The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program has authorized IBM’s Connection Solutions as its 100th cloud service offering, FedRAMP Program Manager of Operations John Hamilton announced on Twitter April 24, 2018.
Proud to announce our 100th #FedRAMPAuthorized CSO @IBM Connection Solutions. It has truly been a cooperative effort between multiple groups - the PMO, JAB, A2LA, our vendors, agency partners, and independent assessors.
— John Hamilton (@HamiCloud) April 24, 2018
FedRAMP was first unveiled in December 2011 as a means of promoting data security standards and a cloud first posture in federal agencies. The program issued its first authorization one year later. Since then, any commercial cloud storing federal data must first be vetted by the FedRAMP process.
FedRAMP has historically faced some frustration from agencies, particularly when one agency’s authorization isn’t accepted by another agency. Recent efforts to cut approval times through FedRAMP Accelerated, however, have improved agency outlook on the process.
The program currently has 100 authorized cloud services, 64 in process and 16 ready for evaluation.
Prior to the Connection Solutions authorization, the IBM Federal Cloud and the IBM Department of Defense offering already had two authorizations each.
Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.
