the Department of Defense (DoD) canceled the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud solicitation and initiated contract termination procedures. The Department has determined that, due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs.
JEDI REPLACEMENT
The Department continues to have unmet cloud capability gaps for enterprise-wide, commercial cloud services at all three classification levels that work at the tactical edge, at scale -- these needs have only advanced in recent years with efforts such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Acceleration (ADA) initiative.
Oh remember that time folks on Twitter said I was wrong about the JEDI Contract - spoiler I wasn’t and I had the receipts to back up my assertions. Yet here we are👇🏻
Concurrent with the cancellation of the JEDI Request for Proposals (RFP), the DoD announced its intent for new cloud efforts. The Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) will be a multi-cloud/multi-vendor Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract.
The Department intends to seek proposals from a limited number of sources, namely the Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements.
However, as noted in its Pre-Solicitation Notice, the Department will immediately engage with industry and continue its market research to determine whether any other U.S.-based hyperscale CSPs can also meet the DoD’s requirements. If so, those Department will also negotiate with those companies.
advanced C2 enabling capabilities to synchronize joint all-domain operations against 21 st century ... the Joint Warfighter, strengthen partnerships and alliances and attract new partners, and reform ... critical to realizing the promises of cloud computing, AI, and other advanced capabilities
Link to the DOD’s Press Release - to say I told you so would be in bad taste - but yes some of us on Twitter (prior to my umpteenth suspension) actually knew what the outcome would be. You have a great day because I need to get back to my actual J-O-B…
There's something I have never understood. With all of the data accessed and/or stored by and for DoD and other gov't offices... "Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements." There are hundreds of talented folks already employed by gov. Why can't they create their own "cloud service"? Yeah, I'm over simplifying it, but it can't possibly be out of reach...
So this negates the struggle/court fight between AWS and Microsoft around all the fairness and government procurement standards? Cool.
There's something I have never understood. With all of the data accessed and/or stored by and for DoD and other gov't offices... "Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements." There are hundreds of talented folks already employed by gov. Why can't they create their own "cloud service"? Yeah, I'm over simplifying it, but it can't possibly be out of reach...