Verizon’s enterprise cloud service has been given authority to operate under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) as a cloud provider for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Verizon’s Enterprise Cloud Federal Edition, or ECFE, will serve as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service solution, meeting all of the security, reliability and flexibility requirements needed for use at federal agencies. It can be purchased through GSA’s IT Schedule 70 or through Blanket Purchase Agreements with the departments of Agriculture or Interior. 
“We are seeing accelerating interest in cloud computing across our public sector business, and achieving FedRAMP authorization underscores our commitment to providing reliable, flexible and high-performance on-demand computing solutions that enable the business of government,” said Michael Maiorana, senior vice president of Verizon Enterprise’s public sector markets, in a release.
According to a blog post on Verizon’s website, the data centers, which were built strictly for federal use, are “designed to meet or exceed government criteria for physical and environmental controls” and are under “continuous physical and virtual surveillance.”
Verizon Communications Inc.’s cloud has long been part of the federal government’s cloud profile. The company was one the first cloud offerings available to the government and is part of the Interior Department’s slew of cloud contracts.
Aside from costs, Verizon often touts the agility given to its enterprise cloud users. In a joint survey conducted with Harvard Business Review earlier this year, 74 percent of respondents said they gained “some” or “significant” advantages from cloud adoption.
“I think this shift toward not just looking at cloud as a race-to-the-bottom commodity cost saver but more as an enabler of agility is relevant to the public sector,” Helen Donnelly, Verizon’s cloud marketing director, said at the time of the survey’s release.
