Mary-Louise Hoffman
Several industry leaders and observers agree that the Department of Defense’s move to replace its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract with a multi-award procurement vehicle represents a fresh start to address its evolving technology requirements, the National Defense Magazine reported Friday.
Alex Rossino, an advisory research analyst on Deltek‘s federal market analysis team, told National Defense in an interview that the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability program could serve as a pathfinder while DOD is pursuing enterprise-wide system integration efforts.
Rossino added that DOD should develop a data standard to simplify teaming arrangements among vendors that want to provide cloud offerings to the JWCC initiative.
DOD declared Microsoft as the winner of the potential 10-year, $10 billion JEDI contract in October 2019. One month later, Amazon challenged the contract award decision through the filing of a lawsuit in federal court.
The department unveiled JWCC last month as its new approach to procuring enterprise cloud services and said it expects to award new contracts by April 2022.
Hawk Carlisle, president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association, believes cloud technology could accelerate data exchange among military personnel.
“In tomorrow’s battlefield, you have to have that ability to get information at a pace that the cloud right now is really the only way to do it,” Carlisle said.
He added that JEDI program obstacles have prompted government and industry stakeholders to understand the complexity of integrating a cloud network, algorithms and operational standards to support DOD’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control strategy.
JADC2 will be the main topic of discussion at the Potomac Officers Club’s virtual event on Tuesday. Visit the POC Events page to register for the “Building the Future Battle: The Keys to JADC2” forum.
