DOD asks for extension on JEDI review

The Pentagon is looking for a 30-day extension before announcing any revisions to the award in the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud deal, according to court documents.

DOD had been set to announce an updated award decision on Aug. 17, and a senior agency official affirmed as recently as July 30 that the Pentagon was on schedule to do just that.

In its Aug. 10 filing with the Court of Federal Claims, Defense Department attorneys told the court DOD needs to reopen some discussions regarding the pricing aspects of proposals from both Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. Neither legal team representing the cloud vendors opposed DOD’s motion requesting more time to work on this second try at an award. The new deadline is Sept. 16.

The Defense Department is still collecting material from Microsoft, which won the original contract last October, and from AWS, which is protesting the award in court.

The department’s filing indicates the companies have submitted revised proposals as DOD has issued more than one solicitation amendment, which has in turn resulted in rounds of proposal revisions and exchanges between DOD and bidders.

That back and forth erupted into public view in May with a series of dueling blog posts from vendors. According to the documents, "DoD has recently identified the need to reopen limited discussions related to certain aspects of the offerors' pricing proposals."

The AWS lawsuit over the DOD's flagship cloud contract covered a variety of issues, including the possibility of White House interference in the final award. However, the case has been on pause under a stay since April 17 to deal with a set of technical issues surrounding the pricing of data storage.

After a final round of questions from vendors, the filing states, the Pentagon is expecting final proposal revisions from the two vendors by Aug. 12. After that, there are internal processes at DOD including a new source selection decision and a peer review before vendors and the public are notified of any revisions to the original October 2019 award.

DOD’s other high-profile commercial cloud buy for Microsoft Office 365-based collaboration tools has also been tied up in protests. The department and General Services Administration are working on a corrective action for the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract after an accidental disclosure of pricing information.

This article combines reporting from Washington Technology and FCW, which are Defense Systems partner sites.