IBM’s SmartCloud for Government was decided FedRAMP endorsement Thursday. The approval gives IBM the skill to bid for government IaaS contract. SmartCloud for Government was launched in 2010, and is hosted out of devoted data centers in Colorado and North Carolina.
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program and its combined Authorization Board asses cloud service providers to decide if their security controls meet federally-mandated operating standards. FedRAMP support pertains to all government agencies, whereas without it vendor like IBM must get support directly from a federal agency before bidding on its contract.
“FedRAMP certification by the JAB provides an overarching validation of the healthy safety IBM’s cloud offerings offer,” said Anne Altman, general manager, IBM US Federal. “IBM’s efforts to create the cloud secure expand further than the current supplies. Our research teams are explore the subsequently generation of cloud security and are dedicated to bringing additional innovation to the government in this area.”
IBM has long been one of the major providers of government IT contracts, and has both won and lost bids to provide the US government with cloud services lately. Having gained approval from the individual agencies, IBM won a $1 billion cloud contract with the section of the interior in August, and in October withdrew an appeal of a CIA decision to prize a cloud services contract to rival AWS.
FedRAMP approval has before been bestowed to a numeral of large companies, including AT&T, HP Enterprise Cloud Services, and Microsoft.IBM’s cloud division have been busy of late, with the company announce a week ago the closure of SmartCloud Enterprise and contribution its customers free migration to recently acquire cloud provider Soft Layer. A new “Cloud Innovation Center” was recently opened in Washington DC by the tech giant, and its cloud revenue for Q3 2013 was lately announce at over $1 billion.
The government cloud market is growing in the US, and is predictable to top $18 billion by 2018, according to a Marketsandmarkets report. By obtain FedRAMP approval, IBM puts itself in a location to bid on all federal cloud contracts going forward, and will almost surely do so.