Oracle Loses Protest of Pentagon Cloud Bid Seen Favoring Amazon

Oracle has failed in its bid to protest against a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract bidding process that the company—and many others—claim is designed for Amazon to win.

I can't wrap my head around our nation outsourcing the digital content of the Pentagon.

Even scarier.

Oracle has been complaining about the bidding process for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, or JEDI, for months. It and other bidders such as Google, which withdrew its bid last month, said the contract should be split between different providers rather than going to just one winner. The idea is that this benefits Amazon because Amazon already has big government cloud contracts, most notably a $600 million deal with the CIA.

Fortune

At least it's called JEDI, other than that I hate it.

I've read several articles and haven't found what exactly will be stored in this cloud. Hopefully someone with understanding can chime in.

So what happens if Amazon gets the Pentagon and the CIA?

Could our government even go after Amazon should they start running a muck?

Are we comfortable with Jeff Bezos who has more net worth than the GDP of 50 countries with nation security secrets?

a reply to: CriticalStinker
That (the cloud outsourcing idea) is the dumbest thing I heard in recent weeks.

What happened to inhouse trained staff? I feel that technology outruns common sense, most of the deciders probably have zero clue what they are doing.

To put it in perspective, no sane person would put their documents in a library, protected by some lock or guard, at a distant location you have no physical control over.

I´ve never used "clouds" and I would never upload private photos or documents to the internet, just so that I have 24/7 access to it. A little planing into the day should do the trick.

But you never know if you need to have ASAP access to that picture of the steak you took, two days ago. Because you might want to show it to someone...

Just dumb.

The "you" isn´t directed at you CriticalStinker

Edit: Yes, clouds have their raison d'être in some cases. Cloud is just a fancy word though for different technology that had been around for years, but combined to a "new" product.

It´s just a server with some account management, intrusion detection and load balancing...

a reply to: verschickter

Haha, I know the you wasn't directed at me.

I have no clue why we would do this or even have the information on a cloud to begin with.

It needs to be an intranet server in house at the Pentagon.

It shouldn't even be connected to the internet. Airgap sensitive files and if an employee needs to use the internet, it needs to be done in a completely different area of the building. The two should never connect.

Not surprising. All the years I was active, a contractor, then civil service in the Air Force, Oracle software was always garbage and never met our needs. It’s like they were still learning programming from the 70s while we needed advanced software for the 00s.

Once, while upgrading personnel software, an issue with their “new” software caused the loss of everyones DOB and SSN. Had to be manually recaptured.

Not a fan of Amazon, but any product would be better than Oracle. And I do agree on your assessment of digital storage, though I’d like to think back up tapes will be in place for the critical stuff.

a reply to: Lab4Us

Not a fan of Amazon, but any product would be better than Oracle. And I do agree on your assessment of digital storage, though I’d like to think back up tapes will be in place for the critical stuff.

My problem isn't with us having backups, it's them having any of it.

How are we supposed to go after Amazon if they have leverage on our government (in the event they just start ignoring laws).

Bezos already owns the Washington Post, at what point to we wonder what his end game is?

I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire Academi (formerly Blackwater). Is that when we're aloud to say wtf?

Well.. AWS is huge and I can see it as a massive money saver because I bet ya 100% that the military is using AWS especially for security.

You can open up shop through a proxy and setup instances of anything on the stop of a dime with AWS. This will save the government a ton of money in infrastructure upgrades.

Oracle isnt going anywhere however. But I get it.

a reply to: Lab4Us

Think too it is built with the idea of scalability in mind.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker

Are we comfortable with Jeff Bezos who has more net worth than the GDP of 50 countries with nation security secrets?

Hell No. To put it into perspective think of Howard Hughes relationship with the national security state and then multiply exponentially. Bezos is a card-carrying member.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Larry isn't happy . Not too long ago he was trashing on Amazon on how AMAZON runs all their backend and internal databases on Oracle, lol.

The thing about Oracle is they are technically at the top in the db world, but are a pain in the arse to deal with when it comes to licenses and audits. He must have really pissed of Bezos for him to pull this off.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

I'm not a fan of Amazon winning Military contracts.

But I'm not sad to see Oracle lose out. Most of our systems run on oracle platforms and they suck.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Not sure if they do it by intention or mistake but it´s something I would not do.

Like you wrote, air gapped, intranet, removeable drives so that you physically have to mount them. So that only a small part is loaded and reachable from the system, depending on the needs.

The more insensitive the data gets, the more comfort (more info per drive etc). Yes it´s inconvenient but way better than exposing such attack vectors, in the current day and age.

a reply to: verschickter

The more insensitive the data gets, the more comfort (more info per drive etc). Yes it´s inconvenient but way better than exposing such attack vectors, in the current day and age.

