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Oracle sues again: JEDI case going to federal appeals court

Oracle has appealed its claims court loss to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in yet another escalation in the Pentagon’s troubled acquisition of its general services cloud.

Oracle is appealing a decision from U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Eric Bruggink that said Oracle couldn’t be harmed during the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing procurement because it didn’t meet contract requirements.

But the ruling also said the Department of Defense did not accurately follow acquisition regulations in its decision to make the JEDI cloud a single award.

“The Court of Federal Claims opinion in the JEDI bid protest describes the JEDI procurement as unlawful, notwithstanding dismissal of the protest solely on the legal technicality of Oracle’s purported lack of standing,” said Dorian Daley, Oracle’s general counsel, in a statement. “Federal procurement laws specifically bar single-award procurements such as JEDI absent satisfying specific, mandatory requirements, and the court in its opinion clearly found DoD did not satisfy these requirements.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/cloud/2019/08/27/oracle-sues-again-jedi-case-going-to-federal-appeals-court/

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DoD’s IG clarifies JEDI involvement

The Defense Department Inspector General’s office sought to clear up confusion regarding its review of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract Tuesday, offering reporters a public statement days after Defense officials referenced the IG in statements to the press.

The IG is reviewing complaints about JEDI from multiple sources, including a referral months ago from the Defense Department.

“The DoD OIG has assembled a multidisciplinary team of auditors, investigators, and attorneys to review matters related to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud program that were referred to us by members of Congress and through the DoD Hotline,” said Dwrena Allen, spokesperson for the Defense Department OIG. “We are reviewing the DoD’s handing of the JEDI cloud acquisition, including the development of requirements and the request for proposal process. In addition, we are investigating whether current or former DoD officials committed misconduct relating to the JEDI acquisition, such as whether any had any conflicts of interest related to their involvement in the acquisition process.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2019/08/defense-department-inspector-general-clarifies-jedi-involvement/159143/

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DoD’s JEDI saga continues with government, AWS returning fire in latest protest filing

The government and Amazon Web Services both laid out detailed arguments this week for why a federal court should reject a bid protest by Oracle America against the Defense Department’s multibillion dollar JEDI cloud contract.

The filings represent one of the last opportunities to defend the cloud procurement before the Court of Federal Claims issues an expected ruling in mid-July. In them, Justice Department and AWS attorneys argue that Oracle’s multifaceted challenge is without merit, and that DoD should be able to proceed with its planned award to either AWS or Microsoft in July.

Many of the arguments attempt to dismantle Oracle’s claims that the JEDI contract was fatally flawed because of conflicts of interest by three separate DoD employees with connections to Amazon. Oracle has argued that at least two of those employees — Deap Ubhi and Victor Gavin — had job offers from AWS in hand at the time they were involved in or influencing the planning process for JEDI.

But government and AWS attorneys said those concerns already had been investigated and addressed by the JEDI contracting officer, Chandra Brooks.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contractsawards/2019/06/dods-jedi-saga-continues-with-government-aws-returning-fire-in-latest-protest-filing/

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Despite the ‘potential ethical violations,’ JEDI contract moves forward

In the wake of an ethics investigation, Pentagon officials have selected two cloud service providers to move forward as potential candidates in the Department of Defense’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative cloud services contract.

The selection of those providers, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, came after an Oracle lawsuit challenging the legality of the JEDI contract process was put on hold in February to allow DoD to investigate previously unknown information about conflicts of interest.

“The department’s investigation has determined that there is no adverse impact on the integrity of the acquisition process,” DoD spokesperson Elissa Smith in a statement.

“However, the investigation also uncovered potential ethical violations, which have been further referred to DoD [inspector general]. There are two different components of the investigation. First, DoD investigated potential conflicts of interest as they relate to the acquisition process. This portion of the investigation determined that there are no conflicts of interest that affected the integrity of the acquisition process. However, there may be potential ethical violations, which have been referred to DoD IG for further investigation.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/04/11/despite-the-potential-ethical-violations-jedi-moves-forward/

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Watchdog group: DoD’s JEDI cloud is mired in murk

There is immense power in the cloud. It’s a cutesy colloquialism, one that calls to mind spring afternoons or fantastical floating fiefdoms, but it is also one of the great modern misnomers.

All data stored in the cloud is really housed in some else’s computer.

That’s one reason the Pentagon has been so reluctant to take advantage of the benefits of the cloud.

The trade-offs in storing information outside the facilities it’s directly used in is likely fine for most casual or business cases, but it gets a little scary when it comes to the raw data of national security. Which is why the Pentagon is looking to entrust its data to a dedicated, defended cloud, contracted under the unsubtle term Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. On March 13, nonpartisan coalition Open the Government released a report on Amazon and government secrecy, calling into question the contract and the process by which it will be awarded.

Like everything involving JEDI, there’s an extensive backstory. The cloud is essentially infrastructure, storage space that people and businesses pay for that allows them to access the same files from the internet, wherever they may be. That makes it somewhat different than traditional IT contracts, since it’s not exactly software and it’s not exactly hardware and, once adopted, it becomes the kind of thing future software and hardware depends on. That makes the contract itself, designed for a single supplier and an indefinite duration, worth $10 billion from the start.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/2019/03/22/pentagon-cloud-mired-in-opacity-says-transparency-group

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