AN ENTERPRISE CLOUD SOLUTION, but just hold on to your laser sabers, guys > The JEDI contract process continues to be under investigation by the DoD inspector general and stuck in federal court.
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Every media outlet in The Universe has their stories
IT and Cloud Report
Amazon or Microsoft? DoD picks a winner for its controversial JEDI contract
"Microsoft won the contract for the Department of Defense’s enterprise cloud, potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years, the Pentagon announced Oct. 25.The tech giant won the award over Amazon Web Services, just three days after Secretary of Defense Mark Esper recused himself from the award after months of review because his son worked for IBM. Amazon was widely considered by industry to be the front runner for the award. . .
This award is an important step in execution of the Digital Modernization Strategy
The DoD cloud strategy called for a multi-cloud, multi-vendor strategy, but industry has had concerns that the award will lead to vendor lock-in. . . "
Amazon Web Services AWS is currently the only cloud provider for the U.S. intelligence community, having hosted secret and top-secret classified data for nearly six years.
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By Patrick Tucker Defense One
"The outcome comes as a surprise to many observers who described Amazon as the almost-certain winner of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, program. Amazon was considered by many to be the only qualified bidder because it had the largest enterprise cloud infrastructure and already had reached the necessary highest security level, known as Impact Level 6.
Controversy has dogged the program from the beginning. Several competitors, led by Oracle, protested the Pentagon’s original requirements for the program, arguing that the rules favored Amazon over other, smaller providers.
They even took their concerns directly to President Donald Trump, who has a well-known dislike for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. At one point, the president told then-Defense Secretary James Mattis to “screw” Amazon, according to a new book by a member of Mattis’s staff.
In July, the president began to publicly question the competition; shortly thereafter, new Defense Secretary Mark Esper halted the program and launched a review. Just days ago, Esper unexpectedly announced he was recusing himself from the award decision because his son worked for IBM, a bidder that was eliminated in an early stage of the competition.
In a statement, Amazon officials expressed surprise at the announcement. AWS is currently the only cloud provider for the U.S. intelligence community, having hosted secret and top-secret classified data for nearly six years.
They even took their concerns directly to President Donald Trump, who has a well-known dislike for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. At one point, the president told then-Defense Secretary James Mattis to “screw” Amazon, according to a new book by a member of Mattis’s staff.
In July, the president began to publicly question the competition; shortly thereafter, new Defense Secretary Mark Esper halted the program and launched a review. Just days ago, Esper unexpectedly announced he was recusing himself from the award decision because his son worked for IBM, a bidder that was eliminated in an early stage of the competition.
In a statement, Amazon officials expressed surprise at the announcement. AWS is currently the only cloud provider for the U.S. intelligence community, having hosted secret and top-secret classified data for nearly six years.
> In November, the U.S. Army chose the Microsoft HoloLens for its next-generation heads down data display for distributed infantry.
> Microsoft is also considered the certain winner in the Defense Department’s other cloud contract.
> And its Office 365 Suite is the centerpiece for both bidding companies in the Pentagon’s multibillion Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract, which aims to provide a single suite of business cloud solutions to all defense agencies.
Officials have argued that JEDI would be a vast improvement over the military’s current capability, a series of clouds and networks kludged together, a situation that contributes to massive data latency that is hindering operations. "
