Reshape Defense Department Cloud Computing Capabilities To Operate At The 'Speed Of Relevance'

To keep pace with our times with the IT industry's efforts, the Department of Defense realizes the importance of transitioning from the classic legacy systems to a culture of performance and affordability – a new approach to managing its networking and computing need - that operates at the speed of relevance.

Adopting cloud computing to accelerate the pace that nuclear weapons systems, military organizations, and concepts of operations evolve to meet the requirements of future threats and to develop and deploy new capabilities faster to re-establish military superiority at means that cloud integration security should be concerned with.
A legacy system or also known as a legacy platform is an old piece of computer hardware art. It might serve as a nice back up to the current systems everywhere. Most banks, transportation, hospitals, insurance, retail companies (Metro and Otto), energy companies (including nuclear plants), manufacturing of all types (process control), the defense industry, and more by and large realize the need to modernize their legacy systems to make it suitable with the demands of the current digital technology world.

Even though the legacy system has not been entirely phased out, these unmodified legacy systems may require a significant amount of upkeep and be associated with terminology or processes that are no longer applicable to the current digital transformation journey, thus creating confusion and complicating digital transformation efforts.

Like some good reasons why you should run your new computer with Windows 10 instead of Windows XP, the standard of the operating systems used in the enterprise should be improved. Now more than ever, since businesses face growth and expansion, a significant number of users no longer choose to stick with some baggage carried by the legacy systems.

The Department of Defense’s Cloud Adoption to Operate at the 'Speed of Relevance'

And it is always a good choice to transition from legacy systems to the cloud. Folding it into a more modern digital architecture will, fortunately, improve security and database accessibility, harness modern technology in the battle for cost-saving effectiveness, and boost performance for both the warfighter and business operations across the U.S. Department of Defense with a little effort.

The Cloud Contract

It is undeniable that to maintain the U.S. Department of Defense military’s technological advantage; it is necessary to accelerate its adoption of cloud computing technologies. However, integrations between on-premises and cloud solutions often deal with sensitive data. Also, all non-sensitive data, such as public-facing websites needs moving to the commercial cloud as soon as possible. Therefore, a cloud contract is crucial to be modernizing the Department of Defense and reforming the way they do business. Its predicted multi-billion-dollar cloud contract is considered as an effective means to revolutionize the military’s ability and potential to effectively execute missions and save the U.S. homeland from any attack.

Unlike acquiring ships, planes, or any machine, acquiring software is a big deal, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. Going to the cloud means having modernized the applications and being able to pull the data out of a lot of different applications. But, in order to avoid staying abreast of the ever-changing threat, it is essential to have security requirements on these completely new approaches to the management of military networks and the acquisition of cyber capabilities.

Reliance on a sole-source IT contract, which is not designed with a specific vendor or company in mind will be one of the biggest hurdles in the revolution of the military’s ability. This single-award contract is well worth taking time to conduct a full-range and open competition to find out the best cloud capability for the war fighter. As a result, it is a severe fight for a massive Pentagon Cloud Contract to offer the Department of Defense the most competitive solution.

Instead of operating nuclear weapons to be still running on computers from the last century at a yearly cost of multiple billions of dollars, the Department of Defense’s adoption of cloud computing is such a great means to incorporate enterprise legacy systems into the digital strategy to support the war fighter and to maintain the department’s security and to re-establish military superiority.

A Two-Year Contract

To meet the DoD’s demands to provide the warfighter with the best cloud capability, 46 companies that can rapidly deliver new capabilities responded actively with questions to its very first draft solicitation.

Even though the Department of Defense says it is not the high time to predict the ultimate value of the contract, according to the estimation of the JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), the contract is worth approximately $8 - $10 billion.


The DoD also published a draft request for proposals that was open to feedback. There were over 1,000 comments/questions and answers relating to the contract. (Comments was closed as of the 30th of April.)

The single indefinite-delivery and indefinite-quantity contract will be awarded for a two-year base period, with five one-year options and then three years after that. It means that after the first two-year contract period, the Department of Defense will re-examine the marketplace and make the next important decision on the capabilities they need for the next option period and whether they should renew for five years or not. A contract expected to be well worth billions over the next decade - the multibillion-dollar price-tag makes the JEDI contract potentially tempting for even the largest of cloud computing tech firms.