While the Department of War’s (DoW) fallout with Anthropic dominates headlines, in the annals of the Pentagon, a far less sexy and far more symbiotic relationship with tech companies hums along. IT modernization may not sound consequential or impressive, but migrating to and managing systems in the cloud is no small feat. Enter the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) program, a part-voluntary, part-mandated cloud acquisition facilitator for the armed services, combatant commands, and sundry DoW agencies.
In 2022, JWCC improved upon its politicized, years-behind-expectation predecessor by opening up its $9 billion in contracts to four vendors instead of just one. Drawing inspiration from a similar platform that the CIA stood up in 2020 for the intelligence community, JWCC allows each cloud service provider (CSP) to bid on each contract, rather than a single winner-take-all mega-contract. JWCC doesn’t just centralize cloud contracts, though, it also offers a more centralized strategy for managing, moving, and using data.
A key component of that strategy involves cloud interoperability and portability. That is, JWCC’s overseeing office aims to have data flow across providers without unreasonable latency (i.e. lag), to have applications translate well across cloud environments, and to structure data and applications so they can permanently migrate off their current cloud. Cloud interoperability and portability have proven to be a bit of a white whale: for the last few years, regulators and industry watchers have routinely pushed CSPs to seamlessly harmonize their cloud architectures. While some progress has been made, complete interoperability is next to impossible. Given that, JWCC stands out. And it’s not just its approach to interoperability that’s notable. If the saga with Anthropic is a masterclass in what not to do as an agency, then JWCC offers lessons in multi-cloud provision, in government procurement, and in government efficiency.
