Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud is a contract opportunity released by Department of Defense requiring cloud services for the Pentagon. Being that Amazon is the only contender of DoD’s cloud services, many think that this contract is a sure thing for the company.
The first Draft request for proposal was released on March 7, 2018, following with an Industry Day where many contractors participated in the event. The $10 billion value contract is open, full, competitive and single-award.
According to the contract officials, moving data from multiple clouds would increase the complexity of the process. This is the main reason that Pentagon is supporting the idea of the single-award contract.
Department Officials explained the plan and revealed some details for the contract implementation while responding to the questions of potential contractors. They revealed that the contract is expected to be finalized within a short timeframe, which led industry representatives to believe that chances to win the opportunity in such limited time are low. They expressed skepticism that competing for such a massive contract within such a short deadline is pretty challenging, raising further doubts that the contract is going to be awarded to Amazon, once again.
Chanda Brooks, the contracting officer for JEDI, emphasized that this won’t be the case with the JEDI procurement since they have established well-defined technical requirements through advanced technical expertise.
“We believe we have compiled a very good foundation for the JEDI cloud infrastructure procurement,” she said.
Furthermore, she added that all the qualified vendors have a chance to become contractors while stressing that the Department has no favorites.
Nevertheless, given the terms of the contract that the Pentagon has offered, and the extensive share of Amazon in the cloud market, increases the doubt that this won’t be the case.
More about JEDI
According to a notice released by fedbizopps.gov, updated on March 24, 2018, 1,089 comments were received from 46 vendors, 2 associations, and 3 government agencies in response to the first draft solicitation. The notice states that “We appreciate industry’s participation in the draft solicitation process and are confident that these inputs will help us to refine and clarify the requirement. DoD remains committed to a transparent process.”
A second draft solicitation is expected to be released by April 9, 2018, along with the answers to the submitted questions and comments. As stated in the first Draft-RFP, the final solicitation is going to be released in May. Officials hope to make an award before the end of the September.
Amazon chances
One of the requirements of Department of Defense is the ability to host top secret information within the eight months after the contract is awarded. Given that Amazon is a contender for the service, and already knows how to do that, it makes the company the best candidate.
Besides, the problems already expressed with “moving information,” and how multi-clouds would increase complexity, Amazon is very likely to secure the 10-year contract for cloud computing for the Department of Defense.
