FedRAMP provides on-ramp to standardized government cloud computing

U.S. government agencies needing high levels of information security can upgrade to use the latest cloud technologies to run their applications. That’s thanks to a pair of new cloud infrastructure regions from Oracle. The cloud data center complexes are authorized against strenuous FedRAMP and Department of Defense requirements.

The two new cloud infrastructure regions are in Ashburn, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., and Phoenix, Ariz. They are part of Oracle’s goal to have 36 Generation 2 Cloud data center regions, offering services such as Oracle Autonomous Database, live by the end of 2020, including three additional dedicated regions to support Department of Defense agencies and contractors.

FedRAMP, more formally known as the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, provides a standard approach to federal security assessments, authorizations, and monitoring of cloud services. With FedRAMP, once a cloud provider is approved to provide a set of services or applications to one branch of government, other departments can use that service without getting a new security authorization.

With FedRAMP authorization in place, a federal agency can more quickly move an application or database workload that’s running in a government-run data center into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Agencies can also build and launch new cloud-native applications directly on Oracle’s cloud.

The cloud also lets federal agencies tap the latest technology and analytics strategies, including applying artificial intelligence and machine learning. Those techniques often rely on GPU-based computing—graphics processing units—which are used for math-heavy tasks such as high-performance scientific computing, data analytics, and machine learning.

Learn more about FedRAMP in my article for Forbes, “With FedRAMP Clearance, Oracle Brings Its Gen 2 Cloud Infrastructure To Government.”