from the people-that-brought-you-Clippy dept.
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Pentagon beams down $10bn JEDI contract to Microsoft: Windows giant beats off Bezos
Microsoft has been awarded the $10bn decade-long US Department of Defense JEDI IT supply contract that will see the nation's military switch to the cloud.
The Redmond giant's Azure platform will play host to the US armed forces in an attempt to overhaul and streamline the Pentagon's IT infrastructure under a single umbrella – or single point of failure, to put it another way. Microsoft share price rose on the news in after-hours trading.
"The National Defense Strategy dictates that we must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernized technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform," Dept of Defense (DoD) Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy said in announcing the award.
"The DoD Digital Modernization Strategy was created to support this imperative. This award is an important step in execution of the Digital Modernization Strategy."
The decision will no doubt come as a disappointment to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the presumed front-runner for the single-vendor deal since it was first announced.
Due to the massive requirements of the winner-takes-all contract, the security clearances required and the mandate that it go to a single provider, AWS and Microsoft were seen as the only two qualified candidates for the deal.
In awarding the contract to Microsoft, the Pentagon will avoid further allegations that it collaborated with AWS to stack the deck in its favor, a complaint which has dogged the process from its outset.
Related Stories
Amazon wins court injunction on controversial JEDI contract:
[...] Amazon late last year filed suit against the Trump administration over the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud-computing contract. Amazon last month asked the court to grant a temporary injunction halting any JEDI work while the case is pending, and today Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith agreed. Although the existence of the injunction is public, documents relating to the matter are presently sealed.
The JEDI contract is a $10 billion agreement to build a cloud computing and storage platform for use by the entire Department of Defense. Several firms were in the running for the deal, including Oracle and IBM. in April, the DoD dropped the list of finalist candidates to two: Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure. AWS was widely expected to seal the deal, and so industry-watchers were surprised when in October Microsoft nabbed the contract instead.
Amazon filed suit a month later. The company argued that it didn't just lose the contract for ordinary reasons of cost or capability but was instead sabotaged for political reasons. Microsoft's win flowed from "improper pressure from President Donald J. Trump, who launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy—Jeffrey P. Bezos," the lawsuit argued. (Bezos is the founder of Amazon and CEO as well as owner of The Washington Post.)
Previously:
- Pentagon's $10BN Jedi Decision 'Risky for the Country and Democracy,' Says AWS CEO Jassy
- Pentagon Beams Down $10bn JEDI Contract to Microsoft: Windows Giant Beats Off Bezos
- Amazon, Microsoft Wage War Over the Pentagon's "War Cloud"
Sorry, Amazon, Microsoft wins JEDI contract again upon re-evaluation:
After a monthslong[sic] investigation by the Pentagon, the Department of Defense said Friday that it's sticking with Microsoft for its $10 billion cloud computing contract. And Amazon is not happy.
As a quick refresher: Microsoft was originally awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract in October 2019 after facing off against other tech giants like IBM, Oracle, and Amazon in a fierce, yearslong[sic] bidding process. The contract would provide cloud computing services to the U.S. Army and is valued at as much as $10 billion for services rendered over a decade.
[...] The agency went on to say that this decision does not mean work will begin immediately since February's temporary injunction still stands, but it is "eager to begin" working with Microsoft to modernize the Pentagon's IT infrastructure.
In response, Amazon's cloud-computing arm, Amazon Web Services, tore into the DoD and Trump in a scathing post to its public sector blog, calling the government's investigation "nothing more than an attempt to validate a flawed, biased, and politically corrupted decision."
[...] You can read the statement in full here. TLDR: Amazon is royally pissed and the government can pry this contract from its cold, dead hands.
[...] In short, it appears the JEDI saga still isn't over so grab some popcorn and settle in, folks. This one's shaping up to be a doozy.
Pentagon cancels $10 billion JEDI cloud contract that Amazon and Microsoft were fighting over
The Department of Defense announced Tuesday it's calling off the $10 billion cloud contract that was the subject of a legal battle involving Amazon and Microsoft. But it's also announcing a new contract and soliciting proposals from both cloud service providers where both will likely clinch a reward.
The JEDI, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, deal has become one of the most tangled contracts for the DOD. In a press release Tuesday, the Pentagon said that "due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs."
