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Oracle Trying Hard To Make Sure Pentagon Knows Amazon Isn't the Only Cloud Around (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the never-gonna-give-you-up dept.

The Pentagon is no longer taking questions on its controversial cloud contract after making last-minute amendments to the deal -- and has received another complaint from disgruntled prospective bidder Oracle. The Register adds: The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract has a massive scope, covering different levels of secrecy and classification across all branches of the US military, and a massive budget, being worth a potential $10bn for a maximum of 10 years. Unsurprisingly, it has garnered similar levels of interest and complaint. Most criticism focused on the decision to hand the deal to a single vendor amid speculation that AWS would be a shoo-in. Would-be bidder -- and longtime AWS rival -- Oracle filed an official complaint with US government at the start of the month, arguing a single vendor would lock the Department of Defense into "legacy cloud" and went against its purported commitment to innovation and competition. It has now filed a supplementary protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is not yet public but is likely to be an exchange of information and documents. The filing coincided with the Pentagon updating the terms of the JEDI deal, which it said came after engagement with industry after the previous request for proposals (RFP) was published.

72 comments

  1. Oracle has a cloud? by dark.nebulae · · Score: 2

    Nuf said.

    1. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

      It's more like a pocket of smog, so I'm told.

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
    2. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oracle has farty pants.

    3. Re: Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      does their cloud have anything besides Oracle RDBMS? what if want NoSQL?
      sorry no, Oracle is an old fashioned greedy database vendor.

    4. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ity would be great if the Pentagon came out with a news statement saying that after due consideration we have now decided to not give the whole contract to Oracle due to their complaints about give a single contractor the whole contract. Then watch Oracle cry like a baby

    5. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazon isn't the only cloud around? True. There's also Microsoft and IBM.

    6. Re: Oracle has a cloud? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Oracle bought Berkeley DB and released their own NoSQL database just a few weeks ago.

    7. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by supremebob · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and they give you a free $300 service credit to try it out if you want.

      Of course, Google Cloud does the same thing, and their cloud hosting services are about 5 years ahead of them technology wise.

    8. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't underestimate Oracle. If you make in inquiry, they will immediately start trying to identify the "decision maker", bypass you, and start calling managers and executives, and working their way up the chain until they find someone they can bribe with hookers and blackjack.

      It will likely work the same here. They will bypass DoD and go straight to congress, and they may not even need new hookers if they still have videotapes of the last time.

    9. Re: Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Berkely DB! Now THAT'S modern, high performance technology!

    10. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by Spazmania · · Score: 1

      Oracle knows they've no prayer of winning the contract outright, so they hope to require a rewrite to facilitate multiple vendors. This will allow Oracle to snooker the occasional fool in DoD procurement who still thinks Oracle is the hotness.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
    11. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If by cloud, you mean Vaporware.

    12. Re:Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Cloud computing.. Cloud computing.. Is that where your data magically floats up in the sky? No, we are the cloud."

    13. Re: Oracle has a cloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This! Those f*ckers did this at a company I worked at, they went straight to the CTO and sold him on a super cluster. We told them that because they did that we would begin moving away from their hardware and software, and we did. They only sell shit, they dont follow standards in application design on windows, Linux, or Unix. They frequently have no idea what theyre doing and they purposely hide critical facts from their documentation so you have to have a support contract from them. Oracle needs to die in a walstreet Fire.

  2. No. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would consider relying on Oracle to a threat to national security. Seriously, those bastards would gladly shut down vital server in the midst of a war over licensing fees.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pfff. That's absurd and small minded.

      Oracle would gladly start a war just so they could extract extra licensing fees for vital servers.

    2. Re:No. by olsmeister · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is simple. All they need to do is let Trump know that AWS is owned by Bezos and POOF Oracle gets the contract.

    3. Re:No. by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Informative

      Glad you were modded up to +5, but I'm confused as to why people thought you were being funny. Oracle is totally unreliable and have shown themselves only too eager to screw over their customers at a moment's notice. And Darth Ellison's ego is so huge I'm sure he'd take delight 'altering the deal' with the Pentagon, then threatening to 'alter it further' if he thought he could extort more money from them.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    4. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Oracle is very hostile to their own clients. I don't understand why anyone chooses them.

    5. Re: No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oracle sucks donkey parts. Its CEO is one of the biggest donkeys around.

    6. Re: No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe they are legacy at this point. People CHOSE to go with them years ago and are CHOOSING to migrate away when possible.

      You just don't need Oracle with today's DB competitors.

    7. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't understand why anyone chooses them.

      Kickbacks, either in cash or in the form of salesrep job offer (after you leave the employer that you got to buy it). Seriously, you never noticed that the CIOs always go work there a year or two after their employer buys the product?

      I'm getting some hints that Salesforce might be doing this too. Not finding evidence that Microsoft is doing it also, though, as much as I'd love to accuse them.

    8. Re: No. by youngone · · Score: 2

      People CHOSE to go with them years ago and are CHOOSING to migrate away...

      That's what we're doing. It will eventually cost Oracle something like $50 million per year from what I understand.
      They made the mistake of lying about license costs to the wrong executive, and he is not fucking happy.

