Today we sit down with Susan Kidd and Valinder Mangat and discuss FedRAMP.

Some will argue that FedRAMP is an unruly thirteen-year-old. Although FedRAMP has authorized over three hundred public service cloud providers, there is much work to be done.

For example Valinder Mangat opens the discussion by noting that we have approximately five hundred applications in the pipeline. We have a situation where manually reviewing compliance is going to be too difficult. As a result, FedRAMP is making changes. They are starting to automate the process, causing companies to become familiar with a new acronym, Open Security Controls Assessment Language, or OSCAL.

During the interview, Susan Kidd reviews her philosophy that ties into understanding OSCAL. It has been her experience that there is a limit to working hard; the best results are accomplished when one takes advantage of automation and can work smart. To that end, Susan Kidd launched something called Idea Labs, an initiative that can assist federal agencies in modernizing their automation processes using OSCAL.

Today's compliance is not just a check box item. In the interview, Valinder Mangat details aspects of software development. There was a time when code was released and approved, like a snapshot. Today, there is a continuous improvement model in effect along with continuous testing.

The only way to accomplish that is to leverage technologies like OSCAL to keep up with changes in threat actors and best practices for handling mountains of data.

Valinder Mangat has a nice summary of this consideration: champions of innovation instead of captives of compliance. In other words, technology can be leveraged so a company does not take six months to get approved. OSCAL puts tools into the hands of federal leaders faster.

More details about the IdeaLab at DRTConfidence.

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