Pentagon sticks to its guns: Yep, we're going with a single cloud services provider The US Department of Defense (DoD) still intends to choose just one vendor for its multibillion-dollar cloud contract – amid complaints from Oracle's co-CEO that such a plan "makes no sense". The Pentagon made waves last month when it published a draft proposal document calling for just one cloud services provider to run the …
Yet it's the term which is used in legal circles. I'm not a lawyer myself but my understanding is it specifically refers to someone offering a contract, without the ambiguity associated with all of your suggestions, at least from a legal standpoint.
The law (in various jurisdictions) is full of this sort of stuff. It makes sense to them. To the rest of us, your comment probably says it all.
Is an Offeror something like a Dementor?
No. Here's a definition of a Demetor. An Offeror is similar in most respects but MUCH more evil.
Well, even the BBC now uses the hateful "Coup Plotters", coined by some anonymous drone working for King George the First.
It seems that if the choice is to go looking in a thesaurus or simply stick "ers" on whatever verb is appropriate, Verb Stickers beat out Look Uppers every time.
Large chunks of this outsourcing are already outsourced - I believe IBM were the big losers in 2012 when a number of US government departments moved to some shiny new, government only bit-barns provided by AWS called "GovCloud".
The GovCloud DC's operate independently of the public AWS service and connectivity is "controlled". While I don't know for sure, I would assume Azure and Google have similar siloed DC's if they have any existing government contracts.
The AWS service is continuing to expand so I suspect Oracle's real question is "does this mean we missed out on the government cloud game?" I suspect I know the answer unless Oracle have some super secret DC's hiding somewhere...
Oracle has been a major beneficiary of DoD purchasing and probably still is. When I left government employ at the end of 2011, Oracle had a fairly secure lock on DoD large and medium database business and we had a lot of little ones on it as well. There were a few DB2 large mainframe databases and a sprinkling of DB2 for Linux/Unix/Windows and SQL Server on Windows. I had tried without success to stir up a little interest in Postgresql, for which commercial support then was about $700 per year as against the extortionate Oracle rates.
"All in one convenient place for the Dark Side to read accidentally unsecured data."
All in one convenient place for the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans to concentrate their hacking efforts.
Talk about painting a target on your back, all your eggs in one basket, single point of failure etc.
The force can have a strong influence on the weak minded:
BOFH: "You don't need to see his login credentials..."
General 1: "...We don't need to see his login credentials"
BOFH: "These aren't the files you're looking for..."
General 1:"...These aren't the files we're looking for"
You have no issues reaching it. A chat at dinner is of no consequence.
Hurding Catz have failed to understand the primary principles of Golfocracy. What is not decided on the Golf Course is not decided at all. Dinner... Pfa... Now hitting a few balls along the green at an exclusive Presidential Resort...
What is not decided on the Golf Course is not decided at all.
All the more reason to support my proposal for the prohibition of golf.
Make all of it illegal (professional and amateur, including putting and driving ranges, "crazy" golf, even practice swings in private, including the sort of noncey pretend swing that Demot O'Leary does. Plough up the golf courses and plant sprouts. Have the RAF's two remaining Tornados tour the nation, using precision weapons to take out golf club houses (maybe let the RN take out Wentworth with a small nuke on a Trident). Make ownership of golfing equipment, paraphernalia and clothing a criminal offence. Reintroduce the death penalty and corporal punishment to ensure justice has the tools to deal with the scourge.
And most important of all create a Golfing Offenders Register, with members of the public able to search for any registered offenders living near them.
I cant see Amazon getting an an easy time of this given the grudge that Trump has with them.
I bet if the Pentagon tries to sign a contract he will use his executive powers to veto it.
Even so i cant agree with any of these multi billion outsourcing contracts, they seldom deliver value for the tax payer and cost mega bucks to sort out if and when they crash.
"Even so i cant agree with any of these multi billion outsourcing contracts, they seldom deliver value for the tax payer and cost mega bucks to sort out if and when they crash."
Are you sure the existing services are in-sourced? A quick Google search suggests DoD were outsourcing at least as early as 1996.
This is an attempt to rein in spending on outsourcing providers (stares at a number of traditional US outsourcers using largely "legacy" data centres) by using more modern alternatives as other US Government departments have already done.
And while your comments about Trump not wanting to use Amazon, Oracle making public statements suggests they've already lost the cost war versus other providers and are hoping that complaining will allow them to retain their existing arrangements. I'm not sure Trump will be so interested in supporting excessive government spending on Oracle over a cheaper alternative...
I suspect that's he starts his negotiations; so, I'd suggest that AWS has good shot at it. He's being hardest on the most obvious choice so that they come in low.
Under most circumstances I'd say that's a good idea, but I'm not sure its total legal, OPOTUS being the President hence the acronym :P Either way it's certainly not ethical, but neither legalities nor ethics play a role bigly in OPOTUSs super eereeor mined ;)
I think these providers miss the point of the Pentagon. Its Not to provide large monolithic companies with a constant revenue stream. (Well unless your BAE systems, Lockheed martin or Nothrop Grumman, in which case all bets are off).
I think Oracle are just feeling the pressure of not being the only game in the field for Large data storage and processing. I sense an detailed Licence Audit comming up.... I think thats how they usually deal with this sort of thing isnt it?
Logged in to say the same thing - look at the wording of the objections - it's like a spoiled brat complaining that mommy isn't getting them the new thing they have to have to impress their pals.
I'd prefer our government look out for out interests, which have near-zero overlap with Oracle. Not to say that this is the best way to do that, but see above - the entitlement complex presented is just disgusting.
You forgot Boeing, probably the most-subsidized of the MIC in the US. No, make that the most subsidized company of any sort - for the most decades too. They even get an Ex-Im bank to loan foreign customers money to buy their products. Which some subset sometimes pay back someday. We pay the rest.
Personally, I hope IBM gets the contract because of their solid history in conventional data-centers & the requisite security associated with many of them. This gives them credibility when they present their "private cloud" offering to the DoD imho. But who knows? Anyway, it would be a huge shot in the arm for Big-Blue in the cloud space as AWS, Google & Microsoft has that segment on lock-down so far.
Oracle... the worst vendor in the world from an InfoSec prospective, and yet they want to provide their 2 cents worth. BTW Oracle, this decision makes fantastic sense.
- This is a private cloud system. So you want to manage it differently.
- Looking for one vender only, DOES spur competition. The best deal wins. Taxpayers like this.
- Choosing multiple vendors allows them to increase prices incrementally together. The costs will mainly be fixed, and the format will be such that, at the end of the contract, the DoD isn't subject to vendor lock in.
- One vendor means simplicity. Don't have to send personnel to a variety of vendor training courses. Again, great for the tax payer.
- One solution makes it much easier for patching and maintenance.
- One solution makes it easier to secure. MUCH easier to secure.
There is more, but you get the point.
Oracle is obviously isn't looking out for the tax payer or the security of DoD cloud data. It's only out for its own bottom line.
Oracle, get your security together before you start telling others how silly their ideas and solutions are.
Looking for one vender only, DOES spur competition. The best deal wins
But only for the initial purchase. Once signed, the vendor is more than able to screw the customer with either price increases, huge lags in price decreases or just s**t service.
As for a ten year contract: That's crazy. I'm reluctant to sign five year contracts, let alone a ten year contract. That's a guarantee of getting shafted by the supplier (Unless, of course, brown paper bags, etc...)
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