First glance: breakdown of the JEDI Cloud RFP

After some delay and two rounds of drafts, the Department of Defense (DoD) has released the final RFP for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud Requirement. As many expected, the RFP contemplates a single source Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) award. There are a number of changes when compared to the previous draft RFPs – some of which address option structure, pricing, security requirements, and information sharing.

First glance takeaways

Option Period Structure: 

• This Commercial Item acquisition under FAR Part 12 is for up to 10 years depending on contractor performance, and is worth up to $10 Billion with a $1 Million minimum guaranteed award amount. The IDIQ contract is structured to begin in April 2019 with a two year base period, followed by two continuous three year option periods, and one final two year option period.

Order Type: 

• All task orders awarded under the IDIQ contract will be Firm Fixed Price (FFP). The FFP task orders are for infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) solutions, to be priced based on the awarded contractor’s commercial catalog. This means that FFP orders will be priced as a service based on a proposed fixed unit amounts. Time and Materials (T&M) or Labor Hours orders are not allowed.

Commercial Parity:

• The commercial catalog concept underpins DoD’s goal of enabling market forces to drive FFP task order amounts and allow solutions to keep pace with industry advancements. The commercial parity requirement means that reductions in catalog pricing will trigger reductions in JEDI cloud services pricing. When reductions in catalog pricing take place, the awarded vendor would have 45 days to submit a revised catalog for incorporation into the contract. For unclassified services, JEDI prices would match the reduction in commercial catalog prices, and for classified services, JEDI prices would be reduced by a negotiated percentage of the net difference of the newly lowered rate for the unclassified service. The contract also has a “new services” clause which allows new solutions to be added to the contract as they are added to the contractor’s commercial catalog.

Commerciality Gate Requirement:

• The RFP has a number of unique gate requirements which will serve to weed out prospective vendors. One of the most important is a commerciality requirement which states that revenue attributable to the Government’s cloud usage must be less than 50% of the prospective vendor’s proposed commercial cloud offering.

Accreditation / Security Requirements: 

• The RFP states that at the time of proposal it is not necessary to have an accredited classified cloud environment, but an offeror must be able to meet the requirements established in the JEDI Cloud Cyber Security Plan within 30 days of contract award for unclassified services, within 180 days of contract award for classified services at the Secret level, and within 270 days of contract award for classified services at the Top Secret level. While this is expected to be a boon to many prospective vendors who are in the midst of strengthening their cloud offerings to meet rigorous classified data hosting standards, DoD is requiring that the vendor have at least three data centers in the US that are all supporting at least one IaaS and PaaS offering that are certified as “FEDRAMP moderate”.

Upcoming Information Sharing Deadlines: 

• Some of the more sensitive portions of the Cyber Security Plan are classified as For Official Use Only (FOUO). To gain access to these documents prospective vendors must complete a Non-Disclosure agreement (solicitation attachment J-9) and send to [email protected] by 10 a.m. on August 9, 2018.
• Additionally, there is the opportunity for contractors to ask questions to the Government in a live in-person session at the Pentagon. Fifteen (15) one-hour sessions are available August 13-15, 2018 on a first-come, first-served basis. Written requests for an in-person session are due to [email protected] by 5 p.m. ET on July 31, 2018.
• Written-questions not related to the in-person Q&A session are due August 16, 2018 by 11 a.m. ET.

Prospective offerors have until 10:00am ET on September 17, 2018 to submit their bids.

For more information on this topic, or to learn how Baker Tilly specialists can help, contact our team.