Could AWS Snatch JEDI Away from Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft’s Azure division is chomping at the bit to start major work on the JEDI project, but now there may be another hitch in the timeline. Meanwhile, two channel-friendly companies dedicated to cloud management and governance are making news partners will want to know. Check out the news below.

Amazon Really Might End up with JEDI

On the heels of news that a federal judge has seen fit to question the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project to Microsoft Azure, comes word that the Department of Defense may be rethinking its October decision.

According to The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other outlets, the Pentagon is requesting 120 days from a federal court to “reconsider” some criteria.

There is a chance that means AWS could land the $10 billion cloud computing initiative.

“We are pleased that the DoD has acknowledged ‘substantial and legitimate’ issues that affected the JEDI award decision, and that corrective action is necessary,” an AWS spokesman told the Post in a statement. “We look forward to complete, fair, and effective corrective action that fully insulates the reevaluation from political influence and corrects the many issues affecting the initial flawed award.”

AWS continues to contend that President Trump influenced the outcome of the award to Microsoft because he has a public beef with Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.

Microsoft, not surprisingly, disagrees. A spokesman told the Post and New York Times that Microsoft believes the DoD made the “correct decision” in awarding JEDI to Azure.

“However, we support their decision to reconsider a small number of factors as it is likely the fastest way to resolve all issues and quickly provide the needed modern technology to people across our armed forces,” the spokesman said.

What happens next remains to be seen.

CoreStack Brings Venture Funding to $13 Million

CoreStack, a cloud governance startup founded in 2016, said on Tuesday it has secured an $8.5 million round of Series A funding.

That brings the Seattle-based company’s total so far to $13 million.

Naya Ventures led the latest round and the firm’s managing director, Dayakar Puskoor, will join CoreStack’s board of directors as a result.

CoreStack’s Ezhilarasan Natarajan

CoreStack, which sells through channel partners including resellers, MSPs and ISVs, says it will use the new infusion of money to expand sales, marketing and product development. CoreStack specializes in cloud governance and management, covering aspects including service consumption and cost, and metrics and compliance.

“As enterprises rapidly embrace cloud as a part of their digital transformation initiatives, there is an increasing need for continuous and autonomous governance across compliance, security, operations, cost and consumption,” Ezhilarasan Natarajan, CEO of CoreStack, said in a press release. “The financial partnership and enterprise expertise of Naya Ventures as well as the continued support of Z5 Capital and other investors will immensely help to accelerate the execution of our vision.”

Research firm Gartner placed CoreStack in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Management Platforms and named it as one of…

… its Cool Vendors in Cloud Computing in 2019.

CoreStack is a Microsoft Azure Gold partner and an AWS Advanced Technology Partner.

CloudCheckr FedRAMP Ready Designation Empowers Partners’ Government Clients

Channel partners serving federal government clients now can offer a new, approved platform for managing all public cloud deployments.

Earlier this month, CloudCheckr, which specializes in cost management, security, reporting and more for cloud, achieved the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Ready designation; CloudCheckr Federal now is listed in the FedRAMP Marketplace.

This means cloud service providers and channel partners can better help the public sector to modernize its IT approach, said Elissa Livingston, senior vice president of growth and strategy at CloudCheckr.

“MSPs and resellers can integrate CloudCheckr Federal into existing service offerings or grant direct access to federal agencies for total visibility into cloud infrastructure, so that agencies can track and optimize cloud spend, identify and reduce security vulnerabilities, and automate ongoing compliance,” Livingston told Channel Futures. “Government agencies undertaking IT modernization efforts require and deserve the same innovative technology as their commercial counterparts, while still meeting the public sector’s high security and compliance mandates. With the FedRAMP Ready designation, CloudCheckr affords its channel partners a solution that agencies need to utilize data-driven insights and securely work on any public cloud environment.”

Vendors that earn FedRAMP Ready status undergo rigorous vetting and compliance processes. CloudCheckr completed the Readiness Assessment by a Third Party Assessment Organization (3PAO). The company already operates in Amazon Web Services Secret Region for cloud-based workloads up to the Secret U.S. security classification level, and in AWS GovCloud (U.S.) Regions. Now, with CloudCheckr Federal, all public sector customers get access to SaaS-based cloud infrastructure management, while adhering to NIST 800-53 requirements. This eases the way for procurement, according to CloudCheckr.

“Our public sector customers have long used the CloudCheckr solution, in conjunction with managed service partners, to track their cloud IT budget and manage their spend with cloud providers in a single platform,” said Dan Stroman, CloudCheckr’s new senior director of public sector. “With FedRAMP Ready status, we are empowering all public sector organizations to connect to cloud resources and begin their IT transformation with immediate results.”

CloudCheckr says agencies using its Federal cloud management platform gain visibility into their cloud resources, usage, and costs with automated invoicing, billing, chargebacks and automated recommendations for budget management available to IT finance teams.