4 ms·

I don't think winning a federal contract is what would allow or disallow Amazon from having a monopoly on cloud, and I don't think the current state of the mark

I don't think winning a federal contract is what would allow or disallow Amazon from having a monopoly on cloud, and I don't think the current state of the market is monopoly (though oligopoly or duopoly might be appropriate).

Bedon292 6y ago
Amazon already has GovCloud and C2S. If they also got JEDI, they would have complete lock in / monopoly for all of the federal government's cloud services. And with the length of all these contracts, they get guaranteed lock in for a long time. There needs to be competitors in the space to prevent complete lock in. Otherwise the price of re-doing all the systems for a different cloud would be immense. They could basically set whatever price they want on their services, as long as it cheaper than the cost of moving they will keep the contracts for decades to come.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  MS and Google already have various government cloud deployments. Amazon just squatted on the "GovCloud" name. And Congress can always pass a law to limit prices, and the Executive can easily win an antitrust case if the vendor gouges them.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Amazon already has GovCloud and C2S. If they also got JEDI, they would have complete lock in / monopoly for all of the federal government's cloud services. GovCloud isn't a contract, it's a region certified to meet FedRAMP-HIGH and other federal data requirements (and is available to non-federal-government customers that need that, as well as federal government.) Microsoft has an equivalent (Azure Government), and it's public regions are FedRAMP-HIGH certified. GCP also has FedRAMP-HIGH certification in many of their public regions but doesn't seem to have anything directly comparable to AWS GovCloud or Azure Government currently. So, no, JEDI wouldn't give AWS a monopoly either on federal government cloud or cloud for people dealing with federal mandates like FedRAMP.
  - Bedon292 6y ago
    I did not mean to imply that GovCloud was a contract. I though it was the exclusive provider of isolated cloud services. I didn't realize Azure had its Government region. Glad that exists, I want to see that competition. However FedRAMP is not relevant to what I was trying to say. My understanding is government itself directly uses just the AWS and now Azure isolated regions. What I was meaning to say was for the DoD, which I though was exclusively under AWS GovCloud, and AWS C2S, rather than the whole government. They could certainly be using Azure Government though. I am glad to know there is more competition than I though. Thanks.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > My understanding is government itself directly uses just the AWS and now Azure isolated regions. This is not true, at least based on the discussions I've been involved in with AWS reps (while my employer is a state government entity, how the feds use AWS has frequently come up.) There are US Government customers without the requirements that are only provided on the isolated regions that use the commercial offerings that have the appropriate guarantees for their data, and there are non-federal customers that use the isolated government regions for data which has the higher-level federal requirements that require those guarantees. FedRAMP isn't the only force here, but it's a key requirement that drives the choice. (Also, GovCloud was cleared for some requirements before commercial offerings, so some customers, including some federal ones, are currently on GovCloud with workloads that could be served on the commercial regions now.)

Bedon292 6y ago

Amazon already has GovCloud and C2S. If they also got JEDI, they would have complete lock in / monopoly for all of the federal government's cloud services. And with the length of all these contracts, they get guaranteed lock in for a long time. There needs to be competitors in the space to prevent complete lock in. Otherwise the price of re-doing all the systems for a different cloud would be immense. They could basically set whatever price they want on their services, as long as it cheaper than the cost of moving they will keep the contracts for decades to come.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
MS and Google already have various government cloud deployments. Amazon just squatted on the "GovCloud" name. And Congress can always pass a law to limit prices, and the Executive can easily win an antitrust case if the vendor gouges them.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Amazon already has GovCloud and C2S. If they also got JEDI, they would have complete lock in / monopoly for all of the federal government's cloud services. GovCloud isn't a contract, it's a region certified to meet FedRAMP-HIGH and other federal data requirements (and is available to non-federal-government customers that need that, as well as federal government.) Microsoft has an equivalent (Azure Government), and it's public regions are FedRAMP-HIGH certified. GCP also has FedRAMP-HIGH certification in many of their public regions but doesn't seem to have anything directly comparable to AWS GovCloud or Azure Government currently. So, no, JEDI wouldn't give AWS a monopoly either on federal government cloud or cloud for people dealing with federal mandates like FedRAMP.
- Bedon292 6y ago
  I did not mean to imply that GovCloud was a contract. I though it was the exclusive provider of isolated cloud services. I didn't realize Azure had its Government region. Glad that exists, I want to see that competition. However FedRAMP is not relevant to what I was trying to say. My understanding is government itself directly uses just the AWS and now Azure isolated regions. What I was meaning to say was for the DoD, which I though was exclusively under AWS GovCloud, and AWS C2S, rather than the whole government. They could certainly be using Azure Government though. I am glad to know there is more competition than I though. Thanks.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > My understanding is government itself directly uses just the AWS and now Azure isolated regions. This is not true, at least based on the discussions I've been involved in with AWS reps (while my employer is a state government entity, how the feds use AWS has frequently come up.) There are US Government customers without the requirements that are only provided on the isolated regions that use the commercial offerings that have the appropriate guarantees for their data, and there are non-federal customers that use the isolated government regions for data which has the higher-level federal requirements that require those guarantees. FedRAMP isn't the only force here, but it's a key requirement that drives the choice. (Also, GovCloud was cleared for some requirements before commercial offerings, so some customers, including some federal ones, are currently on GovCloud with workloads that could be served on the commercial regions now.)