CenturyLink Launches FedRAMP-Compliant Government Cloud

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Hosting provider CenturyLink has added a new Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering aimed at federal government agencies, providing a way for government agencies to migrate and extend their data center workloads to the cloud while also complying with federal security standards.

According to the announcement, the new service known as “CenturyLink Government Cloud” will be available under CenturyLink’s General Services Administration (GSA) Networx contract and is planned to be available on other GSA contracts. CenturyLink Government Cloud meets the government’s rigorous security standards required by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as “FedRAMP”.

CenturyLink’s offering is based on the FedRAMP-approved VMware vCloud Government Services platform. “CenturyLink Government Cloud combines the power of the VMware cloud with our carrier-class network and secure data centers, positioning us as a leading provider of hybrid IT solutions to the government,” according to CenturyLink Senior VP and GM Tim Meehan, who leads the company’s federal government team.

Hosting provider Carpathia also uses VMware as the basis for its government cloud services.

Managed by GSA, FedRAMP is a risk management framework that helps government agencies choose cloud-based products and services. Major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and IBM place a huge value on FedRAMP as a way to access lucrative government contracts. Recently, FedRAMP Fast Forward, an industry advocacy group for the hosting industry, has been pushing for improvements to the process of obtaining FedRAMP approval to allow more service providers to compete for government contracts.

This first ran at http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/centurylink-launches-new-fedramp-compliant-iaas-cloud-for-government-agencies