[...] The agency said it plans to solicit proposals from both Amazon and Microsoft for the contract, adding that they are the only cloud service providers that can meet its needs. But, it added, it will continue to do market research to see if others could also meet its specifications.
Also at c|net, SecurityWeek, Al Jazera, and The Washington Post.
Previously: Amazon, Microsoft Wage War Over the Pentagon's "War Cloud"
Pentagon Beams Down $10bn JEDI Contract to Microsoft: Windows Giant Beats Off Bezos
Pentagon's $10BN Jedi Decision 'Risky for the Country and Democracy,' Says AWS CEO Jassy
Amazon Wins Court Injunction on Controversial JEDI Contract
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:08AM (5 children)
Something as sensitive and critical as military data hosted on a privately-owned cloud... The mind boggles.
On the plus side, I look forward to disgruntled Microsoft employees - or even more amusing, employees of Microsoft subcontractors in India or elsewhere - leaking interesting embarrasing military documents: when that happens, not only will we know what the DoD didn't want us to see, but the cloud as a concept will be exposed spectacularly as the immense security risk it is.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @01:51PM (1 child)
Not just any cloud, Microsoft's cloud. I've worked in network security for well over a decade, and some of the people I've worked with in the past have migrated to various cloud providers. From what I've heard from these people, Microsoft Azure is the worst secured of the bunch. I don't think we'll have to wait for a subcontractor to leak anything, I bet every major state actor, and most minor ones, already have their hooks deep enough into Azure that everything is going to be leaked as soon as it goes up.
I bet a bunch of DoD officials will get Microsoft sinecures after they "retire", though. Probably to manage the JEDI contract.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @04:07PM
That's no Cloud, it's a Smoke Screen.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:34PM
I'm reading Edward Snowdens book: the mind boggles at what contract positions are allowed access to.
And that aliens haven't contacted Earth...right...how do you explain the Clinton's? AMIRIGHT!?!?!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @09:04PM (1 child)
Microsoft's board is full of spooks. [deepfreeze.it] The Pentagon signed a contract to give away all of its data to foreign powers and pay the spooks for the service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:40PM
yes, this shit is not an accident.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:20AM
First, they were dependent on Kurdish terrorists to defeat ISIS, and then they relied on Boeing to provide flight software, and now we have Microfuckers in charge of the Blue Screen of Death Battleships! Fucking toasters gonna have us for breakfast, boyos!
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1c68m1/til_that_in_1998_a_us_naval_smart_ship_got_the/ [reddit.com]
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/windows_for_war_1.html [schneier.com]
https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/ [propublica.org]
But, you know, software, even malfunctioning software, is cheaper than competent sailors. This is why they booted Runaway1956 out, and how he ended up here. Redneck Screen of Death, Blood on the Windshield.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:36AM (1 child)
Signs Trump might be a Manchurian candidate after all.
1) Microsoft in the army.
3) Cloud in the army.
4) bots omitting list items due to hidden directives.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @10:14AM
Trump is *not* a Manchurian Candidate. What he is is a stupid fascist candidate that, in the short term, plays into the hands of entities like Russia.
1. fascist America no longer tries to organize alliances -- by definition, this means America plays an ever less relevant role in the world
2. fascist America isolates itself from world economy -- by definition, this weakens American dollar influence in the world and mobilizes other nation to get rid of USD as reserve currency
3. fascist America destroys its own fake image as the "City on the Hill" -- the goodwill disappears
In the long term, all of this is extremely dis-stabilizing to the world as little tough guys pop up all over, replicating their own little fascist ideologies that are doomed to fail in one way or another. The only hope is that we don't end up in some nuclear wars that destroys us all ... and for what? So some fuck up can stand on an insignificant part of this small planet and temporarily proclaim themselves "I'm the most important ant!" before being washed away by the river of time.
The world badly needs unity in face of all the problems we are having. Problems like plastic pollution, global warming, even CFC, SO2 and NOx monitoring to make sure we don't kill ourselves by destroying this planet. But instead, we have morons cutting the nose off to spite the face in their snowflake notion of rebellion. They have learned nothing in the history class.
