Bottom Line Up Front: Rather than one big mega-cloud controlled by one vendor, the DoD is going with a cloud standard that any vendor can use.
JEDI Cloud is dead
In Ye Olden Days of DoD contracting, it was standard business practice to file lawsuits if you didn’t win a contract. The Big Primes did it to each other all the time. These lawsuits could drag for years, but it didn’t matter because the contracts themselves took decades to complete; what’s a couple of years more?
No longer. The two big vendors, Microsoft and Amazon, have been fighting a pretty run-of-the-mill contract court battle for just a couple of years; nothing out of the ordinary. This time around, however, the Pentagon has decided to stop the bickering by killing the contract. No more JEDI Cloud.
When the Pentagon took its first steps towards the Cloud, it was believed that only a giant company with the mighty muscle of Microsoft or Amazon could deliver. Since then, however, the Pentagon has realized that Cloud was more achievable than it originally thought. By setting its own Cloud standards, any vendor could provide a compatible service. Giant mega-companies no longer needed.
The new Cloud standard
This new Cloud Standard is going to be called the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, and the contract should be awarded in nine months. It won’t belong to any company, it will be “multi-vendor.” Amazon and Microsoft are welcome to compete for the new contract, but they no longer will be the Big Dogs.
What does it mean for me?
The new world is fast-fast-fast. The Pentagon wants stuff shipped out the door tomorrow, and a lengthy court battle ain’t gonna cut it anymore. The Pentagon now values speed, so give it to them!