Attachment 4: Justification and Approval

United States Department of Agriculture
Justification to Restrict Competition
Identification Number:
In accordance with the Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 12.102 (b), the following justification documents the decision to restrict competition for this acquisition. (1) Mission Area and Contracting Activity.
Requisition Number: PR # 1177175
Requesting Activity Agency: The United States Department of Agriculture, Chief Information Office, Fire Information Technology
Contracting Activity: The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, National Procurement Operations, Property and Procurement Services, Information Technology Contracting Branch
(2) Nature and/or description of the action being approved. This Justification and Approval (J&A) authorizes and approves the award of a sole-source, firm-fixedprice contract as a follow-on to contract 12760423F0421 for the procurement of proprietary IT software. This requirement is driven by the transition of Fire Cloud (the FireNESS.gov domain) to the Microsoft Azure VMware Solution (AVS) hosting environment. Because the current AVS subscription model mandates a Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) framework to activate essential updates and support features, and because the platform itself is a specialized, proprietary architecture co-developed by Microsoft and Broadcom to execute VMware products within the Azure cloud space, authentic, vendor-specific licenses are strictly required to ensure operational continuity and full compliance. Manufacturer:
Broadcom
3421 Hillview Av.
Palo Alto, CA 94304

UEI: ZD5UEFJ9QL85

(3) A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).
VMware license type for this effort is VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation). FireCloud requires a quantity of 1008 VCF licenses which allows FireCloud to maintain security patching and updates to our cloud-hosting infrastructure.
Estimated Value: $
(4) Identify the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 6.103-1 (d), Brand Name

Rev. 11/6/2025

United States Department of Agriculture
Justification to Restrict Competition
Identification Number:
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FAR 12.201-1, Simplified procedures - 41 U.S.C. 1901

(5) Demonstrate that the proposed contractor's unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires using the authority cited.