The Defense Department has announced plans to conduct a full and open competition to buy an enterprise cloud platform that can host information at the unclassified, secret and top secret levels.
DoD said Thursday it formed the Cloud Executive Steering Group in September to establish a strategy to accelerate the adoption of commercial cloud products and services across the Pentagon.
CESG’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud initiative will cover two phases.
The department said its Chief Management Officer will work with the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, Chief Information Officer and the Director of Defense Digital Service to implement the first phase of the JEDI Cloud acquisition effort.
The CMO and CIO will then partner with multiple DoD offices to establish strategies to address cloud requirements for military and intelligence support operations under the program’s second phase.
The department released a list of eight frequently asked questions about the cloud procurement effort. Those questions are:
- With what companies and other non-governmental entities has the CESG met?
- What has CESG determined regarding the existing cloud efforts at DoD?
- Under the CESG’s acquisition strategy, how many contracts will be awarded for cloud services?
- What DoD Components or field agencies will use the cloud services solution awarded under the CESG’s acquisition strategy?
- Will the Phase One award replace any existing cloud solutions in DoD?
- The solicitation says that “a contract award is planned for fiscal year 2018.” Will that be a sole-source award? If so, why? And what is the Pentagon’s response to industry, which is urging for multiple awards?
- What is the value and timeframe of the contract?
- Is the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) document, which mentions a sole source award, an authentic DoD document?