Jul 26, 2019   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Senior Military Leaders, CIOs Encourage Realignment of JEDI Cloud Program with New DOD Cloud Strategy

A who’s who of highly respected military and civilian information technology executives from the Dept. of Defense and throughout the U.S. government today released a detailed report in cooperation with the IT Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC), calling out the troubled Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) proposal for diverging in most key areas from DoD’s highly regarded Cloud Strategy.

While the executives and former military officers are strong proponents of the new DoD Cloud Strategy adopted in December 2018, today’s report laid out six critical ways in which the JEDI proposal either ignores or specifically diverges from the Cloud Strategy and calls for JEDI to be rescinded and revised. The report is posted at www.IT-AAC.org

The military IT experts and CIOs are:

  • Duane Andrews, former DoD CIO/ASD C3I,
  • John Grimes, Former DoD CIO,
  • Dr. Marv Langston, former DoD CIO,
  • LTG Dave Deptula, LTG USAF (Ret), Dean, Mitchell Institute,
  • Tony Scott, former US Government CIO,
  • Kevin Green, VADM, former deputy Chief of Naval Operations,
  • Steve Cooper, Former CIO, DHS, FAA, Dept of Commerce,
  • Ken Deutsch, RADM, USN (Ret), Former EVP, CSRA Defense Group,
  • Dov Zakheim, former USD (Comptroller).

They jointly drafted and signed this letter accompanying the report to the Acting Secretary and CIO of the Defense Dept., Congressional Armed Services committees and the White House.

“Where the JEDI RFP stipulates a single, static cloud solution, the DoD Cloud Strategy outlines a rich environment including multiple cloud solutions. The Cloud Strategy demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the security challenges facing DoD that is absent from the JEDI RFP,” the report points out. Additionally, the report pointed out that: “The Strategy recognizes the central role that Software as a Service (SaaS) will play in the DoD IT ecosystem, yet SaaS is entirely absent from the JEDI RFP. The JEDI RFP treats cloud at the tactical edge as an integral part of a cloud service and makes no long-term provisions for building out tactical cloud, two technical and architectural mistakes which are not repeated in the Strategy.” DOD’s excellent Cloud Strategy is posted at https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/04/2002085866/-1/-1/1/DOD-CLOUD-STRATEGY.PDF

“The national security implications of the content of this IT-AAC JEDI Report are fundamental to how the Department of Defense will effectively move toward information sharing in the 21st century. This report succinctly identifies concerns that should be addressed before the JEDI award,” states LTG Deptula, USAF Ret.

Beyond those items, the report also noted:

  • The JEDI RFP imposes strict technical specifications, restricting access to innovative technology, unlike the Strategy’s call for DoD to follow the lead of the private sector.
  • The Strategy acknowledges important trends in private sector cloud architecture and deployment – including multi-cloud environments, cross- platform interoperability, and cloud migration – that are given no weight in the JEDI RFP.
  • IT-AAC strongly endorses both DoD’s and OMB’s Cloud Strategies which bares no resemblance to the detailed specifications in the JEDI RFP. If Fortune500 are unwilling to put their most sensitive data into a public cloud, why should government.

Call for Action

To view the report, the letter to DoD, OMB, and Congress, and to learn more about the IT-AAC, visit www.it-aac.org or contact Bob Dix, SVP of Policy and Strategy, bob.dix@IT-AAC.org, 703-768-0400 (o) 703-975-6633 (m)

About IT Acquisition Advisory Council

IT-AAC was formed in 2007 as a public/private partnership of leading standards bodies, IT communities of practice and nationally recognized IT leaders working together to usher in commercial IT innovations and standards of practice emanating out of the $4T Global IT market. IT-AAC provides both government and industry a true honest broker needed to enable successful Digital Transformation.