14 DAY TRIAL // When it presented the conclusions of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) related to Google Apps for Government lacking FISMA certification, Microsoft’s very own Cloud suite for governmental customers was pretty much in the same position, although the software giant wasn’t claiming the contrary. However, this is no longer the case, as the Business Productivity Online Services-Federal has been certified and accredited by the Federal Information Security Management Act.
FISMA certification is essentially a guarantee that a specific information management system raises up to certain security standards required of federal agencies in the United States.
“The certification and accreditation has resulted in an official “Authorization to Operate” (ATO) issued on April 19 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services-Federal, which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online,” revealed Microsoft’s Eron Kelly.
“It follows a similar authorization issued by the USDA in November for the Microsoft data centers that will deliver these services to the USDA. We plan to pursue FISMA certification and accreditation for Office 365, our next generation cloud productivity suite, after it launches.”
With the announcements that BPOS-Federal has received FISMA certification, the Redmond company also touted another victory over rival Google.
USDA embraced the software giant’s Cloud suite for governments and will be migrating no less than 120,000 employees to the services offered by the Redmond company.
“We take our responsibility to protect customer data very seriously, and our cloud services already meet some of the industry’s most rigorous global security and privacy standards. FISMA for BPOS-Federal is just the latest example,” Kelly added.
“We are very excited by this news and committed to serving the needs of our public sector customers.”
According to Microsoft, BPOS-Federal will be tasked with ensuring that a variety of USDA scenarios work flawlessly, from coordinating food aid efforts, to managing fight against forest fires and well as for safety response needs.