By Hazik Khan
Government cloud runs on stacked approvals: FedRAMP, a DISA provisional authorization at the right impact level, and your own system authority to operate. Government cloud work rests on three separate approvals, and only one of them is yours. This guide maps FedRAMP, the DISA provisional authorization and the system ATO, then shows where DFARS turns them into an award gate. Government cloud means a commercial cloud region that the government has approved for government data. The approval is the product, not the hardware. Two approvals stack on each other, and a third one belongs to the system owner. FedRAMP sets the federal baseline. The Department of Defense adds a provisional authorization on top, at an impact level the data decides. Your own application still needs its own authority to operate. Proposals lose points because one word, FedRAMP, looks like it settles all three layers. This guide maps the stack, names who signs each layer, and shows where a cloud requirement bites inside a real solicitation. What Government Cloud Means A government cloud region is a partition of a commercial provider's estate that runs under tighter rules. The partition matters less than the paperwork that comes with it. Providers keep these regions apart from their commercial ones, with separate endpoints, separate accounts and separate support staff. AWS states that access to its GovCloud (US) regions "is restricted to customers who are U.S. persons, not subject to export restrictions". Microsoft runs Azure Government as a parallel set of regions on the same pattern. Two consequences follow. A commercial account does not reach into a government region, so a demo environment proves nothing about the delivery environment. And the region's authorizations cover the provider's own services, never your software on top of them. Shaavir writes proposals for firms bidding this work. The client is the offeror, and the cloud provider sits inside the client's solution as a supplier. Two Authorizations, Not One FedRAMP authorizes a cloud service offering for federal use. That authorization answers a civilian question, and defense work asks a second one. The Department of Defense runs its own layer through the Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide, which DISA publishes on the DoD Cyber Exchange (https://public.cyber.mil/dccs). The guide "outlines the security model for DoD's use of cloud computing", and it reaches commercial providers and "DoD contractors on behalf of the Department" alike. DISA's briefing on the authorization process is blunt about the stack. The DoD provisional authorization, it says, rests "on FedRAMP and additional DoD security requirements (Impact Levels 4/5/6)." Read that twice. The DoD layer builds on FedRAMP rather than replacing it, so a provider needs both. The DISA authorizing official signs the PA, and it carries an expi
Government cloud work rests on three separate approvals, and only one of them is yours. This guide maps FedRAMP, the DISA provisional authorization and the system ATO, then shows where DFARS turns them into an award gate.
Government cloud means a commercial cloud region that the government has approved for government data. The approval is the product, not the hardware. Two approvals stack on each other, and a third one belongs to the system owner. FedRAMP sets the federal baseline. The Department of Defense adds a provisional authorization on top, at an impact level the data decides. Your own application still needs its own authority to operate. Proposals lose points because one word, FedRAMP, looks like it settles all three layers. This guide maps the stack, names who signs each layer, and shows where a cloud requirement bites inside a real solicitation. What Government Cloud Means A government cloud region is a partition of a commercial provider's estate that runs under tighter rules. The partition matters less than the paperwork that comes with it. Providers keep these regions apart from their commercial ones, with separate endpoints, separate accounts and separate support staff. AWS states that access to its GovCloud (US) regions "is restricted to customers who are U.S. persons, not subject to export restrictions". Microsoft runs Azure Government as a parallel set of regions on the same pattern. Two consequences follow. A commercial account does not reach into a government region, so a demo environment proves nothing about the delivery environment. And the region's authorizations cover the provider's own services, never your software on top of them. Shaavir writes proposals for firms bidding this work. The client is the offeror, and the cloud provider sits inside the client's solution as a supplier. Two Authorizations, Not One FedRAMP authorizes a cloud service offering for federal use. That authorization answers a civilian question, and defense work asks a second one. The Department of Defense runs its own layer through the Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide, which DISA publishes on the DoD Cyber Exchange (https://public.cyber.mil/dccs). The guide "outlines the security model for DoD's use of cloud computing", and it reaches commercial providers and "DoD contractors on behalf of the Department" alike. DISA's briefing on the authorization process is blunt about the stack. The DoD provisional authorization, it says, rests "on FedRAMP and additional DoD security requirements (Impact Levels 4/5/6)." Read that twice. The DoD layer builds on FedRAMP rather than replacing it, so a provider needs both. The DISA authorizing official signs the PA, and it carries an expi