Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF FEBRUARY 28, 2016 FBO #5210
DOCUMENT

D -- TIBCO Spotfire - Additional Licenses - Attachment

Notice Date

2/26/2016
 

Notice Type

Attachment
 

NAICS

541519 — Other Computer Related Services
 

Contracting Office

Department of Veterans Affairs;Technology Acquisition Center;23 Christopher Way;Eatontown NJ 07724
 

ZIP Code

07724
 

Solicitation Number

VA11816Q0972
 

Archive Date

5/26/2016
 

Point of Contact

Amy Schmalzigan
 

E-Mail Address

hmalzigan@va.gov<br
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

NNG15SC71B VA118-16-F-0887
 

Award Date

2/26/2016
 

Awardee

FCN, INC.;12315 WILKINS AVE;ROCKVILLE;MD;20852
 

Award Amount

$1,188,692.00
 

Description

On February 26, 2016, the Technology Acquisition Center awarded Delivery Order VA118-16-F-0887 under the terms and conditions of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V contract NNG15SC71B with FCN Technology Solutions (FCN), located at 12315 Wilkins Avenue Rockville, MD 20852. FCN will be providing software maintenance support services for 206 existing TIBCO Spotfire software licenses, as well as unlimited new Spotfire software and maintenance under an enterprise license, in order to continue to provide robust reporting, monitoring, and end-user acceptance of generated analytics products. The period of performance shall be from February 27, 2016 through February 26, 2017, plus four 12-month options for continued maintenance support, the total order value of $2,426,167.00. ? JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY 1. Contracting Activity:Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition Operations Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724 2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for an enterprise TIBCO Spotfire software license and maintenance that includes incorporation of VA's existing TIBCO Spotfire software install base. 3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Financial Services Center (FSC), Office of Finance, has a requirement for TIBCO Spotfire enterprise software license for use throughout VA, as well as software maintenance that includes incorporation of FSC's 206 existing TIBCO Spotfire software licenses under the enterprise license. This software will be used in VA medical facilities, regional network offices and central program/policy offices across the United States. This will allow FSC to continue to provide robust reporting, monitoring, and end-user acceptance of generated financial analytics products. Maintenance shall consist of support for all the TIBCO Spotfire software licenses, which includes upgrade assurance and technical support services. Maintenance and support is required 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The period of performance shall be from February 27, 2016 through February 26, 2017, plus four 12-month options for continued maintenance support. VA will utilize the TIBCO Spotfire enterprise software license for a minimum of five years, during which time, the software must remain operational. The four option years under this proposed action will only be for maintenance support to ensure the software remains operational. 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled "Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized." 5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in section eight of this justification, the Government has determined that limited competition is available for the required brand name enterprise software license and maintenance. Only TIBCO or an authorized TIBCO reseller can fulfill the Governments' requirements for the maintenance of VA's current TIBCO Spotfire infrastructure and maintenance in the option periods on for the TIBCO Spotfire enterprise license due to the proprietary nature of the software code used to write the software. No other software developer is capable to provide the necessary patches, updates, and support for the existing 206 TIBCO software licenses or the enterprise license to be procured under this effort. Additionally, only the TIBCO Spotfire software can meet VA's integration and manipulation requirements. The Government has a requirement for the software to integrate the R programming language by executing R developed packages, functions, and scripts, which is unique to TIBCO Spotfire. Therefore, any product must integrate R support; which is the ability to write, manage and share R code; and the ability to distribute and integrate R code within the existing financial analytics computing platform. In addition, these R packages must be shared across the data analytics architecture, allowing them to run natively across the analytics platform. This feature reduces time and resources spent re-implementing R code for production or time spent prototyping analytics products. This integrated capability also reduces the need for multiple analytic platforms and allows for minimum hardware computing infrastructure while providing support for advanced statistics and predictive capabilities. The Government also requires a product that offers advanced statistics and predictive capabilities enabling seamless integration of other existing VA analytics software such as R, S+, SAS and MATLAB. The integration capability with other analytics software must include a graphical user interface (GUI) that provides access to statistical techniques and tools such as linear and logistic regression, classification, and regression trees. A GUI is required so that users who do not have the ability to write code can utilize the tool. In addition to the GUI, the product shall also allow users to create custom advanced analytic and predictive models through custom coding, as well as the ability to modify/create scripts using python or R software code. Additionally, the user shall have the ability to run these custom advanced analytic and predictive models locally as well as the ability to distribute and execute the models enterprise-wide, which only TIBCO Spotfire can perform within the application. Finally, VA requires the ability to custom style and manipulate the visual framework of the application, which allows users to style their analyses according to enterprise standards or user preferences. The government requires the flexibility and customization of dashboards to provide customized look-and-feel per enterprise standards or user group preferences. In addition the FSC provides analytic services to internal VA and external other Government agency customers, which often requires the customization of the visual framework of the software without the need to have software developers. Only TIBCO Spotfire offers this required customization feature. