Page 16 - FCW, May 30, 2016

One tiny team is at the center of the federal government’s push for cloud co
WHAT REALLY GOES
THERE’S NOTHING SEXY ABOUT DOCUMENTING THINGS. ...
OUR FOCUS SHOULD BE ON TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES. WE CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIX THE WRITING LATER.
INON
SIDE
Matt Goodrich
THE
Matt Goodrich doesn’t drink coffee. How he gets through his jam-packed days remains unclear.
As director of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, Goodrich is at the bustling, bureaucratic center of the federal government’s cloud market.
FEDRAMP OFFICE
BY ZACH NOBLE
Bidding has closed and interviews have started for a new FedRAMP dashboard, due to be completed 60 days after the impending award under 18F’s agile blanket purchase agreement. FedRAMP is also testing a new “accelerated” process with three cloud providers: Unisys, Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and 18F’s Cloud.gov. The plan is to launch the new approach to Joint Authorization Board (JAB) reviews by this summer.
Both pushes are part of a FedRAMP shakeup that is spurred in part by discontent from vendors who say the process has gotten too time-consuming and expensive.
FCW recently spent the day with Goodrich’s team to see that process in action.
Constant contact
In the open-air offices of the General Services Administration’s headquarters, the FedRAMP Program Management Office is all about meetings.
Goodrich has only three other feds working with him, so each has to pinch-hit in a variety of program support positions. They’re aided by 35 contractors from Noblis, CSRA and The Clearing.
The FedRAMP players, each with demands on the team’s time, include cloud service providers (CSPs) seeking authorization, third-party assessment organizations (3PAOs) that vet the services, JAB with its own vetting process and the agencies that want to use the cloud services.
The four feds share nicknames and “The Real Housewives” slogans as they slog through their morning scheduling meeting.
12 May 30, 2016
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FCW’S FOCUS ON FEDRAMP
Last issue:
Rethinking the assessment process
A brief history of FedRAMP
What agencies are asking
Three wishes for FedRAMP Accelerated
Also in this issue:
Visualizing the FedRAMP marketplace (p. 34)
Next issue:
The FedRAMP high baseline
Find all this coverage
and more online at FCW.com/ FedRAMP2016