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Here are some early adopters of the controversial JEDI cloud
Andrew Eversden
There will be 14 early adopters of the Pentagon's controversial new enterprisewide general-purpose cloud, Defense Department CIO Dana Deasy said Dec. 12.
Deasy, speaking at the AFCEA NOVA Air Force IT Day, said parties eyeing a move to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud are U.S. Transportation Command, Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations Command and the Navy.
“What's really unique is the variety of the 14 early adopters allows us to test various principles on JEDI from the tactical edge all the way to the top secret — needing to use the cross-domain,” Deasy said. “So we're going to learn fairly quickly what it takes to actually now go from the strategic vision to the ability to stand it up and to bring it to life.”
Federal Times asked the Department of Defense to provide the other 10 components among the first movers. A DoD spokesperson didn't immediately respond.
Deasy reiterated what he told Defense News earlier in the week: that the unclassified JEDI environment will be ready in February, with the “secret” environment ready six months after that. There is also no specific timeline for the top-secret environment.
He said that there are meetings every two weeks where the JEDI team discusses the “60 to 70 services” that must be ready to go when the unclassified environment kicks off.
DoD awarded the JEDI contract to Microsoft over Amazon Web Services, which recently filed a protest in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that relied heavily on interference allegations against President Donald Trump. The contract is potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years.
Throughout the entirety of the JEDI procurement, DoD has struggled to dispel the notion that the Pentagon's only cloud would be JEDI, when in reality the JEDI cloud is just one in a multicloud environment. Deasy took aim at that characterization in his address, highlighting that there are “something like” 10 more cloud contracts out for bids next year.
“The whole reason we started JEDI was we were not short on clouds,” Deasy said. “What we were short of was an enterprise capability ... all the way out to the tactical edge. ... There will always be a need for special-purpose clouds."
Once the JEDI cloud is set up, Deasy said, the next step is to look across the department at the various siloed cloud and ask “do they serve a unique purpose that is truly distinctly different than JEDI? Or is there overlap?” The Pentagon has signaled that it will move 80 percent of its systems to the JEDI cloud.
Consolidation is an option for overlapping clouds, but Deasy said the DoD won't know what to do specifically with the overlaps until the JEDI cloud is stood up.
The JEDI cloud environment will allow the DoD to significantly reduce the number of clouds it has, which the Congressional Research Services has estimated sits at more than 500. With the JEDI cloud, Deasy's ready to reduce that number by hundreds.
At the end of the day, “we sure in the heck don't need 100 clouds, we probably don't need 50 clouds, but we definitely need more than one or two clouds,” Deasy said.
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COVID-19 News: Virus Hurting Army Small Businesses
By Connie Lee The COVID-19 pandemic is putting particular stress on the Army's second- and third-tier suppliers, said the service's secretary April 30. The Army is racing to ensure its manufacturing supply chain is able to stay afloat amid economic challenges posed by the virus, said Ryan McCarthy. “Some of these are small companies [that have] 15,000 people, and you get a couple people sick, you shut the whole company down,” he said during a virtual event hosted by Brookings Institution. The supply chain will "be a challenge for us months and months ahead.” The pandemic is also hurting overseas manufacturing in areas such as Mexico, Europe and East Asia, where the Army has little influence, he noted. The service is working with the State Department to figure out how to keep overseas workers employed and keep the supply chain running, he said. “We are limited in our ability to affect them and get them back to work,” McCarthy said. “It presents challenges that are far beyond our reach and ... influence, so we're going to have some real heart-to-hearts with manufacturers going forward.” Despite these issues, the Army is continuing to prioritize modernization, he said. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said the service is moving forward with weapons assessments, noting that it was recently able to conduct a successful hypersonic weapons test. As part of its plan to keep up with great power competition, the service is pursuing 31 new signature systems. “Over half of our procurement budget is going towards these new weapon systems,” McCarthy said. “We've got to put them into formation. Much of our iron is 50 years old. That probably is the prime area where we put the most energy.” Meanwhile, the Army is collaborating with other organizations in search of a vaccine. There are 10 to 15 top potential vaccine candidates worldwide that are in various stages of maturity, McCarthy said during a Pentagon briefing the same day. To speed up the timeline, the service plans on investing in the ones that seem to be moving the fastest, he noted. “We can double down and invest in the fastest horse, if you will, in this 15 candidate race, and then that compresses the timeframe that will ultimately get you to the answer and bring a vaccine to life,” he said. “You'll hear ranges on how fast it can go.” Some of these vaccines are currently in human trials, with the bulk of the work slated for summer and early fall, he noted. “It's moving faster than probably any point in history because of the extraordinary collaboration that's going on today,” he said. However, this may involve accepting some risks in the process, McConville noted at the briefing. “You can save time by taking risks,” he said. “You may get ready to produce something, and that horse may not get to the final race and that may not be the most efficient use of money, but by taking risks, you can really move things very, very quickly.” https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/4/30/covid-hurting-army-small-businesses