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As DISA preps JWCC-Next, Olympus, JOE initiatives take hold

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2 months ago

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The next version of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Computing contract is coming into focus.

While the final solicitation is still months away, the Defense Department is applying several lessons from the current JWCC vehicle as it completes its acquisition strategy.

John Hale, the chief of product management and development at the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is overseeing JWCC’s acquisition effort, said one of the biggest changes expected in JWCC-Next is not only opening it up to more hyperscale cloud service providers, but expanding the type of cloud service providers who could win a spot on the contract.

John Hale is the chief of product management and development at the Defense Information Systems Agency.

“We’ve made some modifications through the existing JWCC contract since we awarded it and most of those have been around getting access to the third-party vendors that are included with the large hyperscale providers,” Hale said in an interview with Federal News Network. “What we have learned as mission partners move to a particular hyperscale provider, they don’t just want that capability provided by that provider, they want all of the ancillary services that are provided as part of that ecosystem. So how do we get to that, and how do we provide that capability to a warfighter, rather than have them to do separate contracts for that kind of stuff? That’s where we’re trying to make the changes to get to that.”

Hale, who spoke Thursday at the Defense One DoD Cloud Workshop, said that means if a service wants access to a specific application that already is using infrastructure from AWS or Azure or Google or Oracle, they want a third party to help them implement that specific software.

DoD’s modification to JWCC aims to help the military services or defense agencies more easily move applications and services to the cloud.

Since the Pentagon awarded JWCC, which has a $9 billion ceiling, in November 2021, the military services or defense agencies have awarded a little over $3 billion in task orders. The military services are seeing the value of JWCC with the Army in June mandating the use of the contract vehicle for all new cloud acquisitions at the secret and unclassified levels.

JWCC-Next solicitation coming in 2026

Hale said DISA plans to release the solicitation for JWCC-Next in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 and make awards by early 2027. DoD has been thinking about the next version of JWCC since 2023 because of how quickly the cloud market has evolved.

“Our plan is to have enough overlap between the award of JWCC-Next and before JWCC, the current contract, expires so that we can do the transition nice and smooth during that that period,” he said.

JWCC is a 10-year contract and would expire in 2031, if DoD picks up all of its options.

While Hale said he couldn’t comment on the timing of any requests for information or even draft requests for proposals, he did say DISA is working closely with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Acquisition and Sustainment office on JWCC-Next.

“We’re working with A&S for two reasons because of the simple scope and scale of the contract. But then also, how do we how can we expand the base period of the contract to a longer period so we have less transitions in the future when mission partners are leveraging the capabilities,” he said. “One of the things we want to get to is through a fair and open competition, making longer term rewards, so that we can then make it less on us, on the mission partners as they transition from one [contract] to another.”

While JWCC-Next is a long-term initiative, DISA is aiming for two other initiatives to deliver new capabilities in the coming months.

One is called Olympus, which is DISA’s infrastructure-as-code initiative.

Hale said DISA plans to change its approach to how it offers Olympus starting next fiscal year.

OCONUS cloud access expanding

“We launched infrastructure-as-code basically two years ago, and the way infrastructure-as-code works is it’s a toolkit which mission partners could then download, manipulate, manage and run it themselves. The feedback we got from a lot of DoD mission partners is, ‘This is great, but we don’t want to run it,’” Hale said. “It’s in a pilot form right now, but we plan on transitioning it to a Defense working capital fund capability starting Oct. 1, so it’ll be available to mission partners to buy. Basically, it is that infrastructure-as-code type capability, but in a managed service format. You simply pay one fee, and then we build your infrastructure-as-code capability for you, so you have that automated management of your cloud environment.”

The benefits of both infrastructure-as-code and making it managed service is two-fold. Hale said first users get better and easier security from the managed service. Second, military services and defense agencies don’t need the expertise to implement, maintain and update the infrastructure.

“Most mission partners are seeing about a seven month reduction from beginning to getting the authority to operate (ATO) of their capability. So when they go to migrate something to the cloud, they’re seeing a large reduction in the initial work required to get into an ATO,” Hale said. “Olympus is trying to drive towards how do we get to that continuous ATO type model for things that are running in a commercial cloud environment and having that capability so that you push the button and you get it quicker.”

The second initiative DISA is expecting progress on is the joint operational edge (JOE) capability. Hale said through this program, DISA is bringing commercial cloud services to commands located outside the continental United States. DISA initially brought JOE to Indo-Pacific Command initially, including Hawaii, Japan, South Korea and Guam, and recently expanded access to the Middle East and European theaters.

“We worked with commercial cloud providers to deploy their infrastructure in our data centers OCONUS. By doing that, we were able to get around the data sovereignty issues by having the systems in our data centers, they’re on U.S. soil, and they follow U.S. data sovereignty rules,” he said. “The initial deployment of JOE was focused on the secret level networks, and so that’s what we’ve flushed out initially. There’s a demand signal for unclassified, impact level (IL) four and five capabilities. We have not provided that as part of the phase one of the JOE effort because we want to see how this goes, make sure that it’s meeting mission needs, and then if everything goes well, then we’ll look at deploying it to other classification levels.”

The post As DISA preps JWCC-Next, Olympus, JOE initiatives take hold first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Politics

President Trump Taps Dr. Ben Carson for New Role — A HUGE Win for America First Agenda

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5 hours ago

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September 25, 2025

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Dr. Ben Carson is the newest member of the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, was sworn in as the national adviser for nutrition, health, and housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shared that Carson’s role will be to oversee Trump’s new Big Beautiful Bill law, which aims to ensure Americans’ quality of life, from nutrition to stable housing.

