SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the do-you-get-to-the-cloud-district-very-often dept.
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @12:31AM (4 children)
The problem is, this is government. The managers involved must have some backstop to blame when something breaks.
If they built it themselves, they would save a shit-ton of money, but when something breaks and important file X happens to be lost, then it is their ass on the hot frying pan.
Instead, they can pay 10-20x the cost of doing it themselves (note, it is not their money they are spending), and insulate their own asses from that hot frying pan by having the vendor be the backstop of last resort when something breaks and important file X is lost. They can then blame the vendor.
That's why they don't roll their own. They spend other people's money, and by doing so, insulate their own ass from the hot frying pan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @02:54AM (3 children)
I'm not sure if you realize this, but if they wrote it themselves, they're spending the same money. It might be less money to write it, but the money comes from the same place. Now whether it is cheaper to do it themselves and maintain it is another argument.
The rest of your comment (well, actually the whole thing) is ignorant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @03:06AM (2 children)
Posted by someone who's clearly never worked in a govt. department ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @06:01PM (1 child)
Do you think that it costs money to have a contractor do something, but it is free if the government does it? Do you even know how money works? How appropriations work? Where appropriations come from?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @06:57PM
Not at all. You are massively hallucinating things that were never said in the GP comment.
Here is your hallucination: "free if the government does it" was never stated, anywhere. That was farted out of your mind only. What was stated was: "pay 10-20x the cost of doing it themselves". In order to pay 10x-20x the cost of DIY, there has to be a cost to DIY which is larger than "free".
But anyone who's ever worked in govt. contracting has seen the pattern of CYA by the govt. people.
They will pay 10x-20x or more of the cost of "do it yourself" (note, there is an unstated cost of DIY here, it is just cheaper than having a contractor do the same) just to have "support" from the vendor in the rare instance when something goes wrong, and all to avoid themselves being at risk from the rare "something going wrong".
Anyone who has ever had any even passing contact with the govt. contracting process will have seen this pattern over and over. The fact that your comment implies you've never seen the pattern then heavily implies you have never had any even passing contact with govt. contracting and are therefore just yelling out of your ass.