Vertical Divider
Politics Drives JEDI to Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC)
The Pentagon’s $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, also known as JEDI, which had become a bone of contention between Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) was cancelled. The deal would have provided the Defense Department with a centralized "secure cloud environment to rapidly access computing and storage capacity to address warfighting challenges at the speed of relevance." It would also upgrade its technology for managing data located across thousands of networks and data centers. Amazon Web Services was considered the frontrunner for the contract before the DoD handed it to Microsoft in 2019. AWS alleged in a lawsuit that the award was tainted by then-President Trump's animus against Jeff Bezos and related litigation threatened to delay the deal for years. There was also a slew of objections from Congress, prompting the Pentagon to acknowledge that advances in cloud computing and the timeframe of the contract could render the scheme obsolete. The Pentagon is now planning a multi-vendor approach, where more cloud providers including Google, Oracle and IBM will be allowed to bid for the new contract. The new deal, known as the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, is also scheduled to run no more than five years. Bidders are expected to be identified by about October, with the new contract expected to be awarded in spring 2022.
JEDI was a cloud-strategy intended to set the conditions for getting maximum security, deeper integration across a single providers APIs/Services, and trained government and contractor workforce that understands how to rapidly innovate on a single cloud provider across all security domains[UNCLASS,SECRET,TS].
The new contract becomes a procurement vehicle that will be awarded to multiple cloud providers, having a propensity to unravel many of the benefits. Supporting and securing a multi-cloud environment is very difficult as managing AWS requires different skills than managing Azure, and the cookie cutter solution to security hasn’t worked in the past and is unlikely to work with this approach.
The Pentagon’s $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, also known as JEDI, which had become a bone of contention between Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) was cancelled. The deal would have provided the Defense Department with a centralized "secure cloud environment to rapidly access computing and storage capacity to address warfighting challenges at the speed of relevance." It would also upgrade its technology for managing data located across thousands of networks and data centers. Amazon Web Services was considered the frontrunner for the contract before the DoD handed it to Microsoft in 2019. AWS alleged in a lawsuit that the award was tainted by then-President Trump's animus against Jeff Bezos and related litigation threatened to delay the deal for years. There was also a slew of objections from Congress, prompting the Pentagon to acknowledge that advances in cloud computing and the timeframe of the contract could render the scheme obsolete. The Pentagon is now planning a multi-vendor approach, where more cloud providers including Google, Oracle and IBM will be allowed to bid for the new contract. The new deal, known as the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, is also scheduled to run no more than five years. Bidders are expected to be identified by about October, with the new contract expected to be awarded in spring 2022.
JEDI was a cloud-strategy intended to set the conditions for getting maximum security, deeper integration across a single providers APIs/Services, and trained government and contractor workforce that understands how to rapidly innovate on a single cloud provider across all security domains[UNCLASS,SECRET,TS].
The new contract becomes a procurement vehicle that will be awarded to multiple cloud providers, having a propensity to unravel many of the benefits. Supporting and securing a multi-cloud environment is very difficult as managing AWS requires different skills than managing Azure, and the cookie cutter solution to security hasn’t worked in the past and is unlikely to work with this approach.
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