Almost a year after winning a $10 billion NSA cloud computing contract, Amazon looks set to finally be allowed to deliver the not-so-secret-anymore service for the security agency.
Last year, the NSA decided to embrace cloud computing and switch from storing its intelligence data locally to the cloud. To do that, it needed a capable partner and created a secret cloud computing contract worth $10 billion. Amazon Web Services won the contract in July 2021, but then Microsoft filed a protest, which stopped it being a secret contract and placed the deal in limbo.
As Nextgov reports, the Government Accountability Office recommended that the NSA take a second look at the proposals both companies submitted for the contract, which the NSA subsequently did. The end result is the same, though, with Amazon being selected to provide the cloud service ince again.
Amazon is obviously happy about the decision, with an AWS spokesperson saying, "We're honored that after thorough review, the NSA selected AWS as the cloud provider for the Hybrid Compute Initiative, and we’re ready to help deliver this critical national security capability."
The contract, which is known as "WildandStormy," is the NSA's latest step in a Hybrid Compute Initiative. The modernization project started with data stored in multiple locations around the world being collected in an "internally operated data lake." Now that data is all in one place and the contract finalized, it will be transferred to AWS servers.
Considering the NSA has at least a decade of data to move, we could see a few shipping containers heading to the agency. You may remember back in 2016 Amazon revealed AWS Snowmobile, which allowed 100 petabytes of data to be stored in a shipping container ready for transport on the back of a truck to an AWS data center. Will this be the method selected for NSA data transfers?