cloud | The Contracting Education Academy

September 9, 2020 By cs

Pentagon awards JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft for the second time

The decision follows a months-long legal challenge filed by Amazon Web Services.

The Pentagon awarded its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing contract Friday to Microsoft.

The decision follows a 10-month legal battle initiated by Amazon Web Services after the Pentagon selected Microsoft in October 2019 for the contract, worth up to $10 billion over the next 10 years if all options are exercised.

The award comes after numerous controversies and delays for JEDI — in addition to four legal protests filed by companies once in the running for it — that has the contract two years behind schedule.

“The Department has completed its comprehensive re-evaluation of the JEDI Cloud proposals and determined that Microsoft’s proposal continues to represent the best value to the government,” the department said in a statement Friday.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/09/pentagon-awards-jedi-cloud-contract-microsoft-second-time/168259/

August 18, 2020 By cs

Pentagon requests more time to review JEDI cloud contract bids

The Defense Department says it wants to further discuss Microsoft’s and Amazon Web Services’ pricing.

In a court filing on Aug. 10th, the Defense Department requested a 30-day extension to issue an award decision in its multibillion-dollar Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract.

The Defense Department had planned to award JEDI by Aug. 17 after numerous delays, including a 120-day remand sought by the agency in March to take corrective action on issues identified in a legal protest by Amazon Web Services after the Pentagon initially awarded Microsoft the contract in October.

“During the remand, DoD has identified areas of concern with respect to the revised proposals received from both offerors, resulting in multiple solicitation amendments, rounds of proposal revisions, and exchanges with the offerors,” the filing states. “In evaluating each offeror’s final proposal revisions, however, DoD has recently identified the need to reopen limited discussions related to certain aspects of the offerors’ pricing proposals.”

The filing indicates both companies would have another chance to submit questions and a revised bid.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/08/pentagon-requests-more-time-review-jedi-cloud-contract-bids/167599/

June 29, 2020 By cs

Pentagon says it needs ‘more time’ fixing JEDI contract

The JEDI contract will not be awarded until at least August.

In updated legal filings, the Defense Department said it will not be in a position to award its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract to either Microsoft or Amazon Web Services until at least August 17.

The June 16 filing comes more than six months after AWS first challenged the Pentagon’s October award of the $10 billion contract to Microsoft in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which resulted in the Pentagon pulling the contract to take corrective action on identified flaws.

According to the filing, both companies submitted revised JEDI proposals in May, but they’ll have to revise and submit bids once more because the Pentagon intends to issue another amendment to the JEDI solicitation by June 22.

“DoD continues to evaluate the offerors’ revised proposals, and more time is required to complete this process,” attorneys for the Defense Department said in the filing. “DoD now anticipates that another solicitation amendment will be necessary, and additional limited proposal revisions will be permitted.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/06/pentagon-says-it-needs-more-time-fixing-jedi-contract/166292/

June 15, 2020 By cs

GSA to take corrective action again on DoD’s $7.6 billion cloud contract

The Defense Department’s $7.6 billion cloud email and collaboration contract continues to be hung up by protests nearly 10 months after the initial award.

The General Services Administration (GSA) told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) it would take corrective action for a second time on the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions (DEOS). GAO dismissed the latest protest from Perspecta on June 8.

GSA told GAO it will amend the solicitation, ask for revised proposals, and take other steps to address the pre-award complaint.

Under DEOS, the Pentagon wants to implement Microsoft Office 365 and associated capabilities including word processing and spreadsheets, email, collaboration, file sharing and storage.

This was the second time Perspecta filed a complaint with GAO after GSA awarded DEOS to General Dynamics-IT in August.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contractsawards/2020/06/gsa-to-take-corrective-action-again-on-dods-7-6b-cloud-contract/

May 29, 2020 By cs

The White House is rewriting contracting language to clarify security liability

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to standardize language in all government contracts with cloud vendors that would update liability terms regarding security, according to the official in charge of leading federal agencies’ move to the shared-responsibility ecosystems.

**Technology vendors precluding liability in government contracts has long been an issue, and now COVID-19 has sped up some agencies’ cloud migration and amplified calls for cybersecurity assurances.**

“I think there is a need to update our [service level agreements] with the cloud providers and we’re actively working on that within [the General Services Administration],” Thomas Santucci, the director of the Data Center and Cloud Optimization Infrastructure Program Management Office at GSA, said.

Santucci provided a status report on the government’s efforts to improve efficiency and lower costs by moving to the cloud during a virtual conference the Digital Government Institute hosted today.

“OMB has just stood up a [program management office] to work on a cloud SLA template for the federal government to be attached to every contract,” Santucci said when asked about the liability issue and whether cloud service providers or government customers should be held responsible for security.

Security was one of the topics mentioned in establishing the new contract templates, he said.

Keep reading thi9s article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/05/white-house-rewriting-contracting-language-clarify-security-liability/165549/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

The decision follows a months-long legal challenge filed by Amazon Web Services.

The Defense Department says it wants to further discuss Microsoft’s and Amazon Web Services’ pricing.

The JEDI contract will not be awarded until at least August.

The Defense Department’s $7.6 billion cloud email and collaboration contract continues to be hung up by protests nearly 10 months after the initial award.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to standardize language in all government contracts with cloud vendors that would update liability terms regarding security, according to the official in charge of leading federal agencies’ move to the shared-responsibility ecosystems.

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