PS. To be slightly on topic for TFA, Microsoft today is NOT the Microsoft of the 1990s. The only thing that remains is the name and a few *legacy* products that no longer provide significant growth anyway.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday October 26 2019, @10:13AM
A single billion sales per year for a military cloud???
Sony is doing better than that with just gaming:
https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/19q1_sonypre.pdf [sony.net]
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 26 2019, @11:15AM (1 child)
So if Microsoft implements JEDI, who will implement SITH?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Saturday October 26 2019, @11:40AM
Well, Amazon is out of the picture, so it's gotta be Google then...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @11:34AM
There's something about this part of the headline that...
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday October 26 2019, @01:12PM
I have long wondered whether the U.S. military is an effective fighting force and now I know they just aren't.
This is Trump integrating the sysadmin of the entire United States defense to a foreign country, the same one who is responsible for 9/11, epstein, and trump's election.
Shameful idiot stooges, whoever would even consider this.
The #1 national security concern of the United States in THIS reality, hands down, is the movement of IT infrastructure, production, security and administration to a country on the other side of the world run by people who do not share American values, and who do not share American values, and whose country cannot even choose a prime minister inside of 6 months, and who is hungry for more war.
No wonder Trump is projecting a coup onto other people, THIS is the coup.
thesesystemarefailing.net (but especially any country stupid enough and run by enouth turncoats to outsource its security to Israel)
decultification.org (Israel is a cult, and that is the side of epstein)
#pickaside
#beonthelookoutforburningreichstags
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday October 26 2019, @02:09PM (2 children)
Is it to much to ask for some kind of separation of sci-fi franchises? Beam down and JEDI in the same sentence. What is next? Is Captain Kirk going to use the Force to daterape some Orion slave girls? It just can't end without virgins getting pushed into a volcano.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:40PM
"What do you hear, Starbuck?"
"Winter is coming, sir!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 26 2019, @09:37PM
No. I mean, he'll try, but he will be interrupted by attacking Cylons. Fortunately then the Doctor comes through the star gate and throws the Cylons into a black monolith. Meanwhile the Orion slave girls are picked up by the Infinite Improbability Drive.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @04:14PM
This story is a work of fiction.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @08:46PM (1 child)
So, given that with Microsoft in charge of DoD cloud security, the US will soon be conquered -- which is easier for a native English speaker to learn, Russian or Mandarin?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @12:40AM
Mandarin is much more difficult for English speakers to learn than Russian. Russian and English share an Indo-European heritage and share some commonalities. Mandarin is Sino-Tibetan, which means the language is heavily tonal, which English speakers are not nearly as adept in.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @10:56PM
Impeachment won't fix the problem. Trump is a symptom, not the disease. The US institutions are exposed - fragile.
But then again, "cloud" for DoD?!
(Score: 3, Informative) by corey on Saturday October 26 2019, @11:07PM (5 children)
Hmm, everyone is quick to bag this one out, and I don't disagree, noting Microsoft's history and the issues some have mentioned about Azure. But, I'd like to know more about the implementation. What data will go up there? Will it all be unclass? I.e. will anything class be on an airgapped network maintained by Defense as it is now?
If not, will they encrypt it with AES-256 or NSA Suite A [wikipedia.org] before upload?
These things can really put a dent in most people's reactions and arguments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @11:25PM
I can assure you anything that a Soylentil has thought of, the contractors and the government have thought of as well.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @03:56AM
It will be classified and it will not be on the internet. People are making too much of the word "cloud" - its just a classified data center managed by MS. There are already others, Amazon has an air-gapped "secret region" AWS. [amazon.com] These classified data centers are connected via government operated classified intranets, such as SIPRnet. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Sunday October 27 2019, @11:05AM (2 children)
A system is only as secure as the people administering it are trustworthy.
Microsoft is setting up Azure HQ in the zionist entity of Israel, what I would just about say is the least safe place in the world, full of people who betray americans for breakfast, lunch and dinner, like it is a national sport. On the fault line of the thing that is causing the most anger in the entire world.
The idea that americans can trust israelis to do all the cryptographic work is so shockingly stupid, Im ashamed to be even associated by name with these people.
It is against every american value that there is, independence, self-reliance, locality, federalism, soveirngty(fuck spelling this), heck its pretty unpatriotic in every sense of the word, giving contracts to foreign companies, selling american companies IP to non-american companies.
