CIA reportedly seeking to hire multiple providers for new cloud computing contracts

guest · Feb 6, 2020

CIA reportedly seeking to hire multiple providers for new cloud computing contracts
February 5, 2020
https://siliconangle.com/2020/02/05...iple-providers-new-cloud-computing-contracts/

The Central Intelligence Agency is planning to adopt a multicloud strategy to hire multiple cloud infrastructure providers under a new project called the Commercial Cloud Enterprise initiative.
The initiative is meant to help the CIA expand the cloud computing capabilities it gained when it awarded a $600 million contract to Amazon Web Services Inc. back in 2013, Bloomberg said today.

The CIA has already presented procurement documents to several major cloud providers in a move that should “dramatically expand the federal cloud market.” The cloud providers are said to include Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp., and all three are likely to submit bids, the Bloomberg report added.

Under the C2E initiative, the CIA will award multiple contracts to cloud companies that can host data with varying security requirements, including unclassified, secret and top-secret information.
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Bloomberg: CIA Opens Competition for Lucrative Cloud Deals to Amazon Rivals

The CIA has previously indicated that it intended to spend “tens of billions” of dollars on cloud computing, Bloomberg has reported. It’s unclear whether the agency has finalized an amount it plans to spend.

The contracts could last for 15 years, with an initial five-year base period and two five-year renewals, Bloomberg said.

“In a multi-cloud ecosystem, the government will gain advantages from use of each” cloud service provider’s “unique area of investment in technology, cybersecurity strategy, and best practices,” according to the proposal.
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guest · Feb 7, 2020

The CIA wants to upgrade its cloud tech without DoD’s JEDI drama
February 7, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/07/the-cia-wants-to-upgrade-its-cloud-tech-without-dods-jedi-drama/

The CIA is ready to update its cloud technology, and multiple reports this week indicated that the agency has begun a multi-billion-dollar procurement process. A CIA spokesperson was tight-lipped when asked to confirm.

That could be because an agency used to working in secret simply wants to avoid all the attention that the Pentagon’s JEDI cloud procurement process got, and quietly go about its business. As we’ve learned, when you’re dealing with large cloud vendors like Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, and the contract involves billions, fireworks tend to follow.

The procurement process would be in two phases. In the first phase, they would pursue multiple vendors to provide “foundational cloud services.” In Phase 2, the department would layer on platform and software services on top of that Phase 1 foundation.

“The principal C2E Program objective is to acquire cloud computing services directly from commercial cloud service providers with established records for innovation and operational excellence in cloud service delivery for a large customer base,” the department stated in the presentation.
According to Nextgov, the draft RFP was released this week with a final request for proposals coming in the spring and a decision due in September.
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It’s mostly out of the public spotlight, covered by the government trade press, but largely ignored by mainstream tech publications. Perhaps that explains why the CIA, in need of a cloud update, has decided to be a bit more discreet about its plans.
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guest · Nov 21, 2020

Now that’s multicloud: CIA awards multibillion-dollar contract to AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM
November 20, 2020
https://siliconangle.com/2020/11/20...lar-contract-aws-microsoft-google-oracle-ibm/

The Central Intelligence Agency has awarded a long-awaited multibillion-dollar contract, called Commercial Cloud Enterprise or C2E, to the five major U.S. public cloud providers: Amazon Web Services Inc., Microsoft Corp., Google LLC, Oracle Corp. and IBM Corp.

The CIA didn’t disclose the value of the contract, but Nextgov, which broke the news late today, said procurement documents issued by the intelligence agency last year suggested the contract could be worth tens of billions of dollars over the next 15 years.
The contract calls for the companies to compete for specific “task orders” issued by the CIA for itself and also 16 other agencies making up the intelligence community.
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Under the new contract, details of which haven’t been released publicly yet, the CIA will enable the five cloud providers to compete for task orders at different security classification levels, up to top secret, Nextgov reported.

The CIA isn’t saying why it went the multicloud route, but former Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer John Sherman, now the principal deputy CIO in the Pentagon, earlier this year told FedScoop the thinking behind its desire to go multicloud.

“We are ready to move to an environment where we can use best-athlete capabilities, having potentially more than one vendor that brings different strengths on things like [artificial intelligence] and [machine learning] and different workloads and database management, all these kinds of different pieces going together to where, as an officer at one of the agencies, you can say my workload may run best in this cloud,” he said.
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The winning cloud providers not surprisingly crowed about the award.
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