DOCUMENT
D -- ISS Premium Maintenance - Attachment
- Notice Date
- 6/8/2015
- Notice Type
- Attachment
- NAICS
- 334111
— Electronic Computer Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Veterans Affairs;Technology Acquisition Center;23 Christopher Way;Eatontown NJ 07724
- ZIP Code
- 07724
- Solicitation Number
- VA11815Q0186
- Archive Date
- 9/15/2015
- Point of Contact
- Joe Pignataro, Contract Specialist
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Award Number
- NNG15SC15B VA118-15-F-0050
- Award Date
- 6/8/2015
- Awardee
- INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION;6710 ROCKLEDGE DRIVE;BETHESDA;MD;20817
- Award Amount
- $146,332.00
- 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 will limit competition for the brand name award of a firm-fixed price delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC). Limited competition is expected due to the availability of authorized resellers for the renewal of the required International Business Machines software licenses and maintenance support services. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology, Office of Information Security, Network Security Operations Center (NSOC) requires the renewal of 70 software licenses and Premium Maintenance Support Services supporting existing VA-owned IBM Intrusion prevention appliances. This service is required to protect VA's Enterprise Information Infrastructure from threats and attacks. VA is required by federal mandate and VA Directive 6500 to protect the network from intrusion attacks. IBM Intrusion prevention appliances are installed to detect suspicious network activity at the perimeter by monitoring network traffic for attacks from known and suspected sources. Maintenance of its software ensures these appliances function properly to identify threats and attacks. Intrusion prevention appliances also share information with other Information Technology (IT) security equipment so if one device discovers a new type of attack, other devices can learn of this suspicious activity in advance from other Intrusion prevention appliances and take action against these new attacks and threats. The updates provided by the required maintenance support services include files and proprietary software that VA staff installs on the Intrusion prevention appliances when new attacks are discovered by a federal department or participating agency. IBM also provides periodic updates that identify potential attacks and threats. These software updates developed by IBM engineers either improve the efficiency of the appliance and/or add rule sets to the appliance. Rule sets are specific proprietary code written specifically for these appliances that directs the appliance to take a particular action based on a predetermined series of events. IBM Premium maintenance services provides VA with access to IBM support services that includes 10 designated customer representatives that VA can contact for immediate response to issues, concerns, and to address new types of attacks. These designated Premium Support Engineers provide VA with remote support installing updates and configuring the Intrusion System appliances to work efficiently and effectively within VA's Enterprise Information Infrastructure. Product updates and enhancements, security updates, advisories, and alerts are of value to VA because they come from across the information security industry and are resources not available to a single Government agency but the combined effort of all Government agencies and IBM support staff. Access to product and technical experts via 24/7 telephone-based technical support; 24x7x365 telephone and online incident support, escalation processes, X-Force Threat, and Vulnerability Database which provides the NSOC with the latest information on threats and attacks and helps VA prioritize responses to remediate incidents. Maintenance support also provides VA two onsite optimization reviews per year. These optimization reviews help VA technical staff fine tune the intrusion systems appliances to work efficiently within VA's Enterprise Information Environment and help VA information security staff configure the Intrusion System appliances to integrate with VA infrastructure. Intrusion appliances must look at all network traffic and in doing so can degrade or slow network performance. IBM engineers will optimize devices to ensure any network traffic delays are minimized based on the particular architecture. The period of performance for this effort will be 12 months with two 12 month option periods. The total estimated value of the proposed action is 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 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 accordance with FAR 11.105, Items Peculiar to One Manufacturer. The proposed source for this action is IBM, 6710 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20817. IBM Intrusion prevention appliances are owned and currently used by the VA NSOC. The appliances require software security updates and maintenance to ensure they continue to identify and stop known and unknown attacks. The software is written in proprietary language; therefore no other source can provide software updates for these IBM appliances. The function of these appliances requires knowledgeable, trained staff to support VA NSOC IT security personnel. The dynamic, learning design of these appliances requires communication between VA and IBM to identify and address suspicious events that require evaluation. Only IBM possesses experts trained in the use and configuration of the Intrusion Preventions appliances. VA requires this support to ensure network threats are prevented, suspicious activity is analyzed and categorized and that as VA's Information Technology Infrastructure changes, VA personnel have the support to configure, test, and validate the effectiveness of the protection provided by these appliances in this dynamic environment. Only IBM provides the aforementioned security updates and support. Using any other services provider would create a lapse of network intrusion protection and place VA's Information Systems resources and data at risk. This would put VA in temporary non-compliance with the Office of Management and Budget and Department of Homeland Security Trusted Internet Connection initiative entitled Critical Capabilities and VA Directive 6500, Information Security Program. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. In accordance with FAR 5.301 the resulting contract award will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities Page. Additionally in accordace with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(2) this Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity along with any supporting documentation and the solicitation will be provided to all contract awardees on the NASA SEWP IV GWAC. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. 8. Market Research: The Government's technical experts conducted market research in February 2015 on NASA SEWP IV by contacting vendors offering maintenance and updates for Intrustion prevention appliances. Though multiple providers such as Dell, FCN Inc., and Merlin International offered maintenance and updates for other Intrustion prevention appliances, it was determined that only IBM can provide maintenance and updates to the existing VA-owned IBM Intrusion prevention appliances due to the proprietary software code. Maintenance and updates for these intrusion appliances contain intellectual property of IBM. Therefore, only IBM provides support for the software running on these appliances and no authorized reseller is available to compete for this effort. Based on this market research, the Government's technical experts concluded that only the Original Equipment Manufacturer IBM can meet all of VA's requirements. 9. Other Facts: The time required to design, test, and procure an equivalent system with VA's Information Technology Infrastructure would require 18-36 months based on similar work performed by IT engineers and consultants.
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- Document(s)
- Attachment
- File Name: NNG15SC15B VA118-15-F-0050 NNG15SC15B VA118-15-F-0050_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2092298&FileName=NNG15SC15B-000.docx)
- Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2092298&FileName=NNG15SC15B-000.docx
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- File Name: NNG15SC15B VA118-15-F-0050 NNG15SC15B VA118-15-F-0050_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2092298&FileName=NNG15SC15B-000.docx)
- Record
- SN03757018-W 20150610/150608235152-cce3bc81edca06157462486c15265632 (fbodaily.com)
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