Cisco SD-WAN for Government Achieves FedRAMP “Authorization to Operate”

Cisco is pleased to announce FedRAMP Authorization to Operate (ATO)* for our cloud-based Cisco SD-WAN for Government solution. This solution will help U.S. government agencies and critical infrastructure securely accelerate their IT modernization and cloud adoption. State and local governments moving to the cloud can also gain greater efficiency and security by deploying this, and other, Cisco FedRAMP solutions that have met the federal government’s rigorous standards for authorization.

Software-Defined WAN: Why now

Cisco SD-WAN for Government has achieved FedRAMP Moderate Authorization through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General. This authorization adds to our growing list of Cisco FedRAMP Authorized solutions, creating a powerful opportunity to integrate SD-WAN into many other aspects of your organization.

The Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) market is growing rapidly, thanks to the increasing rate of adoption of cloud services. But as organizations migrate their applications to the cloud, they are faced with the need to transform their WAN to make it more application intelligent.

That’s why cloud services require a new approach to connect users, branches, and cloud instances securely to provide an optimal end-user experience. With SD-WAN your government agency can securely connect any user to any application — and increase their productivity by optimizing cloud and on-premises application performance (whether it’s delivered from your existing data centers, SaaS, or IaaS public clouds).

How Cisco SD-WAN for Government adds value

According to Dell ‘Oro Group’s most recent SASE and SD-WAN Report, Cisco SD-WAN has the greatest market share with over 40,000 worldwide deployments (as illustrated in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant).

By achieving our FedRAMP Authorization to Operate, a path has finally been cleared for U.S. government agencies to deploy a market-leading, cloud-based solution. Cisco SD-WAN for Government bridges intelligent, application aware networking and security to deliver a flexible architecture with the following key benefits.

• Better user experience: Provides a consistent user experience, regardless of where the application resides, with application-aware routing that leverages intelligent forwarding based on latency, loss, and jitter.
• Threat-centric security: Securely connects your users, devices, and applications with Cisco’s embedded security stack (Firewall, IPS, URL-filtering, malware protection, and cloud protection).
• Extensive cloud integrations: Enhances multi-cloud application experience with technology partnerships from AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Equinix, and Megaport across any location.
• Greater agility: Simplifies the deployment and operation of your WAN while achieving optimal performance using lower-cost WAN links.
• Proven scalability: Delivers a cloud-scale SD-WAN solution with proven large deployments of up to 8000+ sites.
• Actionable insights: Provides end-to-end visibility into application, internet, and cloud environments, enabling agencies to identify and troubleshoot issues more quickly.

Built around a Zero Trust model, Cisco SD-WAN for Government seamlessly connects devices and people to any cloud, providing a superior application experience while delivering consistent unified threat protection from branch to cloud. This includes aligning with Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) 3.0 guidance.

Cisco’s commitment to government

In addition to Cisco SD-WAN for Government, our portfolio of FedRAMP Authorized, Ready, and In Process solutions includes:

At Cisco, we’re committed to delivering FedRAMP solutions that help U.S. government agencies achieve their missions with simple, strategic, and secure digital capabilities. The addition of Cisco SD-WAN for Government to Cisco’s list of FedRAMP Authorized solutions will enable federal agencies, as well as state and local governments, to deliver secure cloud-agnostic network connectivity to users and applications everywhere.

Additional SD-WAN for Government resources

*Please Note: Cisco SD-WAN for Government has been granted FedRAMP Authorization to Operate as of March 9, 2023. The change from ‘In Process’ to ‘Authorized’ can take up to two months to appear on the FedRAMP Marketplace website. However, Cisco SD-WAN for Government is approved and available for your agency’s use today.

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