JEDI may be gone, but DOD’s cloud program is not out of the woods

After several years of litigation that promised to stretch out indefinitely, the Department of Defense (DOD) came to terms with reality and canceled the $10 billion JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) contract that it awarded to Microsoft in 2019. It was unable to commence any meaningful work on the project because of an ongoing lawsuit that Amazon Web Services, the market leader, initially filed in the U.S. Court of Claims. 

Complicating the DOD’s effort was Amazon’s allegation that then-president Donald Trump intervened in the bidding process to prevent Amazon from winning the contract because of Trump’s hostility toward Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who, as owner of the Washington Post, was a particular Trump bête noire. 

The JEDI program suffered from other shortcomings as well. In particular, a July 2019 report from the Information Advocacy Acquisition Advisory Council, a federation of two dozen leading information technology industry groups, pointed out that DOD’s July 2018 request for proposals (RFP) for JEDI was inconsistent with the cloud strategy that it released a half-year later. The RFP looked to a single source provider, but DOD’s announced strategy called for a multi-cloud solution with multiple cloud architectures and, therefore, more than one provider. 

In so doing, DOD seemed poised to move away from the department’s troubled history of seeking single, all-encompassing solutions, such as the financial Management Modernization System (which, regrettably, I authorized when serving as DOD comptroller) and the Defense Integrated Human Resources Managements System. Both of these were canceled after years of effort involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Nevertheless, the JEDI RFP was not revised to be consistent with the cloud strategy and, when Microsoft was the sole winner, Amazon sued.

The DOD no longer is looking to a single-source solution for its cloud requirements. Moreover, it recognizes that technology did not stand still while awaiting resolution of the JEDI lawsuit. As the official DOD release put it, the department’s “needs have only advanced in recent years with efforts such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Artificial Intelligence and Data Acceleration (ADA).” To meet those requirements — and presumably to avoid future lawsuits — the department said it would seek proposals solely from both Microsoft and Amazon, asserting that “available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CPS) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements.” 

Limiting its RFPs to two named sources is a rather unusual step; some might argue that it violates Federal Acquisition Regulations. Though the DOD also stated it would “engage with industry” to identify other potential providers, it did not explain why it could not simply issue an RFP to all potential bidders. In pursuing its narrow approach, presumably because of the urgent need to field the kind of program that its original cloud strategy sought — and thereby circumventing acquisition requirements — it is simply inviting new lawsuits and, as a consequence, yet more delays.

At a time when hackers seem to penetrate cloud systems with increasing ease and brazenness, it is puzzling that the DOD is prepared to risk new legal action on the part of other bidders and, of even greater concern, that it appears determined to rely on its “market research” rather than to be open to the most innovative solutions that it might be offered. 

It may well be that Amazon and Microsoft will offer the best solutions for DOD’s needs. Nevertheless, if ever there were a need for both rapidity and innovation, it is now. Surely there is far too little time to waste because of a potential new round of bid protests. The DOD may have renamed its program the “Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability” and assigned it a new acronym — JWCC — but that will not enable it to cope with troublemaking in cyberspace by China, Russia or other hostile states. 

Only a successful, well-managed and timely program can do that. On that score, DOD’s latest plan, given its historic track record and the sorry history of JEDI, in particular, is far from encouraging.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was under secretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy under secretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.