John Hale, Chief of Product Management and Development, DISA
Adam Ringel, OCONUS Cloud Portfolio Manager, DISA J-923, DISA

Defense IT leaders are prioritizing a major expansion of the commercial cloud marketplace powering the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) leaders said at AWS Summit in Washington, D.C.

Chief of Product Management and Development John Hale and OCONUS Cloud Portfolio Manager Adam Ringel said DISA is evolving JWCC into a more diverse ecosystem while preparing to expand operational capabilities across multiple cloud providers.

Hale said DISA is preparing a major recompete of the program — the JWCC Unified Cloud Marketplace (UCM) — to diversify the available vendor pool. The contract vehicle will look beyond core hyperscale infrastructure and integrate software-as-a-service capabilities into the same ecosystem, creating a single marketplace where defense components can acquire a broader range of commercial cloud services.

While the contract vehicle includes multiple vendors, operationalizing those environments across the department’s tactical edge will be a phased effort, according to Ringel. Within the Joint Operational Edge (JOE) framework’s multi-cloud architecture, Ringel said DISA is identifying the computing and AI capabilities needed at the edge to better support warfighters.

Check out our full coverage of the conference.