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section eight of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. It was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for the required brand TIBCO Spotfire enterprise software license and maintenance. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), notice of award of this action will be synopsized and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award on the Federal Business Opportunities Page. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A), this justification will be posted with the request for quotation on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website to notify all interested parties. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. Specifically, the Government reviews performance and status of the product through recurring strategic planning and evaluation sessions (FSC); collaboration with internal organizational elements across the VA involved in analytics activities; ongoing research in the performance and trends business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) vendors; ongoing research into evaluative criteria for vendor assessment; direct collaboration with higher organizational elements with respect to stakeholder information needs; and collaboration with private sector organizations with respect to the performance of their respective BI&A activities and technologies. The Government views the assessment process as a key step in increasing competition, increasing efficiencies, and improving effectiveness and uses the information management framework specified in OMB Circular A-130 as a means increasing competition and enhancing value of the investment. 8. Market Research: Market research was conducted in November 2015 by FSC technical experts to determine if products other than TIBCO Spotfire can satisfy VA's requirements, and it was discovered that no other products are available to meet the Government's previously stated requirements. Through market research the FSC team of analysts determined four leading software analytics products, and thoroughly reviewed the capabilities of each. This included an analysis of the following products: SAS Visual Analytics (SAS VA), TIBCO Spotfire, QlikView, and Tableau. First, VA requires integration of the R programming language by executing R developed packages, functions, and scripts. It was found that Tableau and TIBCO supports the full integration and sharing of R code. SAS VA does not distribute R software. In order to integrate with R, you must first install R on the same computer that runs SAS software. You must license SAS/IML because the IML procedure is required to export SAS data sets to R and to submit R code. This would require VA to procure, install, and manage additional R and SAS software to meets its needs. QlikView does not include support for R in any form. Secondly, VA requires a product that offers advanced statistics and predictive capabilities enabling seamless integration of other existing VA analytics software such as R, S+, SAS and MATLAB. The research shows that TIBCO Spotfire provides a predictive analytics ecosystem and enables seamless integration of existing R, S+, SAS and MATLAB software into Spotfire applications utilizing a GUI and custom coding. Tableau, SAS VA, and QlikView do not have native statistical or predictive capabilities as they do not support SAS, S+, R, MATLab software. Furthermore, VA requires a product with the ability to custom style and manipulate the visual framework of the application. TIBCO Spotfire enables users to style their analyses according to enterprise standards or user preferences and even provides access to themes (templates and stylesheets) for modifying the user interface without changing the backend code. Tableau software does not offer this feature. QlikView requires the use of QlikView application programming interfaces or JavaScript for custom styling, however VA does not have the in house skillset to utilize these tools. SAS VA does not allow the ability to modify the look and feel of the internal application. Finally, it was also determined through market research that while each of these brands provides software maintenance for their own product line, no other brand provides software maintenance for TIBCO Spotfire software. Additional market research was conducted in January 2016 by utilizing the NASA SEWP Provider Lookup tool to determine whether the brand name TIBCO Spotfire Software licenses and maintenance is available from NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. It was determined that there are several resellers of the brand name TIBCO Spotfire software licenses and maintenance that hold current GWACs. 9. Other Facts: None.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/3930edeaaf3bc2257520ac12985fffdf)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: NNG15SC71B VA118-16-F-0887 NNG15SC71B VA118-16-F-0887_1.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2582823&FileName=NNG15SC71B-000.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2582823&FileName=NNG15SC71B-000.docx

 

Note: If links are broken, refer to Point of Contact above or contact the FBO Help Desk at 877-472-3779.
 

Record

SN04032599-W 20160228/160226234440-3930edeaaf3bc2257520ac12985fffdf (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

---

| FSG Index  |  This Issue's Index  |  Today's FBO Daily Index Page |