On July 6, 2021, the Pentagon announced the cancellation of JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), a $10 billion contract to build its infrastructure that it had awarded to Microsoft, and in the process launched the “Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability” (JWCC), a multi-cloud/multi-vendor contract. Four rival companies of the JEDI contract: Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle have been invited to bid on this latest project by the DoD (Department of Defense) on November 19, 2021.

In 2018, the Pentagon launched JEDI, a $10 billion contract to modernize its cloud infrastructure that was to be awarded to a single vendor. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM and Oracle then entered the competition: IBM and Oracle were rejected before the final stages and Google withdrew at the end of 2018, claiming its ethics on artificial intelligence. Only Amazon and Microsoft remain, and while Amazon was the favorite, it is finally Microsoft that wins the contract. AWS, Amazon’s cloud division, challenges the decision in the Federal Court of Claims in November 2019 and in February 2020, Microsoft’s work is halted just before the system is implemented. By July 2021, no solution has been found and the Pentagon prefers to abandon the project believing that the delay could no longer fill the DoD’s capability gaps. John Sterman, acting CIO, stated at the time:

“JEDI was developed at a time when the Department’s needs were different and CSP technology and our cloud conversation were less mature. In light of new initiatives such as JADC2 and AI and Data Acceleration (ADA), the evolution of the cloud ecosystem within the DoD, and changes in user needs to leverage multiple cloud environments to execute the mission, our landscape has evolved and a new path forward is guaranteed to achieve dominance in both traditional and non-traditional warfighting domains.”

Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) replacing JEDI

Alongside the cancellation of JEDI, the DoD announced it was persevering with its cloud infrastructure overhaul and the launch of the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, a multi-cloud/multi-vendor Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract worth billions. He stated at the time:

“The Department intends to solicit proposals from a limited number of sources, namely 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, if other vendors demonstrated the ability to meet its requirements, the DoD had said they would be approached and so Google, Oracle and IBM were contacted. Danielle Metz, Deputy CIO at DoD, said:

“At a high level, JWCC requirements include capacity and service parity at all three classification levels, integrated cross-domain solutions, global availability of state-of-the-art tactical environments and enhanced cybersecurity controls.”

Finally, the four companies that will bid are Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. It may come as a surprise that Google is among them following its positions on the JEDI contract. The DoD is expected to announce by next April who has won this three-year contract with 2 years as an option, with AWS and Microsoft being its favorites.

Translated from Retour sur JEDI et le Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability son remplaçant