Warranty Services

On behalf of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Directorate for Information Management and Chief Information Officer (DS), DIA Virginia Contracting Activity (AE-2C) anticipates awarding a sole source firm-fixed price purchase order to EMC Corporation located at 8444 Westpark Dr Ste 700, McLean, VA 22102-5102, OR AN AUTHORIZED EMC RESELLER. Under NAICS 541519 Other Computer Related Services, the purpose is to purchase annual warranty support services for EMC Corporation hardware and software for the Virginia Contracting Activity headquarters and its regional offices. Quotes shall be evaluated by lowest price technically acceptable. The period of performance will be from date of award to December 31, 2010. The mission of DIA is to provide timely, objective, and cogent military intelligence to warfighters, defense planners, and defense and national security policymakers. As such, under FAR parts 12 and 13 and 6.302(1), the proposed commercial item acquisition action is for services for which the government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source. This source must be an EMC authorized reseller at the time of award. The government basis this sole source justification on the fact that all IT equipment must be tested for operability, inter-operability, and security reasons. In addition, much time and effort is spent customizing several hundred software applications to properly and securely operate on the DoDIIS/DIA network. Once the particular make and model passes this rigorous testing and has customized software prepared, DIA IT personnel can quickly install, manage, operate and maintain thousands of identical items in the identical manner. These key components from EMC are essential to the continued operations of several major systems. They are also required to maintain warranties and for ease of support service agreements. If the same make and model or system components cannot be repeatedly purchased, then DoDIIS IT personnel would have to repeat this process for each and every item purchased and each and every system component. DIA owns the current makes and models supported by this warranty services requirement. EMC is the only authorized source of support for proprietary EMC equipment. DIA already has a large investment in this system administration, maintenance, support and operations. DIA does not have the resources to acquire or maintain multiple vendors' proprietary architectures. Any decision to change current models or system configuration will greatly impact the costs of hardware maintenance and life-cycle replacement by requiring additional funding for the necessary spare parts required for DIA's level of operational readiness. By acquiring this annual warranty, DIA will meet its redundancy requirement and continue to use compatible parts with the existing system allowing spare parts to be a back up for one another. For further information, please contact Kelly Lael, Contract Specialist. Quotes must be submitted no later that 11:00 am January 20, 2010 in writing to: Defense Intelligence Agency, ATTN: Kelly Lael AE-2C, 200 MacDill Blvd., Washington, D.C. 20340-5100 or contact@example.gov.