MeriTalk Launches New FedRAMP 411 Site

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Federal agencies will spend more than $2 billion on cloud services during 2015, and cloud service providers are also spending millions to insure that their products and services are in line with governmental security standards as laid out in the FedRAMP regulations.

In response, Meritalk launched a new website to help navigate through the FedRAMP waters. FedRAMP411.com is “dedicated to all things FedRAMP — from the standards themselves, to the products they govern, and everything in between.”

Draft FedRAMP guidelines were published in March, and finalized standards are expected to be finalized by the end of 2015. These standards will serve as a baseline for security federal high-impact systems in the cloud, and it means that agencies will have to insure that they are in step with the regulations when they are released.

The new FedRAMP411 website will be the “go-to source” providing news, information, and insights into the FedRAMP regulations and procurement process, and it is designed to provide clarity and information.

FedRAMP411 includes several key features:

• The Gov Cloud Shopper: A unique tool that incorporates real pricing data to help develop a rough estimate of cloud costs and then refine their requirements.
• CSPs at-a-Glance: A comprehensive, sortable and searchable data base of all the vendors and products either already certified or in the pipeline and working toward certification
• 3PAO listings: A complete lineup of Third-Party Assessment Organizations including performance metrics for helping clients achieve FedRAMP authorization
• News: The only news source solely dedicated to reporting news and information for and about the FedRAMP community

Meritalk also recently launched FedRAMP Fast Forward, a FedRAMP-focused industry advocacy group designed to bring together cloud service providers (CSPs) and other interested parties to provide an industry perspective to inform the conversation.

According to Steve O’Keefe, founder of MeriTalk, the Gov Cloud Shopper, FedRAMP 411, FedRAMP Forward, Cloud Computing Exchange, and the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group are all united under the new Cloud Coalition.

“We know Federal agencies are hungry for information, best practices and tools that can help them implement FedRAMP-compliant cloud computing solutions, and industry is eager to help them,” he says. “The MeriTalk Cloud Coalition is designed to bring together government and industry in a partnership to streamline agency acquisition and industry FedRAMP certification, and ultimately make good on the Cloud First promise.”