    9. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...a single vendor would lock the Department of Defense into "legacy cloud"..."

      Hmm. Interesting. Last I saw of Oracle in our systems you could only access them from IE5, and this was well into the age of Firefox and Chrome. None of the machines in the office still had IE5.

      That's legacy for ya.

  3. JEDI? Really by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    How long did it take them to decide on the actual name for the project after they decided its acronym would be JEDI?

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    This space unintentionally left blank.
  4. Longtime rivals??? by acoustix · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, they are not. Oracle is relatively new to cloud services. They fought it for years. AWS has been in cloud services much longer.

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    1. Re:Longtime rivals??? by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Arguably, they aren't rivals at all. Let's not forget that at least one major investor is suing Oracle for allegedly falsifying demand for its cloud, including bullying customers into becoming cloud customers by threatening them with audits if they don't. Also, Oracle has been pressuring product managers into working "cloud" into their product names for years ... classic "fake it until you make it."

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    2. Re:Longtime rivals??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Also their cloud is a piecemeal of acquisitions that require a lot of custom software development to "interoperate".

    3. Re:Longtime rivals??? by omnichad · · Score: 2

      That's a model that worked for Adobe. At least today nobody worries what programs used to be opened by Macromedia or Aldus or whoever. But you have to actually try to move them under a common model.

    4. Re:Longtime rivals??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But we are talking about trying to use various services within a single provider, that one would expect would work together out of the box. Similar to how AWS, Google or Azure function today, ie. their compute service works with their database service. All without having to do a ton of custom glue development, just to get those services to talk to each other.

      That the case since when you buy a bunch of companies try to to become a "Cloud provider", because you were like 5 years late joining the crowd.

    5. Re: Longtime rivals??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the entire point of the cloud is simplified IT operations. This is why piecemeal tech acquisitions plus complicated required integration equals zero customers.

    6. Re:Longtime rivals??? by jezwel · · Score: 1
      So Oracle is years behind in their integrations for their cloud offerings? Isn't the integration and simplified management one of the main reasons to go cloud?

      Adobe are getting close to integrating all their products into their Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Launcher application, but there's still a few holdouts.

  5. Ibm cloud represent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wooooooo

  6. Do they not know how to use Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems pretty simple to find the other IaaS providers:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=iaas+providers&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS802US802&oq=iaas+providers&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.7263j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Could even reference a Gartner report.
    Are they really that helpless at the Pentagon?

    1. Re: Do they not know how to use Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea they are the morons, no way you are misunderstanding and making assumptions on the basis of 1 paragraph of text. you are the smart one.

    2. Re:Do they not know how to use Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seems pretty simple to find the other IaaS providers:

      https://www.google.com/search?q=iaas+providers

      Could even reference a Gartner report.
      Are they really that helpless at the Pentagon?

      FTFY

  7. It's all a joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That the pentagon would be deliberating on which liberal backwater autocracy company to select for the cloud (of which it shouldn't even be selecting anyway by the way..cloud!!), then who really cares. My last post on the matter. Enjoy the Titanic!

  8. Amazon AWS has its problems, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The idea that Oracle is warning about single vendor lock-in and "legacy" anything is so thick with irony it is nauseating.

  9. Horrifying by XanC · · Score: 1

    Horrifyingly, the good option here might be Microsoft.

    1. Re: Horrifying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Pentagon can make use of US military bases worldwide. 1 massive server on each base and they are half way to having their own cloud. If the gov would use it's resources instead of hiring corporations they would save so much money it's unreal.

    2. Re: Horrifying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Pentagon has had its own "cloud" for a very long time, the AWS stuff is mostly about them wanting to get out of that business.

    3. Re: Horrifying by omnichad · · Score: 1

      In fact, they now have their own local AWS cloud.

    4. Re: Horrifying by youngone · · Score: 1

      If the gov would use it's resources instead of hiring corporations they would save so much money it's unreal.

      You seem to have missed the point of what the US military is actually for. It's not for saving money. It's for spending money. Your money.

  10. NMCI all over again by technosaurus · · Score: 1

    Apparently they cannot learn from previous mistakes.
    1. They need to own the infrastructure.
    2. They need to operate it (contract employees to start off is fine)

    With NMCI, the navy was (is?) leasing monthly the cost of buying a similar work stations, had no real control over what software they could use, bandwidth was slower than ISDN (technically it was faster than dialup but did not feel like it), email was limited to 25Mb (I needed to receive individual documents that were larger than my entire mailbox limit), technical support was expensive and response time was way too long for an organization responsible for life or death operations... I could go on, but I'd rather not - it was horrible.

  11. This I learned by irrational_design · · Score: 1

    I've heard of Amazon's, Microsoft's, and Google's cloud offerings, but I had no idea Oracle had one too. I can't even imagine the prices they must be charging. But why would the justice dept even consider using Oracle over one of the big ones?

    1. Re:This I learned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It appears their pricing is reasonable.
      https://cloud.oracle.com/compute
      I don't understand their region setups though,
      https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/data-regions
      (Note the "compute classics" seem to be about 10x more expensive https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/compute-classic than the modern regions, the modern compute is really only available in Ashburn in Phoenix.

