Amid government’s sweeping migration to the cloud, pressure to update FedRAMP policies has long been building among legislators. Where do key policymakers priorities lie in the future for cloud adoption efforts? In this session, the 2023 FedRAMP Summit kicks off with critical insights from the legislators driving change for cloud.
Corey Baumgartner
Welcome back to CarahCast, the podcast from Carahsoft, the Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider. Subscribe to get the latest technology updates in the public sector. I'm Corey Baumgartner, your host from the Carahsoft production team. On behalf of GovExec and Carahsoft, we would like to welcome you to today's podcast focused around FedRAMP. US Representative Gerry Connolly will introduce FedRAMP as the opening keynote of the 2023 GovForward FedRAMP Headliner Summit.
Gerry Connolly
Thank you so much for inviting me to speak with you today. I want to congratulate Carahsoft on his leadership role in hosting this fifth annual FedRAMP event, as well as its success and managing one of the largest portfolios of FedRAMP authorized vendors. After leading the effort to pass FedRAMP six times in the House of Representatives over a span of five years. It was finally signed into law last December last year is enactment will protect those who invested millions and FedRAMP authorizations against potential wholesale changes to the program by any future presidential administration. It also created the Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee. To ensure that industry concerns related both time and cost can be addressed as part of Congress's ongoing oversight of the FedRAMP PMO. The FSCAC will ensure effective and ongoing coordination of agency adoption use authorization, monitoring, acquisition and security of cloud computing products and services to enable agency mission and administrative priorities. I also remain committed to encouraging cloud adoption through continued FITARA oversight hearings. Our consistent bipartisan efforts have resulted in the closure of 4000, outdated or duplicated data centers, saving the taxpayers $4.7 billion in that category alone. Not many bills can claim that kind of saving. New toys and innovations are fun, and they can help agencies meet their missions. But getting the fundamentals right is what ensures government can deliver for our constituents, and that that's exactly what I plan to continue to do. Today there are over 300 CSOs participating in FedRAMP, and over 30% of FedRAMP authorized CSOs are small businesses. Furthermore, 160 agencies participate in FedRAMP and have initiated more than 1900 agency reuses of authorized products. That's a lot of progress, as compared to the early days of FedRAMP. But the time it takes for federal software vendor to get certified, and the related costs have declined significantly. Based on GSAs fiscal 2022 FedRAMP customer survey FedRAMP PMO is now doing well in a number of areas particularly customer experience, including an increase of 2%. In overall customer satisfaction from just last year. 84% of respondents reported having pleasant interactions with FedRAMP and 85% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that FedRAMP promotes the adoption of secure cloud services across the US government. Federal software vendors with cloud-based solutions have overwhelmingly applied for FedRAMP authorization, and it's projected the FedRAMP High will over the next one to three years, become the minimum standard. Looking at those numbers, it is unsurprising that FedRAMP has become an essential element of how the federal government modernizes its own IT systems and ensures that the cloud-based solutions it acquires are cyber resilient. In fiscal year 2022, the federal government spent a total of $12.3 billion on Cloud goods and services. That's a 30% increase from just a year before. This trajectory makes it clear that cloud adoption will continue to escalate at a very rapid pace. Federal cloud is why it's no surprise that it's become an essential component of the federal government's digital and IT infrastructure. First, federal agencies can take advantage of cloud providers investments into security and infrastructure protections to strengthen their defenses. Second, cloud increases employee collaboration and efficiency, such as a reduction of document redundancies, elimination of information silos, and the improvement of information sharing. And third, cloud computing allows agencies to operate more nimbly and to rescale their data center footprint based on their computing capacity in real time. This flexibility allows the government to capture previously unavailable cost savings. We also need to work to optimize our data and I look forward to working with the administration to more efficiently scope our cloud contracts to fit the federal government's needs. While our government should embrace ways to improve federal agencies capabilities, through rapid cloud adoption, it must be done right. JL recently released a study outlining four challenges federal agencies need to overcome to fully realize the benefits of transitioning to cloud services. First, the federal government needs to attract, recruit and maintain a skilled IT workforce in order to support and further cloud adoption efforts. Second, Cloud Service procurement contracts must clearly state service and performance expectations, such as what constitutes a security breach, the explicit notification responsibilities or agreed upon data and network management practices. Third, federal agencies need to accurately track and report cloud spending and savings to optimize acquisition and operating costs. And fourth, the federal government must have a standardized approach to selecting and authorizing the use of cloud services that meet robust federal security requirements. The government's cloud security risks do not stop at the bounds of its federal networks. Industries, highly regulated, but not controlled by the federal government, especially those designated as critical infrastructure sectors are experiencing increasing rates of cloud adoption. Therefore, we must ask ourselves if our current policy tools are effective, and governing clouds, increasing complexity and criticality. I want to thank everyone who attended this wonderful event today. I look forward to working with all of you as we embrace cloud computing technology in order to improve security, increased cost savings, and improve agency operations, and especially customer experience throughout the federal government. Thank you, and have a great day.
Corey Baumgartner
Thanks for listening and thank you to our speaker Gerry Connolly. Don't forget to like comment, and subscribe to CarahCast and be sure to listen to our other discussions. If you'd like more information on how Carahsoft can assist your organization, please visit www.carahsoft.com or email us at fedramp@carahsoft.com. Thanks again for listening and have a great day.