After being sworn in, Carson shared, “Today, too many Americans are suffering from the effects of poor nutrition. Through common-sense policymaking, we have an opportunity to give our most vulnerable families the tools they need to flourish.”

Table of Contents

WATCH:

Per USDA:

Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced that Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., was sworn in as the National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“There is no one more qualified than Dr. Carson to advise on policies that improve Americans’ everyday quality of life, from nutrition to healthcare quality to ensuring families have access to safe and stable housing,” said Secretary Rollins.

“With six in ten Americans living with at least one chronic disease, and rural communities facing unique challenges with respect to adequate housing, Dr. Carson’s insight and experience is critical. Dr. Carson will be crucial to implementing the rural health investment provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill and advise on America First polices related to nutrition, health, and housing.

“As the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump Administration, Dr. Carson worked to expand opportunity and strengthen communities, and we are honored to welcome him to the second Trump Administration to help lead our efforts here at USDA to Make America Healthy Again and ensure rural America continues to prosper.”

“Today, too many Americans are suffering from the effects of poor nutrition. Through common-sense policymaking, we have an opportunity to give our most vulnerable families the tools they need to flourish,” said Dr. Ben Carson. “I am honored to work with Secretary Rollins on these important initiatives to help fulfill President Trump’s vision for a healthier, stronger America.”

On Sunday, Dr. Carson was one of the many speakers at the memorial service of the late TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk.

During the memorial service, Carson highlighted that Kirk was shot at 12:24 p.m. and then continued to share the Bible verse John 12:24, which reads, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

WATCH:

The post President Trump Taps Dr. Ben Carson for New Role — A HUGE Win for America First Agenda appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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LEAKED MEMO: Deep State Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia Claim There Isn’t Enough Evidence to Convict Comey Amid Reports of Imminent Indictment

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5 hours ago

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September 25, 2025

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On Wednesday evening, disgruntled officials in the Eastern District of Virginia leaked contents of a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey.

As reported earlier, former FBI Director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in the next few days.

Comey will reportedly be charged for lying to Congress in a 2020 testimony about whether he authorized leaks to the media.

Officials in the Eastern District of Virginia are still fighting to stop Comey from being charged after Trump fired US Attorney Erik Siebert.

President Trump last week fired Erik Siebert as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia because he refused to bring charges against Letitia James, Comey, Schiff and others.

On Saturday evening, President Trump announced that he had appointed Lindsey Halligan – his personal attorney who defended him against the Mar-a-Lago raid – as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Now, with just days to go before the statute of limitations runs out to charge Comey for lying during a September 30, 2020 testimony, Lindsey Halligan is reportedly gearing up to indict Comey.

Prosecutors reportedly gave newly sworn-in Halligan a memo defending James Comey and explaining why charges should not brought against the fired FBI Director.

Per MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian:

Two sources familiar with the matter tell me prosecutors in the EDVA US attorney‘s office presented newly sworn US attorney Lindsey Halligan with a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey, because there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him.

Justice Department guidelines say a case should not be brought unless prosecutors believe it’s more likely than not that they can win a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

The post LEAKED MEMO: Deep State Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia Claim There Isn’t Enough Evidence to Convict Comey Amid Reports of Imminent Indictment appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Nearly 8 in 10 Voters Say the United States is in Political Crisis After the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

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5 hours ago

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September 25, 2025

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Nearly eight in ten voters believe that the United States is in a political crisis in the wake of the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk.

According to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released on Wednesday, a massive 93 percent of Democrats, 84 percent of independents, and 60 percent of Republicans said the nation is in a political crisis.

“The Kirk assassination lays bare raw, bipartisan concerns about where the country is headed,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said of the poll results.

Quinnipiac reports:

Seventy-one percent of voters think politically motivated violence in the United States today is a very serious problem, 22 percent think it is a somewhat serious problem, 3 percent think it is a not so serious problem, and 1 percent think it is not a problem at all.

This is a jump from Quinnipiac University’s June 26 poll when 54 percent thought politically motivated violence in the United States today was a very serious problem, 37 percent thought it was a somewhat serious problem, 6 percent thought it was a not so serious problem, and 2 percent thought it was not a problem at all.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters (58 percent) think it will not be possible to lower the temperature on political rhetoric and speech in the United States, while 34 percent think it will be possible.

Over half, 54 percent, of voters believe the US will see increased political violence over the next few years. Another 27 percent said they think it will stay “about the same,” while just 14 percent believe it will ease.

A 53 percent majority also said they are “pessimistic about freedom of speech being protected in the United States.”

Surprisingly, a 53 percent majority also believes the current system of democracy is not working.

“From a perceived assault on freedom of speech to the fragility of the democracy, a shudder of concern and pessimism rattles a broad swath of the electorate. Nearly 80 percent of registered voters feel they are witnessing a political crisis, seven in ten say political violence is a very serious problem, and a majority say this discord won’t go away anytime soon,” Malloy added.

The vast majority, 82 percent, said the way that people discuss politics is contributing to the violence.

“When asked if political discourse is contributing to violence, a rare meeting of the minds…Republicans, Democrats, and independents in equal numbers say yes, it is,” Malloy said.

The survey was conducted from September 18 to 21 among 1,276 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.

The post Nearly 8 in 10 Voters Say the United States is in Political Crisis After the Assassination of Charlie Kirk appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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