  12. The game is afoot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    And Oracle plays it better than most. They think they're entitled to the taxpayers hard earned money. They will do anything, say anything, and make any legal obstruction they can until they get what they believe is already their money. They're not willing to compete in a fair fight. And, they're unprofessional because they don't welcome criticism or skepticism. Heck, their license agreements actually forbid benchmarking. In this day and age they only provide security patches for customers who have support contracts. The automotive industry doesn't make you pay for recalls, why should the software industry?

    Dirty pool and they like swimming in it.

  13. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA by E-Rock · · Score: 2

    I just came here to laugh. Not even the Federal Government is dumb enough to use Oracle's cloud offering.

    1. Re: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The govt has taken it up the ass from Oracle more than most organizations. New suitors look pretty good to the battered spouse.

      The govt is looking to cut costs like everyone else and Oracle is greedy.

    2. Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dumbness is questionable, but both oracle and the DOD procurement work on bribes & blackmail.

    3. Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA by Agripa · · Score: 1

      I just came here to laugh. Not even the Federal Government is dumb enough to use Oracle's cloud offering.

      Never underestimate the federal government's stupidity. Or any government's stupidity for that matter.

    4. Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      Oracle forgets a major point about cloud services. They have to be both available AND work.

  14. Deserving by grasshoppa · · Score: 1

    Anyone who knowingly and willingly buys Oracle gets what they deserve.

    No organization is more deserving of working with Oracle than the government.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  15. Re:JEDI? Really by GoTeam · · Score: 1

    And think of how much tax payer $$ it cost them to come up with that as well!

  16. Oracle owns the government by gavron · · Score: 1

    It's #2 in their "list of what we own" right after "all rights to software APIs."

    #3 is "Lawyers to outspend everyone to ensure we own #1 and #2".

    F. Oracle.

    E

    1. Re: Oracle owns the government by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oracle is losing the govt one piece at a time. They are legacy and people in the govt know it and are migrating away from it when possible. It will be there for a long time, but I don't see it as a growth business unless some new major product comes out that is a must-have that REQUIRES Oracle as its backend. That is not as likely these days as it used to be.

  17. It's not an exaggeration to think Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not an exaggeration to think Trump would scuttle the AWS deal simply because it's owned by Bezos.

  18. TIL Oracle has a cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how cute

  19. Re:JEDI? Really by omnichad · · Score: 1

    The question is whether Space Force will be using any JEDI technology.

  20. Fuck you Oracle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck you Oracle. HaHa

  21. Re:JEDI? Really by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    How long did it take them to decide on the actual name for the project after they decided its acronym would be JEDI?

    If Oracle gets the contract, the acronym will be changed to SITH.

  22. Is Oracle pure evil? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    Is Oracle pure evil? Does anyone have anything good to say about them?

    I know that I hate Oracle, after some bitter experiences, and everyone I know hates them, but I figure there must be someone somewhere that once had a positive experience. Anyone?

    1. Re: Is Oracle pure evil? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope sorry, I probably hate then more than you do

    2. Re:Is Oracle pure evil? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Is Oracle pure evil? Does anyone have anything good to say about them?

      I know that I hate Oracle, after some bitter experiences, and everyone I know hates them, but I figure there must be someone somewhere that once had a positive experience. Anyone?

      The people who receive kickbacks to choose Oracle have a positive experience.

    3. Re:Is Oracle pure evil? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I figure there must be someone somewhere that once had a positive experience. Anyone?

      Over here, in Europe, Oracle managed to get rid of most of their Tech staff, so even if they find someone loaded and stupid enough to buy their non-DB products, they can't, because they cannot provide on-site support. Cannibalizing themselves to improve short term profits left the company so crippled, even their sales vultures are leaving the corpse to rot on it's own.

      I guess, that counts as a positive experience with Oracle

  23. Well worth paying Oracle $1bn.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ....to stay as far away as possible.

  24. ORACLE CLOUDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison Creating Legal Overpriced Underdeveloped Data Storage System

    Somehow, I don't think that was what they were desiring to talk about....

  25. Lets not forget, Oracle f#$ked its own sales staff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oracle is so greedy they f#$ked their own sales staff.
    https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/14/oracle-stiffed-sales-staff-by-clawing-back-pay-150-million-lawsuit-claims/

    Oracle screws over their customers as well.

    No one with any intelligence would ever sign any agreement with Oracle.

  26. Re:JEDI? Really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I think you've got the letters scrambled.

  27. joint enterprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    10 billion dollar joint enterprise defense infrastructure, and what ever I am worth :)
    amen

  28. I think this might be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...all smoke and mirrors for a big corporate welfare program and the military has a super-secret server farm for really classified stuff under some mountain some where and a backup farm under the farside of the moon.

  29. Azure It Is, Then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear Oracle:

    You'll have to get in line.

    AWS
    Azure
    GCP
    DigitalOcean
    RackSpace
    HindiITServices
    SriLankaTech
    Grandma's iPad ...
    Oracle