Re: Solicitation Number: 36C10B19Q0635
Re: Contract Number: NNG15SD34B 36C10B19F0427
VA has awarded $1.8M Unified Communications Infrastructure Support 18 Site contract to Minburn Technology.
VA Office of Information and Technology, IT Operations and Services (ITOPS) Unified Communications Infrastructure Support section has a requirement to procure and activate brand name Cisco Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) equipment and associated embedded software for the on-boarding of 18 sites including optional tasks to include up to 27 additional sites to its Cisco Voice Platform as needed.
Each of the sites for the base and optional tasks shall receive 2 (two) Cisco C240 M5 Servers and 2 (two) Cisco 4431 Voice Gateway Routers. The new Cisco Call Managers shall allow the sharing of Voice System (VS) resources (i.e., one voicemail system) as well as centralized VS management. The new Cisco Call Managers shall seamlessly interface via Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) with the new Session Manager Edition that shall be used to route some local and long distance calling over the existing VA infrastructure.
Based on extensive market research, as described in section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for the required brand name Cisco VoIP hardware components.
The Government’s technical experts conducted ongoing market research starting in January 2018 through May 2019 by reviewing similar hardware and embedded software products to ascertain if other brands could meet VA’s functionality requirements. Specifically, the Government’s technical experts conducted web-based research, requesting an informal vendor quote. Technical experts concluded that while other VoIP hardware and embedded software solutions from alternative manufacturers such as Blackbox and Brocade exists, it does not meet VA’s requirements because only Cisco or an authorized reseller has access to the proprietary database and structure specific to the existing MGCP clusters required for the expansion requirement to interconnect with the VS’s in place.
