For years, getting cloud services into the Pentagon meant going through one of four familiar names: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Oracle. DISA is now building a system that opens that door much wider, without throwing out the existing setup in the process.
The agency is expanding what it originally planned as a follow-on to its Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract into something larger called the Unified Cloud Marketplace. Jeff Marshall, who directs DISA’s hosting and compute division, told MeriTalk the change marks a real departure from the original JWCC approach, which focused almost entirely on the big hyperscale providers.
Behind the scenes, UCM runs on two separate acquisition contracts, but DISA wants users to think in terms of three simpler tiers instead. The first tier, called UCM Core, essentially picks up where the current JWCC contract leaves off and stays focused on those same major cloud providers. DISA expects to release the request for proposals later this year and aims to make an award by fiscal year 2027.
The more interesting shift happens in the other two tiers, grouped together as UCM Premier. Tier two opens the door to smaller software and platform providers that have already cleared government authorization but previously struggled to break into the Pentagon’s cloud ecosystem. Tier three goes further still, letting emerging technology vendors start onboarding even before they finish the authorization process, so government teams can evaluate new capabilities earlier instead of waiting years for paperwork to clear.
Marshall said DISA is also exploring ways to fast-track providers that already hold FedRAMP or intelligence community authorizations, rather than forcing every vendor through the department’s full certification process from scratch.
Demand for the current JWCC contract isn’t slowing down while DISA builds all this. Marshall noted the department has already issued 205 task orders, totaling just over $7.2 billion against the original $9 billion, ten-year award from 2022.
Marshall was blunt about what he wants from vendors going forward: fewer sales pitches, more understanding of the department’s actual mission. “Don’t talk to me about what your product is and tell me how great it is,” he said, “especially when you don’t know what we do.”
