By Steve Fulton, CEO of Orbus Software
In every conversation I have with government teams – federal, state, and local – the theme is the same: public sector agencies are working tirelessly to modernize aging systems, adopt cloud solutions, provide more reliable, accessible, and user-friendly services, and strengthen cybersecurity, all while navigating increasing complexity and decreasing resources.
Enterprise architecture is key to addressing these needs, helping teams navigate organizational complexity and make informed decisions. But, for the insights derived from enterprise architecture to be relied upon, these platforms must enable information to be accessed at the same velocity as departments need, never hold operations back, and operate within a proven and consistent security framework, like FedRAMP®. OrbusInfinity® Government, now FedRAMP Authorized® is delivering the connectivity and depth of insight that government needs.
What FedRAMP Is – and Why It Exists
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)1 was designed to solve a simple but critical problem: the federal government cannot operate securely in the cloud without a unified, rigorous security standard. It exists to ensure that any SaaS system entrusted with government data meets the appropriate levels of protection – based on NIST 800‑53 controls – so agencies can innovate without compromising mission or citizen trust.
As such, federal agencies can only use cloud services that are FedRAMP Authorized, making FedRAMP a legal requirement for government cloud adoption.
In practice, FedRAMP solves three universal problems across government:
- It establishes a common, trusted security baseline.
- It accelerates procurement by reducing security review burden.
- It enables agencies at all levels to collaborate using shared cloud‑first systems.
Why FedRAMP Matters for State and Local Government Too
State and local governments increasingly depend on secure data exchange with federal agencies – to secure grants, achieve shared services, and for compliance reporting. With $1.258 trillion flowing from federal to state programs each year2, secure interoperability is a funding requirement.
FedRAMP Authorization gives state and local governments the security and confidence to share data and insights across departments, government levels, and with third-party contractors through platforms that comply with federal government standards. Highly regulated industries may also benefit from being able to operate within a secure environment that communicates with government agencies and departments.
Where Enterprise Architecture Fits In
Enterprise architecture is the strategic blueprint that helps agencies understand their systems, data, processes, risks, and modernization needs, while ensuring their tooling and systems are aligned to mandates and mission requirements. For government, architecture isn’t just an internal documentation exercise, it is critical to mission success.
Enterprise architecture enables:
- Visibility across complex, interconnected systems
- Compliance with mandates such as FISMA, Zero Trust, and High Value Asset (HVA) protection
- Prioritization of modernization and cloud adoption for decades‑old systems
- Cross‑agency interoperability and data sharing
- Risk reduction and improved citizen service delivery
But here’s the challenge: until now, enterprise architecture tools have not met federal‑grade security requirements. Commercial SaaS enterprise architecture platforms do not satisfy FedRAMP controls, nor do on‑premises tools enable the collaboration needed across agencies.
This is the gap OrbusInfinity Government now fills. The cloud-based platform is FedRAMP Authorized at the Moderate impact level, giving federal agencies a secure, accredited enterprise architecture environment with a faster, lower‑risk path to deployment. You can find out more about that here.
Why Government Needs a FedRAMP Authorized Enterprise Architecture Platform
The federal government’s push toward cloud adoption is a central pillar of national IT strategy, from Executive Order 140283 to ongoing Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and agency‑level directives. Agencies are expected to move to secure cloud services, retire legacy systems, and modernize their application portfolios at pace.
A FedRAMP Authorized enterprise architecture platform gives agencies the ability to carry out the necessary architecture work for these initiatives securely, collaboratively, and without the compliance or capability obstacles that have historically slowed the pace of delivery, siloed artifacts, or obscured insight.
1. Visibility across the technology landscape
Agencies face limited visibility into redundant systems, legacy environments, unpatched vulnerabilities, and siloed data, preventing modernization and exposing critical risk. FedRAMP Authorized enterprise architecture provides unified insight across systems so leaders can make evidence‑based decisions, including effective application rationalization to identify and reduce duplication, and invest in technology that fills real capability gaps. This visibility is essential when 80% of federal IT budgets are consumed by legacy maintenance4.
2. Compliance and control
Government departments face an ever‑evolving wave of regulatory requirements – from a changing political landscape to updated security mandates – that demand clarity, control, and the ability to act quickly. Enterprise architecture plays a critical role in helping agencies understand the impact of these changes, put the right systems and controls in place, and demonstrate compliance across complex environments.
At the same time, the platforms agencies use must themselves meet stringent federal security standards. A FedRAMP Authorized enterprise architecture platform ensures the tooling is compliant from day one, while also enabling audit‑ready documentation, Zero Trust mapping, CISA assessment readiness, and consistent alignment of controls across teams.
3. Mission success under real‑world constraints
The pressures facing government teams are enormous:
- Complex systems, political boundaries and shifting priorities complicate long‑term planning and require legislative modeling so departments can ensure they’re compliant
- Efficiency mandates, rationalization initiatives, and limited budgets require teams to take action on redundant and shadow IT so they do more with less
- Aging infrastructure and a need to deliver connected services that match commercial experiences
- Need for citizen data to remain secure in an age of rising cybersecurity risk to protect public trust
- State CISOs average only 23 months in-role5 – with so much turnover in this role, knowledge churn is a constant risk
A FedRAMP Authorized enterprise architecture foundation ensures continuity beyond leadership changes, provides clarity across siloed teams, and reduces the manual documentation burden that consumes weeks of staff time.
4. Reducing cost, reducing risk
Agencies must modernize securely and affordably, but modernization without architectural insight risks creating new technical debt rather than eliminating it.
Enterprise architecture helps agencies:
- Identify redundant systems
- Create modernization roadmaps
- Quantify and reduce technical debt
- Allocate budget more effectively
Why This Matters Now – and Why It Matters from Us
Achieving FedRAMP Authorization is not easy. It is one of the most rigorous SaaS security standards in the world, with over 300 different controls. And today, OrbusInfinity Government stands as the only dedicated SaaS enterprise architecture platform that has met this bar.
Other vendors in the market offer pieces of the puzzle – focusing primarily on application rationalization, rolled up reporting and visualizations, or legacy on‑premises platforms – but none offer a secure, cloud‑based, FedRAMP Authorized enterprise architecture environment capable of supporting the full mission of modern government.
We believe government deserves better:
- Data sovereignty, with US data collected, stored, and processed within the US
- Robust security and constant threat monitoring and remediation
- Tools with broad capabilities built for the complexity of public missions
- Tools with the capacity to support a full range of enterprise, data, security, solutions, and business architecture use cases
- Support from consultants that understand US government needs
- Reporting that can span agencies, contractors, and jurisdictions
- Modern, connected tooling that naturally integrates into the enterprise architecture workflow
This is what FedRAMP makes possible, and why OrbusInfinity Government exists.
Looking Ahead
Government faces substantial challenges – from doing more with less, reducing costs, and meeting legislative requirements, to navigating aging systems, rising cyber threats, and the urgent need for digital services that meet citizen expectations. But with the right architectural foundation, supported by the right security and the right platform, these challenges become solvable.
If you are navigating these challenges and want to understand how a FedRAMP Authorized enterprise architecture platform can support your mission, we invite you to learn more about OrbusInfinity Government. Our team is ready to partner with you in building the secure, modern, and data‑driven foundation your organization needs to move forward with confidence.
Find out more about OrbusInfinity Government.
2 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R40638
3 https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Treasury-Cloud-Report.pdf
4 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106821
.webp)
