Hosting & Consulting

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION I recommend that NASA, NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) negotiate with XXXXXX, only, for continued hosting and consulting services in support of the Plateau-based Learning Management System (SATERN) that they have hosted and supported for NASA since late 2005. This action will be performed by awarding a follow-on task order against the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) GS-XXXXXX with XXXXXX. The Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) estimated value for this effort is $XXXX. The estimated period of performance is (6) months from March 1, 2017 through August 31, 20117, consisting of two three month option period (option period one September 1, 2017 through November 31, 2017 and option period two from December 1, 2017 through February 28, 2018). This procurement is for the renewal of hosting and technical consulting support for the Agency's current Learning Management System (SATERN) which supports a user base of 75,000 users. Hosting Support includes setup, on-going operations and maintenance, technical support and monitoring of the database, content and web servers, full load balancing, and network fail-over design. In addition, hosting services will include immediate identification of an outage, within 20 minutes, and a quick response to correct the problem. Listed below are items that the hosting services will include: 1. Minimum data center bandwidth capacity of 10 Mbps burstable to 100 Mbps. 2. 24 x 7 monitored networks. 3. Load balancing, database server, and architecture to handle redundancy and heavy traffic. 4. Backup services. 5. Restarting services or processes. 6. Creating/editing firewall rules. 7. Performance and usage monitoring. Consulting support includes: 1. Project management and technical support 2. Attending NASA Core Team and Technical Meetings 3. Troubleshooting support 4. Installing minor upgrades, patches, and new modules. 5. Implementing and supporting product customizations 6. Supporting courseware loading and support 7. Assisting with the costing and resource estimates for the project effort 8. Providing monthly status reports to NASA 9. Documentation This recommendation is made pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(b), Items Peculiar to One Manufacturer. Alternative software solutions are impractical for the following reasons: 1. Only one source is capable of responding due to the unique specialized nature of the work. As maintenance is an ongoing set of various activities, it is not feasible to bring in a new contractor to perform work that is dependent on previous work and programs that have been completed by XXXXX. Only XXXXXXX has the requisite capabilities to continue performing the specialized requirements because only XXXXXX can or has supported NASA with NASA's specialized Learning Management System (LMS) requirements. Furthermore, the incumbent task orders (XXXXX and XXXXXX) was awarded under sole source authority. As the requirements remain unchanged and XXXXX continues to maintain this proprietary LMS, there is not a reasonable expectation to receive a competitive offer in terms of price, quality and delivery without significant disruption and an additional cost to the Government. 2. XXXXXXX is solely positioned to support NASA's requirement for hosting and consulting services for NASA's Plateau-based LMS system (SATERN.) SATERN is an integrated LMS with an audience of every NASA Civil Servant and Contractor. The integrations support a variety of programs that include Supervisor Dashboards, Kennedy Area Access, Center badging programs, and the NSSC Data Warehouse. Additional information around the integrations and costs to move to a new vendor are in section 3 paragraph two. XXXXXXXX intimate knowledge of current NASA customizations and requirements makes them the sole vendor available to support the SATERN environment along with their expertise and detailed knowledge of NASA specific customizations, interfaces, integrations, and detailed configuration requirements are essential to successful system operations that support daily Agency operations. This knowledge has been obtained via the existing contract vehicles XXXXXXX and XXXXXX since 2011. 3. NASA's training environment is currently housed on NASA-owned hardware located at a secure and recoverable XXXXXX facility. This placement of the system aids in XXXXXXs' ability to directly support operations and initiate recovery operations as required. The considerable interruption of services that would be required to relocate, install, test, and validate the operational environment at an alternate location, as well as re-establishing all interface requirements with external systems and customers would significantly impact NASA operations. In addition to the interruption to training planning and documentation, there would also be a critical interruption of automated services supporting restricted facility access and IT resource access - down to the desktop level for all NASA employees and contractors. Continued support for this system with XXXXXXX is required to avoid significant system downtime and cost associated with relocation of NASA owned hardware, establishment of a new environment, and NASA- specific application familiarization training for a new hosting staff. These impacts would be felt as the certification of training provided by the SATERN system directly feeds these operational applications on a daily basis. Additionally, SATERN has web services that would need to be re-created at the new contractor facility to support programs at MSFC, KSC and JSC. The MSFC services include the management dashboards and NASA Access Management System workflows at the NEACC. SATERN has more than fourteen data feeds that would need to be re-created in an amount expected to exceed over $XXXX. These data feeds must be maintained to support NASA core business related to training, development and competency management. The feeds also support NASA resource access for both area access and IT systems access, and NASA management initiatives related to supervisory dashboards. The hardware would have to be purchased and in place, the architecture tested and the feeds created and tested before NASA can turn off the existing application with XXXXXXX. Pursuant to FAR 8.404(a), BPAs and orders placed against a Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) are considered to be issued using full and open competition. Therefore, when establishing a BPA or placing orders under Federal Supply Schedule contracts using the procedures of 8.405, ordering activities shall not seek competition outside of the Federal Supply Schedules or synopsize the requirement. Pursuant to FAR 8.404(d) pricing, "services offered on the schedule are priced either at hourly rates, or at a fixed price for performance of a specific task (e.g., installation, maintenance, and repair). GSA has already determined the prices of supplies and fixed-price services, and rates for services offered at hourly rates, under schedule contracts to be fair and reasonable. Therefore, ordering activities are not required to make a separate determination of fair and reasonable pricing, except for a price evaluation as required by 8.405-2. Market research conducted on January 30, 2017 by the NSSC Contracting Office confirms that no other companies are currently prepared to host and support associated consulting services for NASA's LMS environment without an extended period of system downtime at a significantly higher cost. A review of GSA Advantage/SEWP confirmed that XXXXX, has no value added resellers authorized to provide the requested services. See Market research, located in contract file. In accordance with FAR Subpart 8.002, priorities for use of Government Supply Sources, NASA will satisfy its priority of fulfilling requirements by utilizing an existing Federal contract that has already been completed. The establishment of this task order along with supporting documentation shall be publicized and posted on the GPE pursuant to FAR 8.405(6)(a)(2). The Agency will continue to examine the market in the future for alternative solutions before executing any subsequent contract action for the requirements herein. Due to the nature of the expressed requirement, there are no known actions which the Agency may take to give consideration to other manufacturers for the requirements described herein. Negotiating the requirements of Learning Management System (SATERN) and other associated support through XXXXXXXX is the only practical approach. I hereby certify the facts in this justification and any supporting data used for this justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge.