A cloud-computing contracts worth $9 billion each were awarded by Pentagon to Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle. These four companies will be tasked to build cloud computing networks for the US military.
(Photo : STAFF/AFP via Getty Images)
This picture taken 26 December 2011 shows the Pentagon building in Washington, DC. The Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense (DOD), is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (340,000 m2) are used as offices. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon.
This picture taken 26 December 2011 shows the Pentagon building in Washington, DC. The Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense (DOD), is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (340,000 m2) are used as offices. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon.
Multiple Award Contract
In an announcement from the United States Department of Defense, four companies were awarded a hybrid contract worth $9 billion to provide the Pentagon with enterprise-wide, globally available cloud services across all security domains and classification levels.
"The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability will allow mission owners to acquire authorized commercial cloud offerings directly from the Cloud Service Providers contract awardees," the Pentagon stated.
This includes Alphabet's Google Support Services, Oracle America Inc., Amazon Web Services Inc., and Microsoft Corp. The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability will run until June 8, 2028, and aims to meet specific capability gaps.
Defense Information Systems Agency Director Sharon Woods stated the classification levels. She said, "Each of the vendors are in different levels of maturity, and so some vendors need to deliver more quickly than others. But those are the requirements under the contract."
Through this deal, Reuters reported that the military will be more in line with private-sector companies, especially the ones who split their cloud computing work among multiple vendors to keep them away from being locked into any specific one.
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Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure
Pentagon had originally awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract to Microsoft in 2019, which was also fought by Amazon as they were the top player in the cloud infrastructure market during that time. Oracle also revived the charges with the Pentagon's decision as they picked Microsoft.
The $10 billion contract is intended to modernize the Defense Military's IT operations, as per CNBC's report.
This was followed by the conducted review by the Pentagon's watchdog in 2020, which resulted in not finding evidence to conclude the Trump Administration intervening in the process of awarding the contracts. Pentagon decided that they will be sticking with Microsoft for this deal.
Last year, Pentagon announced that they will be canceling the JEDI cloud contract, a subject of a legal battle between Microsoft and Amazon. Due to evolving requirements, the increased cloud conversancy, and numerous industry advances, the contract will not pushing through as it can no longer meet the needs of the IT.
Following the cancellation, Pentagon stated that it still needs enterprise-scale capabilities during that time. Proposals were solicited by the Defense Military to Amazon and Microsoft, which resulted in both companies (along with Oracle and Google) being awarded a $9 billion contract each.
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