DOD's Commercial IT Innovation Hub to Deploy Google Secure Cloud Offering

After exploring multiple commercial prototypes, the Defense Innovation Unit is rolling out Google Cloud’s Secure Cloud Management solution, or SCM, across its entire organization.

Other Defense Department agencies can procure the offering through Other Transaction Authority agreements, according to a press release published by Google on Tuesday.

“In today’s new cybersecurity paradigm, it’s critical that government agencies see the benefits of adopting a zero trust security strategy and have the option of selecting more modern, cloud-native solutions that meet their unique needs,” Google Cloud Vice President, North America Public Sector, Lynn Martin wrote in the announcement.

Google Cloud developed SCM in collaboration with Palo Alto Networks. 

The solution is considered a container-based offering that enables secure access to and management of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud applications, as well as ongoing monitoring. 

This contract award follows a project in which DIU deployed three different year-long prototypes—each made individually by either Google, Zscaler, or McAfee Public Sector—to supply software-as-a-service options seamlessly over the internet. 

SCM “embraces” zero trust principles and aligns with policies from President Joe Biden’s administration on implementing that modern approach, officials wrote in the release. 

A third-party assessment organization evaluated this tool, they added, based on recommendations from the Defense Information Systems Agency.

To work with the Pentagon, cloud service providers have to show that they can meet specific security requirements, depending on the sensitivity of the data they will host. Lower “impact levels” handle data cleared for public release, and impact level six, or IL6, encompasses classified national security information.

“Google Cloud is FedRAMP High certified, has an IL2 PA globally, recently received an IL4 PA and is working with DISA for IL5 and IL6,” a Google spokesperson told Nextgov in an email on Wednesday. “Expanding our list of compliance certifications is a critical part of our mission and we are actively working towards higher approval levels.”

Google is one of several major technology companies preparing a bid for the Defense Department’s multibillion-dollar Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, or JWCC contract.