Microsoft challenges $10 billion government contract between NSA and Amazon – IT Pro – News

Microsoft is challenging a government contract that Amazon Web Services won with the NSA. The contract is intended to support the intelligence agency’s cloud infrastructure and will generate $10 billion for AWS.

The exact details of the government contract are unknown but according to Nextgov . website The appointment of Amazon Web Services is linked to the US National Security Agency’s plans to move its data infrastructure further into a cloud environment.

Microsoft does not agree with the NSA’s decision to choose AWS, according to Nextgov. At the end of last month, the company filed an administrative protest with the Government Accountability Office. “Based on the NSA’s decision, we are filing an administrative protest. We are hereby exercising our rights and will do so in a responsible and respectful manner,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Nextgov.

This is not the first time that Amazon and Microsoft have entered into a government contract and are quarreling over its award to the other party. In the fall of 2019 The US Department of Defense awarded the cloud contract for the JEDI project to Microsoft. The JEDI project, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud, among other things, aims to give the US military better access to defense data on battlefields and other remote areas. Amazon moisture last year Assignment to Microsoft and confirmed in a US court. Preparatory work for this purpose had to be stopped. start Last month The project was permanently halted because the Pentagon preferred a new multi-vendor contract.