX maintenance service plans can provide the services needed to maintain the vBrick system. Extensive research proved that VBrick uses proprietary source code and it is not available to any vendor to provide maintenance services by a third party vendor other than authorized resellers. Additionally, VA networking subject matter experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other vendor can perform the maintenance services of the VACO vBrick software and hardware. Based on all of these market research efforts, the Government's technical experts have determined that only VBrick or an authorized reseller can provide maintenance services for their equipment and software. Additional market research was conducted by utilizing the Manufacturer Look up tool on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC website. The search revealed that there are 24 authorized VBrick resellers; three Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Computer System Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) from Group A, five Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business VARs from Group B, nine Small Business VARs from Group C, and seven Large Business VARs from Group D. The market research demonstrates that adequate competition exists amongst vBrick resellers on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC. 9. Other Facts: N/A
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