JA PACT Act WordPress Redacted

PACT Act- WordPress Platform

CONTROL NUMBER VA-26-00058567

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics
Technology Acquisition Center

23 Christopher Way

Eatontown, NJ 07724
2. Description of Action: The proposed sole source action is for firm-fixed price (FFP) software license renewals for brand name Automattic "WordPress VIP" hosting and support services, including Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates, WordPress plugins, and WordPress VIP administration and support. The proposed source is Architechture Solutions LLC., a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). 3. Description of Supplies or Services: VA, Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), in partnership with the Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs (OPIA), have a requirement for an enterprise grade managed WordPress hosting and support solution capable of supporting VA's large scale, multi-site web presence. VA must maintain continuous availability and proper functioning of critical public facing websites, including the VA News Site (https://news.va.gov), the VA Department site (https://department.va.gov), digital.va.gov, and careers.va.gov, which deliver critical VA information to Veterans, their families, and stakeholders. These sites provide policy updates, news, events, communications related to the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act and Toxic Exposures Fund (TEF), and other essential content. They serve as VA's primary communication channel for a significant portion of public facing information. Additionally, VA has identified the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) as the enterprise destination for all unauthenticated non-Veteran content that must be migrated from the outdated TeamSite CMS over the next several years. To meet these needs, VA requires a solution that provides sustained WordPress administration, management, user administration, theming and layout design support, engineering and plugin development services, support for Authority to Operate (ATO) and ongoing security compliance, and reliable assistance for VA's publishing custom workflows guaranteed under enterprise­ grade service level agreements (SLA) with defined escalation pathways. Additionally, VA requires enterprise-grade multi-site onboarding support, migration assistance for legacy TeamSite and WordPress properties, plugin vetting and compatibility evaluation,