Contemplate these two quotes about two contracts the Division of Protection says are key to modernizing networks and advancing its computing energy:
“The battle fighter is totally ready for this.”
“It is likely one of the crown jewels that we now have as a part of our IT reform.”
The primary quote is how former U.S. Protection Division Chief Info Officer Dana Deasy described the division’s want for the Joint Enterprise Protection Infrastructure cloud contract in August 2019. Greater than a yr and a half later, the enterprise cloud that was supposed to deal with knowledge throughout all classification ranges hasn’t been constructed regardless of a contract award in late 2019.
The second quote comes from certainly one of Deasy’s deputies concerning the Protection Enclave Companies contract, an IT providers deal to create a typical community for DoD places of work that aren’t below the navy providers, generally known as the fourth property businesses.
What do the 2 contracts have in frequent? Officers are emphatic that they serve a vital wants for the division, leading to flashy worth tags awarded to a single firm for every challenge. The JEDI cloud has a ceiling of $10 billion over 10 years, whereas the DES contract might be price greater than $11 billion over a decade.
The JEDI contract attracted the main cloud suppliers, with Microsoft finally profitable, however it has been tied up in court docket over accusations of political interference and analysis errors. Likewise, the DES contract will entice main IT integrators. Might the division stumble into one other boondoggle with the DES contract? Specialists instructed C4ISRNET that any high-dollar procurements are prone to face protests, however they don’t anticipate the say degree of controversy.
“Any contract could be protested,” mentioned David Mihelcic, former chief expertise officer of the Protection Info System Company. “It looks as if the development as of late [is] most massive contracts are protestable.”
The JEDI cloud is supposed to function an enterprise-wide cloud computing surroundings that may carry 80 p.c of the division’s methods in an effort to scale back stovepipes to ease entry to knowledge. The DES contract, in the meantime, accommodates cloud computing providers, community administration, IT infrastructure and assist desk providers.
“It’s a forcing mechanism to get the entire fourth property businesses on a set of ordinary providers,” mentioned Chris Cornillie, a federal expertise market analyst at Bloomberg Authorities. “It’s principally a solution to get everybody on the identical web page, a lot in the identical approach that JEDI cloud was initially devised as a solution to get the entire navy providers onto the identical platform, enabling them to share knowledge and leverage synthetic intelligence.”
The Protection Enclave Companies contract has been a a lot quieter course of up to now. The division launched its last RFP in December with out downside, a far cry from the JEDI cloud RFP that was twice protested as unfair after its launch and later ended up in court docket.
The JEDI cloud additional suffered partially due to the intrigue round involvement within the contract by President Donald Trump, accused by Amazon Internet Companies of meddling within the contract to steer the profitable award away from AWS due to the previous president’s distaste for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
“I’m sure you’re not going to see that degree of intrigue with that is DES competitors,” mentioned Mihelcic, now a guide at expertise market insights agency DMMI.
One other key distinction is that JEDI would have huge enterprise implications for main cloud suppliers if a single vendor was capable of exhibit that it may tackle databases hosted by a competitor, Cornillie mentioned, however with DES, it’s a “conventional competitors amongst authorities contractors.”
He additionally identified that DES could have a number of subcontracting alternatives, whereas with JEDI, the winner would hold the majority of the money.
“It’s maybe not a complete loss for an integrator that doesn’t win the prime spot” on the DES contract, Cornillie mentioned.
Alleged technical errors have been a thorn within the aspect of the division on cloud acquisition these days. A Courtroom of Federal Claims choose halted work on the JEDI cloud primarily based on AWS’ accusations that the DoD technical evaluators incorrectly reviewed the corporate’s proposal. In one other $7 billion cloud contract, generally known as the Protection Enterprise Workplace Options cloud, the DoD twice by accident launched proprietary data to a competing firm, delaying the award a number of months.
To make sure one other vital answer doesn’t face comparable fates, the division could have be meticulous by every stage of the contracting course of.
“The losers (of the DES contract) will assume lengthy and onerous about whether or not or not the analysis was carried out pretty and equitably and should find yourself protesting that, however we’re not going to see anyplace close to this degree of intrigue” that got here with JEDI, Mihelcic reiterated.