Seems a bit too tailored though - "To even make a bid, a provider must maintain a distance of at least 150 miles between its data centers, a prerequisite that only Amazon can currently meet. JEDI also asks for “32 GB of RAM”—the precise specification of Amazon’s services. (Microsoft, by contrast, offers only 28 GB, and Google provides 30 GB.) In places, JEDI echoes Amazon’s own language: It calls for a “ruggedized” storage system, the same word Amazon uses to tout its Snowball Edge product."
If anybody wants to go to the source: <a href="https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=documents&tabmode=form&subtab=core&tabid=48834ebc53422026828dc19dc681a6d2" rel="nofollow">https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=documents&tabmode=form&subtab=...</a><p>I skimmed through some of this and I don't see anything obviously rigged for AWS. There are mentions of 32GB VMs, but it doesn't say they have to be exactly 32GB. I found the 150-mile requirement but it also doesn't look AWS-specific. The description of the ruggedized "tactical edge" device doesn't sound identical to the existing Snowball Edge.
Everyone seems focused on the numbers 32GB or 150 miles...Amazon has moved into lobbying in a big way. That is the actual story. Bigger than major investment banks. Bezos owns the only paper in Washington that actually does journalism. People involved with Amazon and the head of the DOD have been instrumental in crafting the proposal for JEDI.<p>Just because you learned AWS and it's been good for your resume doesn't mean that they aren't being underhanded in D.C.<p>If you are going to be a fan boy about it, then you should be excited that they seem to be outmaneuvering established players in the federal sector. That's what's happening.<p>This isn't "they built a better mousetrap", this is "they hired all the people that are ever asked about mousetraps, and they changed the language that you have to use to ask for a mousetrap, and they took over one of the better outlets that runs stories about fraud in the mousetrap business. Oh and their commodity mousetrap business is one of three equally good ones."<p>I know that you think AWS is WAY better and that it makes a difference. It doesn't. Azure and GCP are just as good for most of the things that people are building these days. Sure there are differences, but it's a commodity market.
Why would such a massively important backbone of US defense want to rely on only a single provider? It should be using all 3 of the major players (or others) and even some on premise stuff. This seems like a nightmare waiting to happen, and crony capitalism at its finest. The fact that Amazon says in the article that using fail overs to other providers is some hassle...is just amazing.
> To even make a bid, a provider must maintain a distance of at least 150 miles between its data centers, a prerequisite that only Amazon can currently meet<p>I don't get this one.<p>Azure's government data centers are in Virginia, Iowa, Arizona, and Texas. Their DoD data centers are Virginia and Iowa. I don't know where they are in those specific states, but the only pair that could be less than 150 miles apart are Texas and Arizona, and that is only if the Arizona one is within a few miles of the SE corner of Arizona and the Texas one is up in the NW sort-of corner of Texas.
FWIW, it's a long-time, standard complaint by the losers that the specs were written in a way that favored the winner. On one hand, it's an obvious tactic for insiders to favor certain outsiders.<p>On the other, of course the winner has capabilities that better suit the specs - that's the goal of competitive bidding and we should hope that it's true of all winning bidders. So the fact that the winner's capabilities match the specs well doesn't tell us anything; if they didn't match well, it would be signal of corruption in the selection process.
Amazon being in line to win a large government contract while the President openly despises Amazon is actually a testament to proper government procurement. The real scandal would be if the President ordered Amazon to not be considered because of his personal beef with the Washington Post (and IMO general jealousy regarding Bezos who is actually as successful as Trump has always dreamed of being).<p>tl;dr It is not a scandal that the leading cloud provider is in the pole position for a large cloud contract.
More concerning is the fact that the UK government is happy to store UK data in the US with AWS under its "G-cloud" scheme. At least the US guys have picked a "local" vendor.
I have DoD clients currently doing app dev on new and replacement (for legacy) systems. This writers attempt at making the DoD contract look like a conspiracy is infuriating. The developer experience in the current data center ecosystem is toxic. The infrastructure and insecurity woes compound daily. I don’t care how much Bezos makes, he has a great product and DoD, nay the country, need this. GovCloud would be ice water for people in hell.<p>I’m mad about this because this affects individual contributors, on up to the country at large. Currently money is wasted and systems are built in ridiculous ways. Imagine each sub program in a branch of service rolling it’s own IAM. That’s just a glimpse at what’s going on. The undifferentiated heavy lifting is unfathomable.<p>Before you respond with virtue signaling about war know that most DoD software is for logistics. Done better it boils down to not wasting tax payer money.
Ah, so this is why Amazon is evidently making a big hiring push for people with Top Secret clearances, right? <a href="https://www.amazon.jobs/en-gb/landing_pages/AWSClearedVets" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.jobs/en-gb/landing_pages/AWSClearedVets</a>
"without the guy in the White House even batting an eye."<p>Do they not read Trump's Twitter? He's complained about Amazon and Bezos a ton.
While this does seem like an insiders rigged game, is that necessarily bad? Business is about relationships. It’s has always been this way and will always continue to be this way. People do business with people they know and like. While the govt is not technically a business as such, awarding a contract is still a business transaction. If the DOD know and trust people at amazon to do a good job, then why shouldn’t amazon get the contract? AWS is an industry leader (if not the leader? Somebody correct me) who obviously knows a great deal about doing a project of this magnitude. It seems to me they would probably do as good a job as any of the other candidates (which seems to be realistically azure or google cloud) so I don’t really see why this is a bad thing.<p>TLDR: amazon knows people at dod, they decide to do business together, who cares?