DOD rolls out revised JEDI solicitation

The Defense Department has made several updates to its final solicitation for its massive Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud program less than a month after the proposal's release.

Amendments were added to the proposal Aug. 23, making changes to several requirements in areas such as security, points of presence, pricing and small business information. In answers to industry questions, contracting officials looked to shut down ongoing speculation that the solicitation was drafted with Amazon in mind.

One respondent questioned DOD's "Amazon-like requirement" for an online commercial marketplace, which could discourage traditional cloud service providers from competing.

DOD said that several vendors have the capability. "Multiple commercial cloud service providers have an online marketplace," DOD wrote in its response. "This is an important government requirement to facilitate the rapid adoption of cloud infrastructure and the ability to operationalize that infrastructure."

Over just a few weeks, the final JEDI proposal, released July 26, garnered 218 responses, most of which asked for requirements to be revised or removed.

The JEDI program has endured heavy scrutiny and criticism for the past year, mainly over its decision to seek a single provider. Cloud service provider Oracle has already filed protest against the final solicitation, claiming DOD's determinations and findings document has missing elements, such as determinations from the DOD contracting officer, and implying the organization will get fixed pricing for yet-to-be developed technologies.

The Aug. 23 update, which includes a question and answer document, addresses some of these pricing issues with revised models and language.

Other notable changes included revision to the Summary of Objectives to exclude  the need for vendors to have points of presence in Africa at the time of proposal. However, they would need to have them available within 30 days of the end of the post-award kickoff event. Text requiring contractors be able to quantify the "magnitude of electromagnetic emanations" was also removed. 

DOD amended the timeline for providers to get their capabilities ready. Proposed solutions must now be "available and meet security requirements as specified in the Cyber Security Plan within 30 days of the conclusion of the award kickoff event for unclassified services," according to the revised SOO. The original statement stipulated that services be in place within timeframes based on the contract award date, not the kickoff event.