Two Cloud-Related Items to Keep On Your Radar

Legislation and policy have an outsized impact on the public sector cloud market. These influences can often take a while to manifest, but once they are in place they can have a dramatic impact. Take, for example, the shift from Cloud First to Cloud Smart that occurred a few years ago. As a result of it, agency technology leaders began applying cloud technology where it fit best and at a pace aligned with their available resources and technical expertise. This policy shift spurred huge growth in the market as agencies went all-in leveraging cloud-based solutions to modernize their IT environments.

A similar shift could occur in fiscal 2024 and beyond if a currently pending bill in the U.S. House of Representatives is signed into law and a policy just announced by the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer is applied as widely as it could be. The legislation is the Multi-Cloud Innovation and Advancement Act and the policy is a memorandum published by the DOD CIO last week called “The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) and Next Steps to Rationalize Cloud Use Across the Department of Defense.”

The Multi-Cloud Innovation and Advancement Act

This Act seeks to ensure that federal agencies increase the efficiency of, eliminate the duplication of and standardize the security of the cloud services they have been procuring for more than a decade. The act also addresses the government’s shortage of acquisition personnel trained in the procurement of cloud services. If signed into law, the Act would require the following:

• Within one year after the Act is signed, the Administrator of the General Services Administration, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Administrator of the United States Digital Service are to
  • Examine how agencies can implement a multi-cloud computing software architecture to enable the portability and interoperability of cloud services from multiple providers.
  • Develop a technical roadmap for implementing the architecture.
• The Comptroller General of the U.S. is directed to:
  • Assess the state of the digital skills and expertise gap within the federal workforce relating to information and communications technology, particularly as it pertains to cloud computing and multi-cloud software.

Make recommendations for federal workforce development activities, trainings and certification to close the identified gap.

Market Implications: If signed into law this bill would stimulate a need for contracted cloud engineering services, for the adoption of commercially-developed multi-cloud management software and, potentially, for training services for federal acquisition personnel. It has become indisputable that agencies need to get a handle on the cloud sprawl that currently characterizes the market.

DOD CIO Cloud Rationalization Memo

This memo mandates the streamlining of cloud activities across the DOD according to the following guidelines:

• The Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Agencies, and all DOD Field Activities must use the JWCC vehicle to procure future cloud capabilities. Capabilities currently being provided under other contract vehicles will transition to JWCC upon period of performance expiration. Components and Field Activities may also use DISA’s Stratus cloud.
• All DOD components, military departments, and combatant commands must use the JWCC for all new cloud offerings required at Data Impact Level 6 (Secret / Top Secret). This includes capabilities required at the tactical edge or OCONUS.
• Military departments and Combatant Commands may continue to procure cloud capabilities for requirements below Secret / Top Secret using other contracts and vehicles, although they are encouraged to use the JWCC instead.

In addition, the DOD CIO is updating the cloud governance structure as part of the DOD’s digital modernization and is compiling a catalog of contracts currently in use across the department. To that end, all components are required to provide a list of their current cloud service providers, the acquisition vehicles being used for cloud, cloud capabilities/services currently being procured, including pricing, plans for the future acquisition of cloud services and integrators or third-parties through which a cloud service is being procured.

Market Implications: This memo should be considered a hint that eventually all capabilities currently provided to the military departments at all data impact levels are likely to be consolidated into the JWCC. Efficiency will demand it. Remember the MilCloud efforts? The DOD canceled them and transferred the workloads after JWCC was awarded. I expect this will be the case with other contracts/efforts in the next three years. Doing so will then have a big impact on the availability of business opportunities across the DOD. Companies offering capabilities to defense customers are therefore advised to ensure their solutions are compatible with one or more of the enterprise JWCC clouds.