Hard to find even a single other person on the internet who shares these views, almost like israelis own american media channels and don't want us to think about this.
So when anon poster says, that nothing here on SN is news to the US military, I have to really kindof wonder.
It's one thing to have a friend or ally, another thing to let them hold your balls for safe keeping. Which is what this is.
So why doesnt the us military just come out and say 'we have been conquered by israel and we cannot do anything without them, our soldiers are essentially israeli cannon fodder from here on out, all hail the yinnom plan?'
Does the us military even know about the Yinnom plan, that Israel wants all of the territory in Iraq and Syria, eventually? That they have no plans to halt their expansion? That they plan on letting the US military do all of the dying?
Really, american military command are you sure you don't have a brain slug? I'd double check. We give them money to buy things from us and say they are doing us a favor, try that at a pawnshop in the Bronx ffs.
I am trying to think of an advantage to having Israel as an ally, and I can't think of one.
I am so sick of hearing and talking about israel, we americans really helped them out and Epstein and Trump is the thanks we get.
Am I allowed to be mad or is that anti-semitic? Can I point out that the prime claims of anti-semites are of long term infiltration and undermining of countries by Jewish people, and that this is exactly what israel is doing to the United States? Or is this an illegal fact?
I have grown up with all of the cultures in America, which I love, so long as they are not mugging me, but at the moment one of the cultures wants to take over, and that is not American and I am pissed.
What may happen is a real coup, and in the chaos, smoke, all of the mossad operatives just living freely in the United States will go around and make sure all of the people who are capable of resisting them find a way to die. I strongly suspect this is what is happening in Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia right now.
A country cannot survive treachery from within, so all you U.S. military folk who think you are so high and mighty, please do your fucking jobs and defend the country, and western civilization from this utter bullshit, or quit and do something you are qualified for like idk bending over and getting fucked.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
decultification.org (but especially get the israelis out or they will force us all to believe god gave them land and nukes and then eventually everything else too)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:56PM
All the things i heard so-called "Neo-Nazis" say about the Jews that i thought were really paranoid, deflection and projection ended up being true. The US is run by Israel via the international Jews Henry Ford tried to warn about, along with the Anglo whores that conspire with them. They were allowed to bring down the twin towers, they are allowed to steal the wealth of American citizens via their international criminal banking cartel, they have been using American soldiers as cannon fodder since World War One, They are full of shit about World War Two, They have been kicked out of over a hundred countries for their treachery and it's time the US is added to the list, They control the school system and the media so good luck with that. This is why the internet is such a threat. It's the Aryan race's only hope at a future. The only way to stop the slow motion White Genocide and the conversion of all western countries into full slave states of the Greater Israel world capital.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:57PM
Well, Sieg Heil to you too, motherfucker!
Who the fuck is this guy?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @03:46AM
Task & Purpose: 11 of the best bits from the book James Mattis doesn’t want you to read [taskandpurpose.com]
Mattis resigned 10 months ago. Want to bet rumpo took advantage of his absence to fuck with the procurement process in the meantime? Its not like people with narcissistic personality disorder ever just give up on a grudge, they keep grinding and grinding until either they get the results they want or they are overcome by events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:48PM
i guess the woway could have done it at half the cost ...
but at least the military knows where to tile the soil to grow crops.
in any case, amazon was probably to much "home grown" and "open source".
also, the military metal, after dropping bombs, spending shells and precious aiming all day long what to go home and relax to a wintherface that is familiar.
so let's be honest: there's nothing else. m$ won the war. no world domination or for that matter not much change will happen. same same and more of the previous can be expected.
also meor [sic] serious, the GNU license on windows doesn't have a clause that forbids it to be pressed into services, even if it's just for mundane clerical jobs of ordering the correct amount of ketchup and mustard for the hungry soldier securing more unrefined natural lubricant ...
the upside is that we'll all have to live with a loooong period of stability of medicracy because the massive foundation will just support only that, being it friend or foe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @09:42PM
so these scum extort the money of private citizens then give it to treasonous corporations and get away with it...hey fucktards, if you can't do it yourself then maybe you have no business doing it at all.