Clouds – raining money.

The US Defense Department has awarded a massive $9 billion cloud computing contract to four tech giants: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle. This represents a significant shift in how the military approaches its digital infrastructure strategy.

The contract structure is interesting, with each provider guaranteed a minimum contract value of just $100,000. This follows Microsoft's previous $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defence Initiative contract from 2019, showing the DoD's continued investment in cloud capabilities.

What I like about this approach is the opportunity to design in a level of redundancy by leveraging services from the four biggest cloud providers. Having multiple providers reduces single points of failure and creates a more resilient infrastructure foundation for critical defense operations.

However, I'm skeptical about the surprisingly small minimum contract values. With a $9 billion total contract split among four major providers, the $100,000 minimums seem almost tokenistic. This raises questions about how the contract will actually be distributed and whether all providers will receive meaningful work.

More concerning is the broader question of private firms handling defense data strategy. While these companies have the technical expertise, there are legitimate concerns about data sovereignty, security clearances, and the appropriate level of private sector involvement in national security infrastructure.

Come on DoD – ignore the lobbyists and do your job right!

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