Nearly 50 JWCC task orders awarded last year; dozens more in the pipeline

The Department of Defense has awarded close to 50 task orders in the last year for its enterprise cloud capability, according to Pentagon Chief Information Officer John Sherman.

More than 47 task orders were awarded by the Defense Information Systems Agency, which runs the contract, and over 50 more are in the pipeline presently, Sherman told the House Armed Services Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation Subcommittee Friday.

The task orders are part of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), the Pentagon’s highly anticipated $9 billion enterprise cloud effort that replaced the aborted Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program. Google, Oracle, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft were all awarded under the JWCC program in December 2022 and will each compete for task orders.

That effort is critical to enabling the U.S. military’s top priority of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), which envisions how systems across the entire battlespace from all the services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders, faster.

“Following our award of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract in December 2022, DoD Components now have access to commercial cloud computing at all three security classifications, from the headquarters to the tactical edge, which is critical to enabling Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) and other important efforts, such as modern software development and artificial intelligence,” Sherman and DISA Director Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner told the subcommittee in written testimony. “In the first year of execution, the team was focused on helping Mission Partners through the acquisition process and adopt JWCC … We published guidance for the use of JWCC and cloud rationalization to streamline cloud contracting and reduce contract sprawl across the Department.”

For years, the Pentagon has articulated the critical need for enterprise cloud capabilities that can provide data and information flow at the tactical edge for decision makers and military units.

“The current crisis in Ukraine and CJADC2 experiments demonstrate the need for rapid extension of enhanced edge computing capabilities globally to reduce network latency, enable advanced data processing such as AI, and improve operational resilience,” Sherman and Skinner wrote. “The DoD CIO, [Chief Digital and AI Officer], and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security are engaged with the Combatant Commands (CCMD), the MILDEPs, and forward deployed partners to deliver the latest cloud computing and communications technologies to meet these requirements.”

Skinner also told the committee the department has deployed an initial overseas cloud supporting Indo-Pacific Command missions.

“In the last 12 months, the DoD CIO, in partnership with DISA, successfully deployed the initial [outside the continental United States] commercial cloud capability in support of INDOPACOM missions. This OCONUS cloud capability will establish the OCONUS portion of the global, resilient, and secure information environment that supports the National Defense Strategy’s (NDS) top priorities. Specifically, the OCONUS cloud enables warfighting and mission command, resulting in improved agility, greater lethality, and improved decision-making at all levels,” the written testimony stated.

Moreover, DISA has expanded the Stratus Private Cloud outside the continental U.S. to enable hybrid cloud deployments overseas.