70--F5 BIG IP (GSA SCHEDULE)

This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6, in conjunction with FAR 13.5, and as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. The solicitation number is 1045-647924 and is issued as a request for quotation (RFQ). The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular FAC 05-09. The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 334119 with a small business size standard of 1,000 employees. This requirement is unrestricted and only interested offerors may submit a quote. The solicitation pricing on www.FedBid.com will start on the date this solicitation is posted and will end on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 17:30:00 Eastern Time or as otherwise displayed at www.FedBid.com. FOB Destination shall be ARLINGTON, VA 22209 The Department of State requires the following items, EXACT MATCH ONLY, to the following: LI 001, BIG-IP Switch: Local Traffic Manager 1500 p/n: F5-BIG-LTM-1500, 4, EA; LI 002, BIG-IP Service: Premium (Level 1-3) p/n: F5-SVC-BIG-PRE-L1-3, 4, EA; For this solicitation, Department of State intends to conduct an online competitive reverse auction to be facilitated by the third-party reverse auction provider, FedBid, Inc. FedBid has developed an online, anonymous, browser based application to conduct the reverse auction. An Offeror may submit a series of pricing quotes, which descend in price during the specified period of time for the aforementioned reverse auction. Department of State is taking this action in a an effort to improve vendor access and awareness of requests while expediting its ability to gather multiple, completed, real-time offers. All responsible Offerors that respond to this solicitation MUST submit the pricing portion of their offer using the online exchange located at www.FedBid.com. There is no cost to register, review procurement data or make an offer on www.FedBid.com. Offerors that are not currently registered to use www.FedBid.com should proceed to www.FedBid.com to complete their free registration. Offerors that require special considerations or assistance may contact the FedBid Helpdesk at 877-9FEDBID (+1 (555) 000-0000) or via email at contact@example.gov. Offerors may not artificially manipulate the price of a transaction on www.FedBid.com by any means. It is unacceptable to place bad faith offers, to use decoys in the www.FedBid.com process or to collude with the intent or effect of hampering the competitive www.FedBid.com process. Should offerors require additional clarification, contact Kathleen Mejia at contact@example.gov or FedBid.com at 877-9FEDBID (+1 (555) 000-0000) or contact@example.gov. The selected Offeror must comply with the following commercial item terms and conditions. FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors - Commercial, applies to this acquisition. The selected Offeror must submit a completed copy of the provision at 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items. FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions - Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The following FAR clauses in paragraph (b) of FAR clause 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required To Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items, will apply: 52.222-21, 52.222-26, 52.222-35, 52.222-36, 52.222-37, 52.225-13, 52.232-34. The full text of a FAR clause may be accessed electronically at http://www.acqnet.gov/far. Delivery shall be made within 30 days or less after receipt of order (ARO). CCR Requirement - Company must be registered on Central Contractor Registration (CCR) before an award could be made to them. If company is not registered in CCR, they may do so by going to CCR web site at http://www.ccr.gov. This Justification and Approval (J&A) on a brand name only basis is for the purchase of a F5 Big IP load balancer device. The use of a brand name description is essential to the Government's requirements, for Department of State infrastructure connectivity requirements, thereby precluding consideration of the products of another company The F5 Networks Big IP is hardware that provides high-availability load balancing, fast and extremely intelligent layer 7 switching, granular interactive control, DoS protection, resource pooling and a number of other features to help protect our Internet presence with the following features: - Reliability - Delivers the industry's most proven and advanced system to ensure that applications are always available. - Accelerated Applications - Provides control to accelerate application performance by up to 3-times, ensures that priority applications are served first, and offloads expensive server cycles. - Reduced Server and Bandwidth Costs - Triples server capacity through a set of infrastructure optimization capabilities; reduces bandwidth costs by up to 80% through intelligent HTTP compression, bandwidth management and more. - Greater Network and Application Security - From DoS protection to cloaking to filtering out application attacks, BIG-IP adds critical security features that cannot be addressed elsewhere in the network. - Application Intelligence and Control - The industry's only solution which delivers complete application fluency - enabling network-speed full payload inspection and programmable event-based traffic management to understand and act upon application flows. - Total Integration for All IP Applications -- Provides a comprehensive solution that can integrate with all applications, not just Web based protocols. Provides organizations with a centralized solution for all IP applications, including legacy and emerging applications like VOIP -- all in a single unified system. - Industry Leading Performance - Delivers the fastest traffic management solution to secure, deliver and optimize application performance. Offers best-in-market SSL TPS, bulk encryption, and the highest concurrent SSL connections available today. The 41 USC 253(c)(1), and FAR 6.302-1 are cited at the statutory authority.As this is a brand name only justification, no one contractor's unique qualifications are cited as the basis for this justification. Rather, the products identified by brand name herein have been determined to be the only items that meet the Department's requirements as a key component of the Department's networking system. The F5 1500 BigIP load balancers are required to replace units that were moved to the KCC to become the new production farm load balancers.