In order to handle its cloud needs, the Pentagon modified its strategy last year and solicited bids from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle. Now, Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft are all set to work for Pentagon in a $9 billion deal.
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle had been awarded a cloud computing deal worth up to $9 billion through 2028.
The result of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, or JWCC, endeavor is consistent with the United States Defense Department’s initiative to lean on several providers of remotely operated infrastructure technology rather than a single corporation, as advocated by the Trump Administration.
According to an email from a Department of Defense spokesperson, “JWCC is a multiple award procurement composed of four contracts with a shared ceiling of $9 Billion.”
A growing number of companies have also resorted to rely on multiple cloud providers. In some instances, they depend on one for the majority of front-end and back-end workloads and the other for specialized capabilities. Sometimes it comes down to price. Having multiple clouds could increase an organization’s confidence in their ability to tolerate service interruptions brought on by outages.
The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, was initially handed to Microsoft by the Pentagon in 2019. Amazon, the leading provider of cloud infrastructure, contested the Pentagon’s decision, which led to a court dispute. Oracle also contested the choice made by the Pentagon.
A examination by the Pentagon’s watchdog in 2020 found no evidence to support the conclusion that the Trump Administration had interfered with the contract awarding process. Later, the Pentagon declared that it will continue to work with Microsoft on the JEDI contract.
In order to handle its cloud needs, the Pentagon modified its strategy last year and solicited bids from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle. But at the time, the General Services Administration claimed that only Microsoft and Amazon appeared to be able to satisfy the Pentagon’s standards.
The outcome on Wednesday is particularly advantageous for Oracle, which analysts do not believe to be among the leading providers of cloud-based computing services. In the third quarter that concluded on August 31, Oracle generated cloud infrastructure revenue of $900 million (read below), which was a minor portion of the $20.5 billion total for Amazon’s cloud subsidiary, Amazon Web Services.
All four technology firms have secured contracts for indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, or IDIQ, which means they can involve an indefinite amount of services for an indefinite period of time.
“The purpose of this contract is to provide the Department of Defense with enterprise-wide globally available cloud services across all security domains and classification levels, from the strategic level to the tactical edge,” the Defense Department said.
Read the document below:
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