The Defense Department (DoD) today issued its final request for proposals (RFP) for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud contract, formally opening the bidding process for DoD’s potential $10 billion enterprise cloud infrastructure.
The contract will be awarded to a single bidder on an initial two-year contract, with two three-year options, and a final two-year opt-in–a potential ten-year deal if all options are exercised.
“I am excited to be part of an initiative that will revolutionize how we fight and win wars,” DoD CIO Dana Deasy said in a letter included with the RFP’s release.
A little more than two weeks after Deasy declined to commit to a release date for the cloud contract’s final RFP, DoD has delivered its finalized solicitation. The department has taken into account more than 1,500 questions from private industry on what DoD was seeking in an enterprise cloud environment, including more than 400 following the release of the second draft RFP.
The final RFP was originally expected by the end of May, and Deasy, who assumed his role at the beginning of that month, said DoD was taking its time to ensure the contracting process matched private industry standards and would bring a full and open competition.
“I am confident the JEDI Cloud RFP reflects the Department’s unique and critical needs and employs the best standards of competitive pricing, innovation, and security,” Deasy said upon the RFP’s release today.
Deasy on July 11 called cloud computing the first key strategic area in his plan to support the National Defense Strategy, adding that cloud would enable the integration of all of the other strategic areas. “Rapidly providing DoD access to underlying foundational technologies, like cloud computing and data storage, on a global scale is critical to national defense,” Deasy reiterated in today’s letter.
Included in the RFP package is a determination and findings document highlighting the Department’s need for “a modern commercial enterprise cloud services solution for infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) that can support all classification levels for the U.S. Department of Defense.” The document also explains the need to award the contract to a single bidder, so that DoD may leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning “at scale and at a tempo relevant to warfighters…in a common environment.”
Responses from vendors looking to provide DoD’s enterprise cloud infrastructure are due September 17. DoD is also continuing to accept questions on the final RFP until August 16.
