JHC Technology, Inc.

B-417786 Oct 23, 2019 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights JHC Technology, Inc., of Oxon Hill, Maryland, protests the establishment of a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) under the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) with Govplace, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 70SBUR19Q00000040, which was issued by the Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for commercial cloud computing services. The protester argues that USCIS conducted unequal discussions and improperly excluded its quotation from the competitive range. We deny the protest. View Decision DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of:  JHC Technology, Inc. File:  B-417786 Date:  October 23, 2019 Matthew P. Moriarty, Esq., Shane J. McCall, Esq., Robert D. Kampen, Esq., and Gregory P. Weber, Esq., Koprince Law, LLC, for the protester. Townsend L. Bourne, Esq., Jonathan S. Aronie, Esq., Shaunna Bailey, Esq., and Eliazar M. Chacha, Esq., Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, for Govplace, the intervenor. John E. Cornell, Esq., Department of Homeland Security, for the agency. Raymond Richards, Jonathan L. Kang, Esq., and Laura Eyester, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest challenging agency’s exchanges during step one of a two-step competition with a vendor that was subsequently eliminated from the competition as unequal discussions is denied because the protester cannot demonstrate any potential competitive prejudice where the agency did not conduct exchanges with the awardee during step one. DECISION JHC Technology, Inc., of Oxon Hill, Maryland, protests the establishment of a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) under the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) with Govplace, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 70SBUR19Q00000040, which was issued by the Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for commercial cloud computing services.  The protester argues that USCIS conducted unequal discussions and improperly excluded its quotation from the competitive range. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND USCIS issued the RFQ on March 20, 2019, under the FSS procedures of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 8.4, seeking quotations for a BPA to provide commercial cloud computing services.  Agency Report (AR), Exh. 1, RFQ at 6‑8.[1]  The RFQ anticipated the establishment of a fixed-price BPA with a base period of 1 year, and three 1-year options, with a not-to-exceed amount of $109,747,689.  Id. at 7-8.  The RFQ was limited to vendors holding a contract under the GSA Schedule 70 special item number 132-40.  Id. at 6.  Vendors’ quotations were required to include, at a minimum, all of the commercial cloud services[2] identified in the description of requirements (DOR), as well as the following brand-name clouds from the following providers:  Amazon Web Services (AWS) US East/West, Twilio, and CloudCheckr.  Id. at 7.  The RFQ stated that the agency sought “access to as many commercial clouds as possible.”  Id. The RFQ provided for a two-step evaluation process.  Id.  In step one, USCIS was to evaluate the number and acceptability of the quoted cloud offerings, and review whether prices were fair and reasonable.  Id. at 34.  The acceptability of cloud offerings was to be gauged by considering:  (1) a checklist detailing the attributes of each product offering, (2) the pass/fail rating of each product offering, and (3) the total number of product offerings with a pass rating.  Id. at 34‑36.  The agency was to verify that vendors’ prices were fair and reasonable by reviewing the submitted GSA price lists in accordance with the evaluation criteria described in the solicitation.  Id. at 36-37.  To earn admission to step two of the evaluation, a quotation also needed to include the following:  (1) Twilio and CloudCheckr clouds, (2) at least three infrastructure as a service/platform as a service (IaaS/PaaS) offerings which included AWS US East/West, and (3) six software as a service (SaaS) services meeting the minimum requirements outlined in the DOR.  Id. at 35.  The vendors that quoted the highest number of product offerings with a pass rating were considered the most highly technically rated, and would be advanced to step two of the competition.  Id. In step two of the evaluation, the agency was to review vendors’ quoted discounts on the historical prices for AWS cloud services provided in the RFQ.  Id.