Inactive

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity: The Department of State Office of Acquisition Management proposes to award task/deliver order under multiple award contract with exception... 1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity: The Department of State Office of Acquisition Management proposes to award task/deliver order under multiple award contract with exception to fair opportunity for Niksun Hardware and Software Maintenance for NetVCR on behalf of Information Resource Management, Enterprise Network Management Office (IRM/OPS/ENM). The total estimated cost is $XXX. 2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved. Renewal of maintenance support of the Niksun Hardware and Software Maintenance for NetVCR. The NetVCR provides a wide range of operational and security functionality for the Department of State Enterprise Network. Maintenance includes patches and upgrades as well as technical support. 3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the Department’s needs. The requirement is to provide Niksun NetVCR Hardware and Software maintenance at an enterprise level for a total cost of $XXX. These supplies/services are required for the current Niksun deployment. This will allow the office of IRM/OPS/ENM to maintain, enhance, and secure its enterprise network services. This includes items: Manufacturer/Model Description NKN-21VA1SPSV200FPA1Y 1 year Software Upgrades & Maintenance package for Virtual NetVCR Virtual Appliance, 25 License Pack NKN-21WZSPA55-V 1 year Software Upgrades & Maintenance package for Flow Aggregator Software License NKN-21WXSPNOM4Q 1 year Software Upgrades & Maintenance package for NETOMNI SW Portal (224 licenses) NKN-21WXSPNXT 1 year Software Upgrades & Maintenance package for Solution Base Appliance NKN-21WXSPCT35J 1 year Software Upgrades & Maintenance package for NetX Software Interface License 5-pack NKN-21AV9YFMMF1P1Y 1 year Platinum Care package for NIKSUN 9199 Series, 10G-MMF (4 Port), 180TB SSD NetVCR Appliance NKN-21ZH9YFMMF11TS1Y 1 year Software Upgrades & Maintenance Package for Performance Advanced Bundle - NIKSUN 9199 Series NKN-21OANO7AMGL5TP1Y 1 year Platinum Care Package for NIKSUN 7480 Series NKN-21ALP91HCVSBP1Y 1 year Platinum Care Package for NIKSUN 9180 Series 4. Authority permitting a Fair Opportunity Exception and the supporting rationale. This acquisition is conducted pursuant to 41 U.S.C. 4103 and 4106 as implemented by FAR 16.505 and substantiated by the following: ? FAR 16.505(a)(4)(i) – The contracting officer must justify restricting consideration to an item peculiar to one manufacturer (e.g., a particular brand-name, product, or a feature of a product that is peculiar to one manufacturer). A brand-name item, even if available on more than one contract, is an item peculiar to one manufacturer. Brand-name specifications shall not be used unless the particular brand-name, product, or feature is essential to the Government’s requirements and market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the particular feature, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency’s needs. The required proprietary hardware/software support is available only from the original hardware/software manufacturer and its authorized partners, and therefore precludes consideration of any other brand. This coverage provides software version upgrades, associated security updates, help desk technical support and the manufacture’s hardware warranty for ENM’s currently deployed Niksun equipment. This will allow the Office of Enterprise Network Management to accomplish network monitoring mission objectives that includes on-demand or scheduled security and performance reports; polling distributed network switches to generate comprehensive switch/link level traffic data; Quality of Service alerts for proactive surveillance of application and network performance; and network troubleshooting for root cause analysis. 5. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. Vendors must quote prices at or below their NASA SEWP V established contract unit ceiling prices for each item. The SEWP V contracts are FAR Part 12 Commercial Contracts, and additional price analysis was done in accordance with the following: The price design for SEWP is a proposed discount off the offeror’s commercial list price. Price analysis was conducted in accordance with FAR 15.305(a)(1), to ensure that a "fair and reasonable" price is paid by the Government. Reasonableness of proposed prices was established in accordance with 15.403-1(c)(1)(i)(B) which provides that a price is based on adequate price competition if two or more responsible offerors, competing independently submit priced offers that satisfy the Government's expressed requirement and there is not any finding that the price of an otherwise successful offer is unreasonable. To verify price reasonableness, offerors were instructed to submit their published price catalog or published schedule of list prices in a form regularly maintained by the manufacturer or offerors, such as a catalog, price list, schedule, or other verifiable and established record. Additionally, each contractor proposed a discount off of product categories (such as input-output device) of IT equipment. These discounts remain for the life of the contract. Therefore, when new technology is added or list prices change due to market fluctuations, the SEWP price remains fair and reasonable. There are several other price reasonability checkpoints in SEWP: A SEWP Prime Contract Holder cannot offer prices higher on their SEWP contract than is offered on their GSA contract. This is exclusive of the surcharge. Since the SEWP fee is 0.39% compared to GSA's 0.75% fee, SEWP prices must be lower than GSA for that Contract Holder. When items are added or prices updated on a SEWP contract, prices are automatically compared to other SEWP contracts and must be within a reasonable price of all other contracts. Further comparisons with GSA, commercial and other contracts may be done to verify any questionable pricing. All SEWP Delivery Orders are subject to Fair Opportunity (in this case, through Reverse Auction procedures through www.FedBid.com. This internal competition provides an incentive for Contract Holders to provide the best possible price in order to be selected for award. 6. Any other facts supporting the justification. As this is a brand name only justification, no one contractor’s unique qualifications are used as the basis for this justification. Rather, the products identified by brand name herein have been identified as the only products that will meet ENM’s requirement. It is anticipated that the requirement will be competed among Niksun authorized resellers and award will be made based on that limited NASA SEWP V GWAC competition. 7. Actions the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to Increase Fair Opportunity before any subsequent acquisitions for the supplies or services is made. When this equipment approaches end of life, IRM/OPS/ENM will conduct market research for replacement equipment that will become the new standard for these devices. This research will be approved by IRM to become the new standard.