The JEDI Cloud sounds like some super-powered cybersecurity tool that can be wielded to fend off the worst cybercriminals and keep everything in your cloud secure.
But as you are well aware, the threat landscape is constantly evolving and can be challenging to keep up with.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) recently announced it will be cancelling its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud contract, only four years after its creation in 2017.
Citing multiple reasons as to why the JEDI contract no longer met its needs, the DoD says that it could not keep up with evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances.
However, the DoD says it is still committed to pushing into the cloud:
"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."
Challenges of the JEDI Cloud contract
Despite the technical challenges the JEDI contract faced, there was also legal pushback that limited its capabilities.
The JEDI contract used a single award approach to cloud security companies, meaning that only one company would be awarded the contract valued around $10 billion.
Microsoft had won the contract twice, but Amazon Web Services fought the decision in court, essentially blocking any effective work from being performed.
Instead of fighting it out in court, the DoD has decided to pursue a new procurement.
Toni Townes-Whitley, President of U.S. Regulated Industries at Microsoft, shared her thoughts:
"We understand the DoD's rationale, and we support them and every military member who needs the mission-critical 21st century technology JEDI would have provided. The DoD faced a difficult choice: Continue with what could be a years-long litigation battle or find another path forward.
The security of the United States is more important than any single contract, and we know that Microsoft will do well when the nation does well. Because the security of the United States through the provision of critical technology upgrades is more important than any single contract, we respect and accept DoD's decision to move forward on a different path to secure mission-critical technology."
And here is how Amazon feels about the current situation, according to a spokesperson for the company:
“We understand and agree with the DoD’s decision. Unfortunately, the contract award was not based on the merits of the proposals and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement.
Our commitment to supporting our nation’s military and ensuring that our warfighters and defense partners have access to the best technology at the best price 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.”
What comes after the JEDI Cloud?
John Sherman, the acting Chief Information Officer at the DoD, says that as the cloud environment evolves and the landscape advances, a new road must be paved "to achieve dominance in both traditional and non-traditional warfighting domains."
Here is what the DoD says that new road forward will look like:
"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, the Department will also negotiate with those companies."
