It took time for the US Department of Defense to complete its cloud project. On December 7, the Pentagon announced that Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Oracle have been selected to provide services for the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) program.
The cloud contract of the century
The Pentagon’s cloud services want to be ” available worldwide, in all security domains and at all classification levels, from strategic to tactical According to the statement from the institution. It was told by one of its spokespersons CNBC that ” The JWCC is a multi-award public market consisting of four contracts with a common cap of $9 billion “.
The choice to choose four service providers instead of one can be explained technically. As large private companies, multicloud makes it possible to rely on each other’s expertise, which can lead to a reduction in costs and generate a gain in reliability in relation to breakdowns.
For the Pentagon, it is also, and perhaps above all, a matter of buying household peace. The predecessor of the JWCC carried the cute name of the JEDI project for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure. The contract of the century, estimated at $10 billion, sparked an intense legal battle between the suitors.
The Fall of JEDI, Revenge of Amazon
Won by Microsoft in 2019, Amazon, the market leader, was immediately challenged. According to Jeff Bezos’ company, the game was rigged by Donald Trump to take revenge on the Seattle billionaire and his estate, washington post. The following year, the Ministry of Defense considered these claims unfounded.
A year later, the contract with Microsoft is cancelled. The Pentagon justifies itself by explaining that the JEDI ” was developed at a time when the ministry’s needs were different and our cloud conversation less mature “.
Congress has advised the Pentagon to favor a multi-vendor approach to end legal battles and avoid reliance on a single company. Oracle also lobbied in this direction. With a single cloud for the entire Pentagon, only Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services were calibrated to respond to the offering. With a load spread between multiple protagonists, Oracle was able to take a chance and be rewarded. The contract, which Google has also managed to secure, runs until 2028.