Report: Pentagon CIO Dana Deasy to Lead DoD’s Cloud Procurement Efforts

Defense Department Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy will head the Pentagon’s efforts to procure an enterprise-wide cloud computing system from the private sector, FedScoop reported Thursday.

Defense Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan, in a June 22 internal memo, tasked “the DoD Chief Management Officer [Jay Gibson], in conjunction with the DoD CIO, and with coordination with the DoD General Counsel, to prepare a prompt and orderly transition of authority, direction and control of the Joint Enterprise Defense Cloud Initiative to the CIO, including transitioning the Cloud Computing Program Office of the CIO.”

The memo makes it clear that Deasy is being told to lead the department’s cloud efforts in a much more enterprising and creative manner, rather than in an ad hoc method, as is what is being done with over 500 cloud efforts in the department, so as to “enable economies of scale, improve security practices, and maintain the ability to make smarter decisions about our applications and data”.

The Pentagon was scheduled to release its JEDI contract in May and originally planned the award of a single contract to a commercial cloud provider in September, according to the report.