Inconvenience is part of keeping secrets inaccessible. Loose lips use to sink ships, but now IT vulnerabilities do.

Hell, Russia still uses paper and messengers for their biggest secrets.

Yeah but can I one click order an M16 with optional grenade launcher?

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Bezos already owns the Washington Post, at what point to we wonder what his end game is?

From my vantage that point was reached three decades ago when conservative America placed so much trust in Reagan and smaller government. Allowing for less restrictions on corporate control of just about everything.

The model laid out back then which has continued to today in much of the conservative platform is smaller government and outsourcing, cutting down on government over-bloat and allowing the private sector to run things. I remember how that was a strong belief back then. The private sector is much more efficient then government agencies and should be allowed to run much of the work done back then by government employees.

At that time I was in a government career and watched all around me as jobs and whole departments were closed down and turned over to private companies.

Liberals at that time were more cautious of handing over governmental agencies to private control for this very reason. The voracious appetite of profit driven corporatism and their urge to own everything.

So I at least am not surprised at all that stuff like this is occurring. I'm not happy with it but as things are, capitalism has won and this is what the spoils are for the victors.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: CriticalStinker
That (the cloud outsourcing idea) is the dumbest thing I heard in recent weeks.

What happened to inhouse trained staff? I feel that technology outruns common sense, most of the deciders probably have zero clue what they are doing.

To put it in perspective, no sane person would put their documents in a library, protected by some lock or guard, at a distant location you have no physical control over.

I´ve never used "clouds" and I would never upload private photos or documents to the internet, just so that I have 24/7 access to it. A little planing into the day should do the trick.

But you never know if you need to have ASAP access to that picture of the steak you took, two days ago. Because you might want to show it to someone...

Just dumb.

The "you" isn´t directed at you CriticalStinker

Edit: Yes, clouds have their raison d'être in some cases. Cloud is just a fancy word though for different technology that had been around for years, but combined to a "new" product.

It´s just a server with some account management, intrusion detection and load balancing...

It was an idea pushed by Sun and other Silicon Valley CEO's. This was at the time that Video-On-Demand for cable TV networks was still unfeasable (aka. Youtube). The idea back then was that network connections were getting so fast, server memory so large and cheap, that it was going to be cheaper to see data streaming and processing as a utility service, rather than as a business asset. Why store music and data locally when it is always there on a network server.

Suppose you have a small animation company who needs to boost the size of their render farm for a six month project. They could buy or lease PC's, hire a contract technician to install and setup every server, test the network, and do all sorts of other admin stuff. Alternatively, they just go to a cloud provider who already has those servers set up and configured, get a VPN account, and install their rendering software and get the animation done and sent back to their network.

Or maybe you have a website that does online purchases. Business is picking up, but you don't have the time to upgrade your network links, transaction servers or billing. So it is easier to just go to your ISP and get a larger VM configuration.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

I think you bring up a very interesting point, OP. However, the Government has been outsourcing sensitive defense and other contracts to civilian contractors for as long as I can remember. Maybe your point is Amazon is too big to get the same kind of contracts a Raytheon, GD, Lockheed Martin or Boeing might receive?

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: CriticalStinker

I think you bring up a very interesting point, OP. However, the Government has been outsourcing sensitive defense and other contracts to civilian contractors for as long as I can remember. Maybe your point is Amazon is too big to get the same kind of contracts a Raytheon, GD, Lockheed Martin or Boeing might receive?

I thought about that when I wrote this.

The contracts they receive though are for specific functions, like weaponry and such. I know there are technological roles like satellites and such, but without going on wild tangents I do think it is different.

Every western country does that.

But why would you trust partially storing all your data with one company? Boeing and Lockheed are competitors, and there are more in that mix. Get some bad blood and go to the other.

But if they end up putting vast amounts of our data in one external entities is just a line we shouldn't go past.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I wouldn't say this is capitalism's faults, rather our governments inability to separate itself from Corporations in the right way.

It's fine that the government wants to outsource some things.

Do we need to build jets? Is it okay that SpaceX has shown they can build rockets with extreme efficiency (and they have competitors if that doesn't work out.

I think the problem is when we allowed so much money to flood into politics. Where is the line.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

You know Amazon is better at infosec than the government right?

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: CriticalStinker

You know Amazon is better at infosec than the government right?

It wouldn't surprise me.

Do you think that outsourcing is better than paying more to keep it internal and not leveraging ourselves?

Keep in mine, you'll rarely hear me say pay more in the context of our government, but if it takes getting the right people for that job, so be it.