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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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What you don’t know about the Pentagon’s DEOS contract

While the Pentagon’s high-profile Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) procurement is stalled over legal action, contracting officials are close to bidding out its other multibillion cloud procurement, the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract.

Officials are currently reviewing feedback from industry through a draft solicitation for DEOS the General Services Administration and Defense Department released last month.

Depending upon responses, GSA — which, in a change announced last fall, is running the procurement — will soon issue a second draft solicitation or simply bid DEOS out.

Yet, DEOS is only the first phase of the Defense Department’s three-phase Enterprise Collaboration and Productivity Services, or ECAPS.

According to the draft solicitation, the DEOS portion of ECAPS, referred to as “capability set 1,” will cover an enterprise productivity suite, messaging, content management and collaboration services. A GSA spokesperson clarified to Nextgov that capability sets 2 and 3 will be met through “future acquisitions,” meaning they will not be bid out under DEOS.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/02/what-you-dont-know-about-pentagons-deos-contract/155155/

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The fight for a massive Pentagon cloud contract is heating up

Top tech companies are launching a bidding war for a massive Pentagon cloud contract, even as their workforces are pressing them to refuse all military work.

In addition to the protests from employees, the bidding process for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract is bogged down by infighting between traditional defense contractors and the big tech companies that threaten to edge them out of a lucrative business opportunity—and the Department of Defense worries that all of the controversy distracts from its objective of obtaining the same basic cloud computing capabilities already available for consumers, which it says are necessary to better protect soldiers’ lives on the battlefield.

Although DoD says it’s too early to predict the ultimate value of the contract, JEDI is estimated to be worth about $10 billion. The contract will be awarded for a two-year period, with options to renew for five years and then three years after that. The price-tag makes the JEDI contract tempting for even the largest of tech firms. (Google, for instance, announced in February that its cloud business earned more than $1 billion per quarter, while Amazon Web Services nets over $5 billion each quarter.) The company that wins the contract will also have a foot in the door for future Pentagon work, as the DoD looks to rapidly expand its artificial intelligence capabilities.

Keep reading this article at: https://gizmodo.com/the-fight-for-a-massive-pentagon-cloud-contract-is-heat-1825517332/amp

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Someone is waging a secret war to undermine the Pentagon’s huge cloud contract

As some of the biggest U.S. technology companies have lined up to bid on the $10 billion contract to create a massive Pentagon cloud computing network, the behind-the-scenes war to win it has turned ugly.

In the past several months, a private investigative firm has been shopping around to Washington reporters a 100-plus-page dossier raising the specter of corruption on the part of senior Defense Department and private company officials in the cloud contract competition. But at least some of the dossier’s conclusions do not stand up to close scrutiny.

The dossier insinuates that a top aide to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis worked with Mattis and others to steer the contracting process to favor Amazon Web Services, or AWS—and enrich the aide. The aim of the dossier seems clear: to prevent the deal from going solely to AWS, the odds-on favorite in part because it operates the CIA’s classified commercial cloud. Far less clear, however, is who backed its creation and distribution.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/08/someone-waging-secret-war-undermine-pentagons-huge-cloud-contract/150684/

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