DISA is done with MilCloud 2.0

The Defense Information Systems Agency won’t pursue MilCloud 2.0 after its contract expires in May, FCW has confirmed. 

“The Department has a critical need for on-prem cloud. DISA has determined that moving forward with the MilCloud 2.0 program is not in the best interests of the government to meet that requirement,” a DISA spokesperson told FCW. Federal News Network first reported the news. 

DISA didn’t elaborate on additional details on what would replace MilCloud 2.0, a $498 million contract originally awarded in 2017, but did say that existing users would migrate applications and systems to “commercial cloud or another viable environment prior to the sunset date” of May 20, 2022 -- when the existing MilCloud 2.0  is set to expire. 

The move comes after DOD CIO John Sherman fielded questions about MilCloud 2.0 during a June House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing where he called the program a “a powerful arrow in our quiver, but…not the only one.”

Sharon Woods, the acting director of DISA’s Hosting and Compute Center (HaCC), told reporters Dec. 14 that the goal is to have a mix of commercial and on-premises cloud capabilities located within DOD data centers that present and it’s “not a binary choice.”

“I think it's really important that these things are interoperable and thought about as an ecosystem of capabilities along with the traditional data center footprint,” Woods said, adding that “part of the HaCC’s job is to help enable them to work better together so that from a mission owner standpoint, they see unified hosting and compute...because we're doing the work behind the scenes to help make these capabilities stitch together in a way that's smart.”

This article first appeared on FCW.