Background
Doing more with less
Running a typical web application in government takes a lot of technical
and compliance work that can be labor-intensive and expensive.
Federal agencies that develop web-based services have to meet certain
infrastructure and security compliance requirements. If they host those
services in the cloud, they must go through a separate process to ensure
the cloud services are also in compliance. This means that agency
employees and contractors must give up time that could be used on
critical services in order to manage infrastructure.
Approach
Allowing developers to spend more time improving services and less time managing servers
18F built cloud.gov to address the specific needs of federal agencies
wanting to move their web-based services to the cloud. It’s a
government-customized hosting platform that takes care of technical
infrastructure and security compliance requirements. Federal agency
teams can use cloud.gov to get their websites and web applications up
and running quickly. It has a Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO)
at the Moderate impact level from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board,
so agencies using cloud.gov will have a radically shortened path towards
getting the necessary security authorizations.
Projects that use cloud.gov include Every Kid in a Park, College
Scorecard, and FedRAMP Marketplace.
