The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is expanding its planned Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) follow-on effort into a broader acquisition framework designed to bring additional cloud providers and services into the Department of Defense (DOD) cloud environment.
Under the Trump administration, the DOD has been rebranded as the Department of War.
The effort, now known as the JWCC Unified Cloud Marketplace (UCM), replaces JWCC Next and will provide a single framework for all provisionally authorized cloud services.
In an interview with MeriTalk, Jeff Marshall, director of DISA’s J9 Hosting and Compute, said the shift marks a significant departure from the original JWCC construct, which focused on hyperscale cloud providers.
“With [UCM] we’re going to be able to achieve more efficiencies. [While also] preserving security, compliance, and operational integrity,” he said.
UCM has three tiers, two contracts
While UCM will operate through two separate acquisition vehicles on the back end, Marshall said users will experience the framework as a three-tier marketplace organized by service offerings rather than contract structures.
“We’re trying to keep the contract concept away from the user base … Instead, we want to talk to them about the tiers that UCM will provide them,” he said.
Jeff Marshall, director of DISA’s J9 Hosting and Compute.
Under the model, the first tier – UCM Core – becomes the successor to the current JWCC contract and effectively serves as what JWCC Next was originally intended to be: a vehicle focused on hyperscale cloud providers.
JWCC Next had previously been expected to succeed the department’s existing JWCC vehicle, with a planned launch in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026. Much of the acquisition planning for JWCC Next was already underway before DISA expanded the effort into the three-tier UCM.
“We do anticipate that the [request for proposals] for [UCM Core] will be released in Q4 this year,” Marshall said. “We’re projecting … that we’ll get it awarded in Q4 of FY 2027.”
Maintaining a separate acquisition path for UCM Core allows DISA to avoid starting over or disrupting existing work from what would have been JWCC Next, minimizing contractual risk, Marshall noted.
The second and third tiers, collectively known as UCM Premier, are designed to broaden participation beyond the hyperscale cloud market.
Tier two will provide a pathway for software as a service, platform as a service, and non-hyperscale infrastructure as a service providers that have already achieved provisional authorization. Marshall said the tier is intended to expand customer access to cloud offerings.
Tier three is designed to accelerate access to emerging technologies and specialized capabilities that often struggle to navigate traditional acquisition and authorization timelines.
Under the UCM model, emerging technology vendors could onboard while pursuing provisional authorization, allowing government customers to evaluate capabilities earlier in the process. Once authorization is achieved, those offerings could move into tier two for broader operational use.
Marshall said DISA intends to keep the Premier acquisition on a timeline that closely follows UCM Core.
“If we do everything on the current desired schedule, we should have [the tier two and three contract] out during the end of Q1 of 2027 or the beginning of the second quarter of 2027,” Marshall said.
Marshall said DISA is also exploring ways to onboard providers that already hold FedRAMP or intelligence community authorizations, broadening participation beyond companies with existing department impact-level certifications.
UCM represents the commercial cloud component of DISA’s Cloud Environment strategy, which combines traditional hosting, private cloud, and commercial cloud services into a single hybrid cloud framework.
Marshall added that DISA is increasingly focused on delivering cloud capabilities closer to operational environments, including combatant commands outside the continental United States.
JWCC demand continues to grow.
As users await the rollout of the new framework, demand for the existing JWCC contract continues to grow.
The department awarded positions on the original 10-year, $9 billion JWCC contract vehicle in 2022 to Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle. The contract allows those companies to compete for task orders providing cloud computing, storage, and related services across the department.
“Right now, we’re up to 205 task orders and the current total lifecycle award is just a little over $7.2 billion,” Marshall said.
DISA redefines industry partnerships
Marshall said DISA is seeking a more collaborative relationship with industry but expects vendors to arrive with a clear understanding of the agency’s mission and challenges. He said the most productive conversations begin with questions about mission challenges and operational needs.
“Don’t talk to me about what your product is and tell me how great it is, especially when you don’t know what we do,” Marshall said. “That’s just maddening to me.”
Additionally, he explained that while industry will continue to play a critical role in research, development, and experimentation, DISA intends to retain responsibility for managing mature capabilities and setting strategic direction.
“We’re not looking to hand over the keys to the kingdom anymore and just let an industry partner take over and manage and execute and do everything,” he said. “Those days are over.”
Marshall pursues agility at work and on trail
Away from the office, Marshall’s preferred outlet is extreme mountain biking, a hobby he sees as closely connected to his approach to agile thinking. The sport, he explained, mirrors the challenges of transforming enterprise technology environments.
“It allows me to have that agile mindset and understand that we do have to accept a measured amount of risk in order to achieve something faster and better than what was there previously,” he said.