Pentagon Amends JEDI Contract, Moves Forward Despite Protest

The Defense Department amended its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract Thursday, adding context to numerous industry questions on pricing, objectives, definitions and small business participation that were included in the final request for proposals that went out to bid in July.

The amended solicitation includes answers from the Pentagon to more than 200 industry questions and gives cloud service providers until Aug. 28 to submit further questions about the amended procurement.

“We are excited at the continued level of interest in JEDI Cloud and appreciate industry's participation in the solicitation process,” the Pentagon said in the update. “Since we feel that industry's participation is vital, we are providing a second, limited question and answer opportunity.”

The amendment will not delay the JEDI procurement. Cloud service providers aiming to bid on JEDI must submit their bids by Sept. 17.

The Pentagon makes clear in its solicitation and subsequent updates that it “is proceeding with the procurement” despite Oracle’s pre-award bid protest. The Pentagon directed industry questions regarding the protest to the Government Accountability Office, which has until November 14 to render a decision in the dispute.

The JEDI procurement, which will put a single cloud service provider in charge of hosting and distributing mission-critical workloads and classified military secrets to warfighters around the globe, continues to be a major source of intrigue. Companies have battled publicly and behind the scenes to position themselves to win the contract since it was announced last year.