6 ms·

I’m not the biggest fan of AWS, but I feel like giving $10B to Oracle or IBM, well, you might as well just burn the money.

bob33212 7y ago
Especially since that 10B becomes 20B when in 5 years, Oracle tells you that you that your initial implementations are being EOLed and you need to start over.
- tootie 7y ago
  It's $2B for services, 8 for litigation.
whoisthisfor 7y ago
I'd be fine with either AWS or Azure getting the contact. It makes sense to pick one provider, as their workloads are ... unique.
- iamtheworstdev 7y ago
  I've been torn on this contract from a professional experience POV. In the IC we got AWS after they beat out IBM and the IBM protest. I'm an AWS fan so I was excited and it worked well for me when I was a contractor (I'm no longer in the space). But having the DOD on AWS along with the IC concerns me from a lack of diversity standpoint. I've always said that Microsoft and Google should have teamed up a bit to make a competitive run. But I don't think anyone was ever interested in sharing the contract to begin with.
  - dkhenry 7y ago
    Azure has a large presence in the government and they have a fairly robust offering that multiple agencies use. So its not as big a mono culture as you might think. I know this one contract makes lots of noise because its the DoD and people think the military is this huge organism, but the Department of Veterans Affairs was on tract to spend 1B on cloud per year and they use Azure ( as well as AWS )
    - aserafini 7y ago
      It blows my mind a department dedicated to Veterans Affairs can spend 1 billion on cloud computing in a year, do you have a source or any more information about what they’re spending that on?
      - maxehnert 7y ago
        They're probably the largest hospital provider in the country. Looking at their wiki it says there's 152 hospitals and 1400 outpatient facilities. Plus all the other VA responsibilities they fulfill. It's a big organization and they have a lot of 'customers'
tssva 7y ago
The options aren't just give $10B to AWS, Oracle, IBM or Microsoft. The JEDI should have been a multi-award IDIQ (indefinite delivery indefinite quantity) contract. With a multi-award IDIQ the each task order issued under the IDIQ is competed for among the multiple vendors the IDIQ has been awarded to. It is actually fairly unusual that this type of IT services contract was not done as a multi-award IDIQ. Having to compete for each task order is thought to reduce costs to the government. Of course having to compete each task brings its own additional costs which don't necessarily make the cost saving proposition true. The big benefit I see to this contract is that it helps prevent vendor lock-in. I don't worry about the next 10 years and $10B, but what happens after 10 years when the DoD is now locked in to proprietary AWS cloud features which make migrating to a different vendor technically and fiscally near impossible.
- dkhenry 7y ago
  You should not do infrastructure as IDIQ, this is an infrastructure contract. The idea that all contracts issued by IT are for "IT Services" is part of the reason digital systems at the DOD and other government agencies are such a nightmare. HAving a single system to build off of is the best way to do it, and not having that system be a customer solution for just the government is way better then not. Lock in is the only concern, but from my experience doing an IDIQ or multi-vendor won't solve the lock in problem. The best thing to solve that is to make sure your using bland normal things not customer government thigs.
  - killjoywashere 7y ago
    You know, I've been in some data centers and top 50 HPC clusters ... I don't understand why the US government doesn't run it's own cloud systems, except for the appropriations. There are enough computer scientists in the larger org to field a major distributed systems engineering group.
    - delfinom 7y ago
      >I don't understand why the US government doesn't run it's own cloud systems, except for the appropriations. Inability to pay high enough salaries for anyone to maintain it properly AND move it forward with new tech.
geofft 7y ago
As an opponent of US defense spending, this is why I strongly favor Oracle or IBM getting the contract.
- ImprovedSilence 7y ago
  Because you’d rather have wasteful spending than moderately productive spending...? Seems like you want the government to waste money just so you can say “I told you so”. Like it or not, defense spending is a huge boost to the middle class stem job market, and taking it out would have consequences wider ranging than you think. With “white collar welfare” I’d argue the gov gets a better return on its investment than most other options, while arguably making it harder for developing nations to become a threat via brain drain because the stem market is strong here.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    As you may remember from the Project Maven controversy, there are a lot of people on HN and in the tech community who are fundamentally opposed to the US military being more effective at carrying out its missions.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      There are also a lot of people who support military effectiveness and efficiency. And even more who remember where Silicon Valley's initial contracts came from...
  - geofft 7y ago
    Yes, precisely—wasteful defense spending accomplishes the goal of supporting the middle class with jobs while failing at the goal of killing people. It's not an "I told you so" thing. I'm genuinely fine with massive taxpayer-supported boondoggles that create jobs in the long term. My objection to defense spending is that it kills people, not that it takes money from my paycheck to create more paychecks.
    - 7y ago

bob33212 7y ago

Especially since that 10B becomes 20B when in 5 years, Oracle tells you that you that your initial implementations are being EOLed and you need to start over.

