Industry group lobbies Congress for transparency on DOD cloud strategy

By Tony Bertuca  / May 1, 2018

An industry group representing information technology contractors wants Congress to provide greater transparency on the Pentagon's controversial plans to award a potentially lucrative cloud-computing contract to a single company.

Congress should publicly release an upcoming Pentagon report detailing its acquisition plans for a new cloud-computing system -- the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, according to an April 30 letter from the IT Alliance for Public Sector to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate appropriations committees.

"Robust, transparent engagement with industry has been identified by Congress and multiple administrations as key to the success of any contracting action," the letter states.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, has released a draft request for proposals showing its plans for the JEDI award to be a two-year base contract, with options to extend the deal to as long as 10 years.

The Pentagon has said the report detailing its justification for a single-award strategy for JEDI will be sent to Congress by May 7. A separate report detailing the budget outlook for the program is scheduled to be delivered at the same time.

Last month, the Pentagon declined to provide the single-award rationale to multiple companies that asked.

Many IT contractors have criticized the Pentagon's single-award acquisition strategy, with some speculating the deal is being positioned for Amazon Web Services to win.

Pentagon officials have pushed back against its critics, arguing the department will continue to maintain multiple cloud services.

During a breakfast with reporters last week, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the JEDI contract represents less than 20 percent of DOD's "cloud-like capacity."

"If you do between 10 and 20 percent you start to get some scale," Shanahan said. "You still end up with multiple providers."

The ITAPS letter notes there has been an executive branch "Mythbusters" campaign to tamp down industry criticisms, which the association says underscores the government's need "to clearly explain what it seeks to acquire and for industry to fully understand and demonstrate the art of the possible and the state of the market."

And, despite Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' April 12 House Armed Services Committee testimony that JEDI will be a "a full and open competition -- not sole source," ITAPS notes the draft RFP for the program "remains designed to facilitate the deployment of a single cloud."

"With these concerns in mind, as the department proceeds with the JEDI procurement, we respectfully request that you encourage increased transparency into the acquisition strategy and provide the department with commercial solutions to meet the warfighter's needs," the letter states.