CallTower recently announced that it is now offering Cisco Webex, Cloud Calling, and UCM in the Cloud for their government customers requiring FedRAMP certification.
By receiving the certification, CallTower’s government customers can now benefit from the Cisco Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) products that the commercial sector has long had available for it, along with the security assurances that they require to operate.
With this announcement, CallTower adds a new tier of Cisco options to their existing Microsoft GCC High offerings for Direct Routing and Teams.
Why FedRAMP?
Buying products and services for government agencies is a Sisyphean art and science of its own.
Due to the extra security concerns, these agencies cannot simply buy software, products, or services off the shelf. They have to comply with a laundry list of regulations in an attempt to reduce their risk.
Going through this process for every purchase is exceedingly inefficient. So, in an effort to cut down on the workload for government agencies’ buyers, we have certifications like FedRAMP where the buyers can know that the offerings they are purchasing fit their requirements.
This is a good thing for both the vendors, once they are certified of course, as well as for the buyers. Attaining certification opens up a new market for the vendors and gives the government agencies additional options that are available to them.
To learn more about what this new offering means for their customer base, as well as the process of getting certified for FedRAMP as a Cisco partner, UC Today caught up with CallTower’s VP of Software and Product, Doug Larsen.
Getting Certified for Selling to the Government
They already do voice and Teams for Microsoft GCC High.
This is the first time that CallTower is doing a government level certified product for Cisco products, so even though CallTower has certifications for selling services for Microsoft GCC High, they still had to go through the certification process.
Describing the steps that it took to achieve certification, Larsen says that, “We had to do a course where we learned about all the different government programs, government acronyms, what it means to be certified, how you would sell equipment to a Cisco government customer.”
Thankfully, Larsen and his team were not alone in navigating the certification process.
“As a Cisco partner, I have access to a partner account manager who walked me through the process,” says Larsen. “The account manager helped me map out all the steps, explaining some of the basic yet critical details like which courses to take, where to find the information, and how to sign up.”
On the plus side, Larsen says that the course’s nine or ten modules are very well laid out, which helped to ease the process along.
Cisco’s team provided additional support after the course was completed, ensuring that as a partner, Larsen’s team uploaded the correct certifications, and then worked with the Cisco team to ensure that they were enrolled in the FedRAMP program correctly. “They helped us to make certain that our certifications are valid, and that they updated our status in the Cisco portal.”
You’ve got GCC High? Great, Here’s Why You Should Add Cisco
One question that comes up for government agencies when considering adding services to their existing UCaaS deployments is,” Why do I need ‘X’ if I’ve already got ‘Y’?”
Larsen tells UC Today that, “First and foremost, when it comes to government, Cisco has been doing it for a long time. They know the ins and outs of the rules, and they ensure that piece of it, you're compliant.”
He notes that Cisco has their own cloud, where all of the FedRAMP services are deployed to ensure security.
