The US Department of Defense has solicited bids from Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle for its Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC).
The multi-billion-dollar cloud services contract replaces the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), which saw a massive legal battle between Microsoft and Amazon over the summer.
The JWCC will result in multiple Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contracts, according to the Pentagon in an updated contract posting. An IDIQ contract includes an indefinite amount of services for a specific period.
The value of the new contracts is not known, but the Defense Department estimates it could run into the multiple billions of dollars.
The JEDI contract, which was worth upwards of $10 billion, was won by Microsoft in October 2019 and challenged by Amazon. It was shelved in July this year. A Pentagon statement at the time said it was “due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances” and added that the JEDI cloud contract no longer met its needs.
The US General Services Administration (GSA) said only two cloud infrastructure providers, Amazon and Microsoft, appear able to comply with all of the Pentagon’s requirements, which include “tactical edge devices” that can operate outside of traditional data centers and support all levels of data classification.
The then head of AWS, Andy Jassy, now Amazon’s CEO, argued that there was political interference in the award of the contract.
Oracle spokesperson Deborah Hellinger said: “Oracle is delighted to be included in the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability RFP. We are committed to delivering the highest level of security, performance, and value in enterprise cloud applications and cloud infrastructure in support of DOD’s Warfighter mission.”
An AWS spokesperson said “our commitment to supporting our nation’s military and ensuring that our warfighters and defense partners have access to the best technology for the best value is stronger than ever. We look forward to continuing to support the DoD’s modernization efforts and building solutions that help accomplish their critical missions”.
Even though the Pentagon identified Microsoft and AWS as meeting the needs of the contract, a blog post by Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said: “that the Department should seek to make JWCC a multi-cloud environment, preserving choice, reducing costs and offering the Department a wide and diverse group of innovative vendors.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Technology Express staff and is published from a syndicated feed)
