{"id":40561,"date":"2020-03-13T12:06:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T12:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2020\/mar\/13\/pentagon-reconsider-certain-aspects-jedi-microsoft-cloud-contract-award\/"},"modified":"2020-03-13T12:06:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T12:06:19","slug":"pentagon-to-reconsider-certain-aspects-of-jedi-microsoft-cloud-contract-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/pentagon-to-reconsider-certain-aspects-of-jedi-microsoft-cloud-contract-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon to \u2018reconsider certain aspects\u2019 of JEDI Microsoft cloud contract award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/media\/img\/news\/pentagon-at-sunset-picture-id529769841_kbblKyq.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">The Pentagon has asked a federal court for 120 days to &lsquo;reconsider certain aspects&rsquo; of the decision to award Microsoft the $10 billion (&pound;7.9bn) federal cloud computing contract.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">The ruling, in a court order published on Thursday, noted that Amazon Web Services (AWS), who last month <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2020\/feb\/14\/amazon-wins-injunction-temporarily-halt-microsoft-jedi-contract-award-reports\/\">won a temporary injunction<\/a> against the award, would &lsquo;likely be able to show that the Department of Defense (DoD) erred&rsquo; in its evaluation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">Both parties would not be able to re-evaluate their proposals in terms of adding new offerings, aside from one particular price scenario, the order added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">Microsoft had been announced as the winner of the JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) contract <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2019\/oct\/28\/microsoft-beats-aws-10bn-jedi-contract-defining-multi-cloud-and-analysing-administrative-influence\/\">in October<\/a>, to the surprise of many in the industry. Of particular interest to pundits was the explanation, in the DoD&rsquo;s news release, that the award &lsquo;continued [its] strategy of a multi-vendor, multi-cloud environment&hellip; as the department&rsquo;s needs are diverse and cannot be met by any single supplier&rsquo;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">AWS has been running the CIA&rsquo;s cloud operations for the past five years, with multiple reports last month saying the agency was looking to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/it-modernization\/2020\/02\/cia-issues-draft-solicitation-next-step-multibillion-dollar-cloud-journey\/162909\/\">upgrade its offering<\/a> in a &lsquo;tens of billions&rsquo; deal. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2019\/nov\/15\/aws-files-paperwork-challenge-microsoft-jedi-deal-reports\/\">A month later<\/a>, it was reported that AWS had filed with the US Court of Federal Claims to protest the decision, with chief executive Andy Jassy telling employees at an all-hands meeting that potential presidential interference made the contract process &lsquo;very difficult&rsquo; for government agencies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">Jassy also reportedly said during the meeting that AWS was &lsquo;about 24 months ahead of Microsoft&rsquo; when it came to functionality and maturity. Per the terms of the injunction last month, Amazon is betting $42 million to cover costs should the final ruling fall to Microsoft.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">Cloud pundit Bill Mew, however, said the update shows how the story has moved away from technology to one purely around procurement. &ldquo;JEDI has gone from being about the comparative merits of a single cloud or multi-cloud approach to being a case study in procurement dysfunction,&rdquo; Mew told <em>CloudTech<\/em>. &ldquo;The lobbying, dirty tricks and arguments about political bias have completely eclipsed any technology arguments. This in itself shows how badly JEDI has gone off the rails.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">Mew, whose career has not only spanned 15 years at IBM but a stint as an officer in the Royal Navy, analysed the DoD function alongside the UK government&rsquo;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/pm-outlines-new-review-to-define-britains-place-in-the-world\">upcoming review<\/a> of foreign policy, defence, security and international development. &ldquo;Compared to JEDI, even UK defence procurement looks good,&rdquo; he added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\"><em>CloudTech<\/em> has reached out to Amazon and Microsoft for comment and will update this story as and when it arrives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\">You can take a look at the court order, as published by the Washington Post, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/context\/pentagon-asks-to-remand-part-of-jedi-cloud-computing-decision\/2ef69ee7-2e8c-4d75-b395-0770d12a676a\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2\">here<\/a>. (Disclosure: Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is also owner of the Washington Post).<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritycloudexpo.com\/\" style=\"color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline\"><span style=\"color:blue\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritycloudexpo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/cyber-security-world-series-1.png\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritycloudexpo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/cyber-security-world-series-1.png\" style=\"height:59px; width:272px\" \/><\/span><\/a><strong>Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases<\/strong>? Attend the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritycloudexpo.com\/\" style=\"color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline\">Cyber Security &amp; Cloud Expo World Series<\/a> with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pentagon has asked a federal court for 120 days to &lsquo;reconsider certain aspects&rsquo; of the decision to award Microsoft the $10 billion (&pound;7.9bn) federal cloud computing contract.<br \/>\nThe ruling, in a court order published on Thursday, note&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40565,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40561\/revisions\/40565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}