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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, @12:50AM (1 child)
How very true, but it won't happen.
If they rolled their own, they'd have no one to blame and point fingers towards as the one at fault when something went wrong. They would instead have to take that blame themselves. And govt. managers very much do not want to be the one taking the blame. So they will spend 20x the cost of a roll your own system just so they have someone else (the vendor) to blame should something go wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @06:16PM
You really don't understand how contracting accountability works, do you? Here's a clue: it doesn't work like you explained it. It isn't some magical ass-covering mechanism. Financially, the contracting officer's ass is always on the line, as are a number of asses down the line. From a program manager's perspective, "if something goes wrong" it is the PMs reputation on the line; they are the one managing the contract. If something messes up and it is the contractor's fault, the contractor has to pay to make it right, unless the PM wrote the contract requirements so poorly that the contractor doesn't have to, and then it comes back to the PM.
A big reason that the government wouldn't want to take on writing their own very complicated system is that they aren't staffed to do it. They would have to increase the staff to do it, then to maintain it long term. And if it isn't a long term thing, then they now have more people on board that they have to find other work for when it is over. Meanwhile, a group of contractors tell you that they can do it for a fixed price, and maintain it for as long as you want, then you can walk away from it when it is no longer needed. From a budget and schedule standpoint, that is not a hard decision to make, even if in principle it would make more sense for the government to have that capability and expertise in house. And for contracts of this size, you also have tremendous lobbying pressure onto Congress that the government is unfairly competing with the private sector, and some well-placed lobbying pressure transfers down to the agency head who has to go to Congress every year to ask for money.
This kind of thing is a lot more subtle than your junior high school view of how things work.