Government contracting is a bizarre place. Eg it’s the only place where an incumbent can sue the client (government) to delay award of a new order to a competitor, while still being paid millions of $$ to continue working for the same client.
Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
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Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#22I’ve been getting what I assume are geotargeted ads for this http://monopolyamazon.com/ for months on twitter (I work a block from the White House). For example https://twitter.com/setonmotley/status/981262337905602560?s=...
Lost me at the first line: "Jeff Bezos is one of President Donald Trump’s biggest critics."
How do Jeff's political opinions affect AWS' suitability as a cloud service provider in any way?
Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#23Well... To be fair, it's an AWS spec sheet reworded as an RFP. Other cloud providers - even Google and Microsoft - can't meet the requirements, because they don't have the same marketing jargon. For example, there's a requirement in the RFP for a "ruggedized" storage product. That's a made up word that Amazon uses to describe AWS Snowball, so no other company satisfies the requirement. Some other AWS-only requirement…
The 32GB of RAM is silly, because virtual machines, and PCI buses lol.
But I suspect the 150 mile marker has some other objective driving factor behind the reasoning for that number, which Amazon incidentally has some advanced insight on, due to other commitments.
It probably draws directly from line-of-sight targeting at visible horizons for some sort of specific altitude. Zero altitude, mean sea level gets you maybe a thirty mile shot with conventional artillery, targeting a multi-story building. But then again, rail guns seem to be capable of sending shells or slugs over 200 miles [0], so who knows...
[0] https://www.cnet.com/news/futuristic-navy-railgun-with-220-m...
Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#24Well... To be fair, it's an AWS spec sheet reworded as an RFP. Other cloud providers - even Google and Microsoft - can't meet the requirements, because they don't have the same marketing jargon. For example, there's a requirement in the RFP for a "ruggedized" storage product. That's a made up word that Amazon uses to describe AWS Snowball, so no other company satisfies the requirement. Some other AWS-only requirement…
When the USG writes an RFP/BAA, they already know who they want as the provider.
Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#25I am fairly sure the 'secret' is One Rich A Called Larry Ellisson. Quite possibly in a knock-off suit provided by Hammer Industries...
Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
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Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
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Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#28Unfortunately, the underlying issue here is that the federal government has stolen $10 billion from the American people ... mostly of the people of the future ... against their will, and now people who have no vested interest in how to dispense with other people's money to any degree that is commensurate to the level of responsibility and with virtually zero real accountability or consequences, to offer that money that belongs to other people to monopolistic tech companies that are utterly tyrannical in their spirit as they take over the internet and the whole economy and government and society
Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#29Looking at Oracle's website, after getting past the hilarious Cookies Policy modal prompt, you really wouldn't think they were genuinely in the cloud business. It just looks like sales fodder with no substance behind it.
They aren't "genuinely in the cloud business". They are a vampiric ancient giant slug that lumbers on by drinking the blood of other ancient giant slugs. They have zero interest in marketing cloud infrastructure to, say, startups.
The lamest possible version of warring elder gods. I love it.
Re: Someone Is Waging a Secret War to Undermine the Pentagon’s Huge Cloud Contract
#30Well... To be fair, it's an AWS spec sheet reworded as an RFP. Other cloud providers - even Google and Microsoft - can't meet the requirements, because they don't have the same marketing jargon. For example, there's a requirement in the RFP for a "ruggedized" storage product. That's a made up word that Amazon uses to describe AWS Snowball, so no other company satisfies the requirement. Some other AWS-only requirement…
> On the other hand, this is a 10 year contract worth about 1% of Amazon, Google, or Microsoft's bottom line in one year. So there's a bit of mountain/molehill going on here.
a) Have you ever known an IT project, let alone a government IT project, to end up smaller than or equal to the projected size/cost? Or anything near it?
b) If you ever have the “pleasure” of dealing with government IT, you'll see how much easier it is to use a combination of things that has already been “certified” by another part of government. Winning a contract worth 1% of your company's bottom line is huge itself, but as a foot in the door, it's massive.