The Department of Defense is returning to its multi-year JEDI war cloud project, with another multi-billion-dollar contract available. However, this time the Pentagon is seeking a more inclusive project after the last attempts were shut down. It is also now called the JWCC project.
After Microsoft won the previous $10 billion JEDI project but was then prevented from doing it by an Amazon lawsuit, the DoD postponed the initiative. This time the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure will have amendments to make it more functional.
Firstly, the project will be $9 billion instead of $10 billion. It is also still a multi-year contract but instead of being 10 years, it will now be just 5 years, running until 2028. By the way, JEDI is now becoming JWCC, the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability project… slightly more ominous.
The biggest change is the DoD is no longer seeking a single vendor to handle the project. Instead, the department wants a multi-cloud solution. Bidding will still happen, but cloud vendors such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and others will now work together on JWCC.
“No funds are being obligated at the time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The purpose of this contract is to provide the Department of Defense with enterprise-wide, globally available cloud services across all security domains and classification levels, from the strategic level to the tactical edge. The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability will allow mission owners to acquire authorized commercial cloud offerings directly from the Cloud Service Providers contract awardees.”
History
Microsoft was awarded the initial JEDI contract in 2020. Amazon did not take the situation lying down and immediately started legal proceedings to stop Microsoft. Amazon's argument was always resting on the idea the process was unfair. While Amazon did not seek the multi-cloud approach some rivals did, AWS thought it was not given a fair chance.
Through 2020, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and the DoD fought a legal battle over JEDI. Amazon believed politics played a role in the decision. The company thought Donald Trump played a role in the outcome and AWS wanted Trump to testify during the investigation. During the year, there were allegations and wins for both sides, including Microsoft once again winning the project.
Microsoft and Amazon also shot verbal barbs at each other. Through a series of injunctions stopping the project from starting, Amazon halted the contract long enough for cloud technology to move on. After all the legal warfare, the capabilities of JEDI were not necessary, so the DoD ended the project.
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