Naomi Cooper
Mike Daniels, vice president of global public sector at Google Cloud, has highlighted how the Air Force Research Laboratory employs the company’s Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program-certified cloud-based productivity and collaboration platform to ensure scientists and engineers have access to a hybrid environment where they can continue working together.
Lab personnel are now using Google Workspace’s remote collaboration tool Smart Canvas to simultaneously connect, share and discuss critical research projects as well as video conferencing platform Google Meet to host virtual meetings, Daniels wrote in a blog Google published Wednesday.
“AFRL needs flexibility, but also must meet rigorous security standards—while maintaining the agility to onboard new researchers quickly,” the executive noted.
The laboratory will also deploy the newly launched client-side encryption feature of Google Workspace along with a zero trust security approach to meet data security standards set by the Defense Information Systems Agency.
Daniels cited Joshua Kennedy, a research physicist at AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, who commented that Google Workspace “eliminated what would have otherwise been almost a total work stoppage” when the laboratory limited onsite work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The California-based technology company secured FedRAMP High authorization to provide Google Workspace to federal customers and obtained Impact Level 4 designation from DISA to store controlled unclassified information for the U.S. military.
