D--MAINTENANCE: Sun Fire 15K

Under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b) (1), the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering (RDEC) Acquisition Center, Natick Contracting Division (NDC), Kansas Street, Natick, MA on behalf of the U. S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, Natick, MA intends to negotiate and award a Contract on a sole source basis with Blue Ridge, 117 West 4th St, Ranson, WV 25438. 1) FAR Statutory Authority cited: 13.106-1 (b )(1) - only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. 2) Nature and description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency's needs: Systems hardware maintenance (12 months) for Sun El0K and E15K. 3) A demonstration that the proposed contractor is the only source available to provide these services or goods (i.e. unique qualifications, proprietary rights, etc.): Blue Ridge is currently the only vendor that can maintain this equipment and can guarantee parts for maintenance since the equipment is over 5 years old. Since this system is over 5 years old it's critical to have a vendor who is provides expertise in maintenance of this equipment, Blue Ridge has provided the government with this service in the past two fiscal years. 4) A description of the market research that was conducted and the results, or a statement of the reason a market research was not conducted: Other vendors who would cover servers over 5 years old could not be identified. It is standard in the hardware industry for Tier I vendors such as Dell to discontinue support after a system reaches 5 years of age and is considered End of Life by that vendor, finding a Tier II vendor to support aging equipment has historically been a difficult task as most Tier II vendors do not specialize in aging equipment due to the fact that industry does not make it standard practice to operate on older equipment. The agency finds itself in this position due to the FY10 Moratorium on IT spending as issued by the CIO/G6 office to cap spending on installation data centers in an effort to migrate these data centers to CONUS wide enterprise data centers. Last date for Natick for the data center consolidation plan is FY15 so Natick needs to continue operating systems independently for five years. 5) Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: Contract will expire on November 8, 2010 and we run the risk of running without maintenance, if equipment breaks down mission users will not have access to critical financial systems. The financial systems that will not be available are the Oracle Financial Database (OFD), Labor Transfer System (LTS), MIPR system, Budget Planning System (BPS), Internal Calibrations System (ICS), Contract Transfer System (CTS) and Program Wide Activities System (PROWAS). NSRDEC has over 350 users on these systems and would have to resort to manual processing of MIPRs and financial reconciliation, NSRDEC has come to rely on these automated systems and is not resourced to be able to continue operations following a 15 year old manual processing model. 6) A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required: With the age of the Sun Unix equipment the actions the agency can take to overcome barriers to competition are being taken but will result in a FY12 solution in a best case scenario. For FY11 the agency requires the support of Blue Ridge. 7) Technical/Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in the justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Any firm that believes it can meet this requirement may give written notification to the Contracting Officer within 5 days from the date of publication of this announcement. Supporting evidence must be in sufficient detail to demonstrate the ability to comply with the requirements, yet must be limited to 2 pages. Responses received will be evaluated; however, a determination by the Government to compete the proposed procurement based on the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. If no responses are received, NCD will proceed with awarding a firm fixed price purchase order to Blue Ridge. Nothing herein should be misconstrued as a request for proposal. No solicitation document is available. Any Questions concerning this acquisition may be addressed to the above address, Attention: Mr. Ryan Colgan or by email to: contact@example.gov. This synopsis expires November 7, 2010 at 3:00pm.