tootie 7y ago
It's $2B for services, 8 for litigation.

whoisthisfor 7y ago

I'd be fine with either AWS or Azure getting the contact. It makes sense to pick one provider, as their workloads are ... unique.

iamtheworstdev 7y ago
I've been torn on this contract from a professional experience POV. In the IC we got AWS after they beat out IBM and the IBM protest. I'm an AWS fan so I was excited and it worked well for me when I was a contractor (I'm no longer in the space). But having the DOD on AWS along with the IC concerns me from a lack of diversity standpoint. I've always said that Microsoft and Google should have teamed up a bit to make a competitive run. But I don't think anyone was ever interested in sharing the contract to begin with.
- dkhenry 7y ago
  Azure has a large presence in the government and they have a fairly robust offering that multiple agencies use. So its not as big a mono culture as you might think. I know this one contract makes lots of noise because its the DoD and people think the military is this huge organism, but the Department of Veterans Affairs was on tract to spend 1B on cloud per year and they use Azure ( as well as AWS )
  - aserafini 7y ago
    It blows my mind a department dedicated to Veterans Affairs can spend 1 billion on cloud computing in a year, do you have a source or any more information about what they’re spending that on?
    - maxehnert 7y ago
      They're probably the largest hospital provider in the country. Looking at their wiki it says there's 152 hospitals and 1400 outpatient facilities. Plus all the other VA responsibilities they fulfill. It's a big organization and they have a lot of 'customers'

tssva 7y ago

The options aren't just give $10B to AWS, Oracle, IBM or Microsoft. The JEDI should have been a multi-award IDIQ (indefinite delivery indefinite quantity) contract. With a multi-award IDIQ the each task order issued under the IDIQ is competed for among the multiple vendors the IDIQ has been awarded to. It is actually fairly unusual that this type of IT services contract was not done as a multi-award IDIQ. Having to compete for each task order is thought to reduce costs to the government. Of course having to compete each task brings its own additional costs which don't necessarily make the cost saving proposition true. The big benefit I see to this contract is that it helps prevent vendor lock-in. I don't worry about the next 10 years and $10B, but what happens after 10 years when the DoD is now locked in to proprietary AWS cloud features which make migrating to a different vendor technically and fiscally near impossible.

dkhenry 7y ago
You should not do infrastructure as IDIQ, this is an infrastructure contract. The idea that all contracts issued by IT are for "IT Services" is part of the reason digital systems at the DOD and other government agencies are such a nightmare. HAving a single system to build off of is the best way to do it, and not having that system be a customer solution for just the government is way better then not. Lock in is the only concern, but from my experience doing an IDIQ or multi-vendor won't solve the lock in problem. The best thing to solve that is to make sure your using bland normal things not customer government thigs.
- killjoywashere 7y ago
  You know, I've been in some data centers and top 50 HPC clusters ... I don't understand why the US government doesn't run it's own cloud systems, except for the appropriations. There are enough computer scientists in the larger org to field a major distributed systems engineering group.
  - delfinom 7y ago
    >I don't understand why the US government doesn't run it's own cloud systems, except for the appropriations. Inability to pay high enough salaries for anyone to maintain it properly AND move it forward with new tech.

geofft 7y ago

As an opponent of US defense spending, this is why I strongly favor Oracle or IBM getting the contract.

ImprovedSilence 7y ago
Because you’d rather have wasteful spending than moderately productive spending...? Seems like you want the government to waste money just so you can say “I told you so”. Like it or not, defense spending is a huge boost to the middle class stem job market, and taking it out would have consequences wider ranging than you think. With “white collar welfare” I’d argue the gov gets a better return on its investment than most other options, while arguably making it harder for developing nations to become a threat via brain drain because the stem market is strong here.
- philwelch 7y ago
  As you may remember from the Project Maven controversy, there are a lot of people on HN and in the tech community who are fundamentally opposed to the US military being more effective at carrying out its missions.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    There are also a lot of people who support military effectiveness and efficiency. And even more who remember where Silicon Valley's initial contracts came from...
- geofft 7y ago
  Yes, precisely—wasteful defense spending accomplishes the goal of supporting the middle class with jobs while failing at the goal of killing people. It's not an "I told you so" thing. I'm genuinely fine with massive taxpayer-supported boondoggles that create jobs in the long term. My objection to defense spending is that it kills people, not that it takes money from my paycheck to create more paychecks.
  - 7y ago