Classified Workloads Coming to MilCloud This Summer, GDIT Says
Just_Super/istockphoto
By
Mila Jasper
And DOD’s deputy chief information officer said DISA’s on-premise cloud contract is part of a group of offerings filling the JEDI void.
The process to certify milCloud 2.0 for classified use is underway and on track to be ready to go this summer, according to General Dynamics Information Technology, the contractor that supports the program.
Jim Matney, GDIT’s vice president and general manager for the Defense Information Systems Agency and the enterprise services sector, told Nextgov in an interview Tuesday that approval for one location of the Defense Department’s on-premise cloud offering has already gone through. Once a second facility receives approval, milCloud 2.0 will be on track to receive a third-party assessment.
Impact Level 6 authorization will allow milCloud 2.0 to host classified workloads, and with that designation will likely come additional migrations. The number of workloads on milCloud 2.0 doubled in 2020 compared to 2019.
Danielle Metz, DOD’s deputy chief information officer for the information enterprise, told Nextgov in an interview Thursday that milCloud 2.0 is part of a suite of cloud offerings from DISA and the military services filling the need for a general purpose cloud as articulated in the DOD Cloud Strategy. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, enterprise cloud was meant to serve as the main general purpose option, but the contract continues to be held back by legal challenges.
“I think that we're achieving an aspect of what we meant by the enterprise general purpose cloud concept, what is missing and what continues to miss is that end-to-end from your enterprise, all levels of classes, classification to the tactical,” Metz said. “That does not exist today, that is what JEDI is to bring to the table, that is what the department truly needs, and so we're committed to ensuring that we have that, but all the while we don't want to stop progress.”
As the Amazon Web Services protest of the JEDI award to Microsoft continues, Metz said DOD is directing components to existing vehicles like DISA’s milCloud 2.0 or the Air Force’s Cloud One to ensure cloud contracts do not continue to proliferate out of hand.
The milCloud 2.0 project took a big step toward general purpose capabilities in February when it added AWS to the offering. Matney told Nextgov previously that AWS is able to provide software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service capabilities, whereas GDIT is focused on infrastructure-as-a-service.