Amazon Web Services has received a boost as it vies to become the cloud computing provider of choice for federal agencies, after receiving a three-year certification from the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).

According to the Washington Post, FedRAMP’s certification means that it’ll be much easier for different federal agencies to adopt AWS’s cloud services, as they’ll no longer be required to run separate checks on it. Meanwhile, Amazon will now be able to advertise its cloud platform as being secure enough for agencies to store sensitive but non-classified government data.

Amazon’s assessment by FedRAMP was sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and will now provide a template for other agencies and companies during the approval process.

“It’s the beginning of a process which will make it possible for the government to provide services in the way the American public is served best,” announced Frank Naitman, chief information officer at HHS.

FedRAMP was created last year in order to streamline the application process for cloud companies looking to render their services to government agencies and other organizations that have strict regulatory requirements to meet. According to the Washington Post, around 70 such companies are currently undergoing the certification process.

For government agencies, cloud computing offers some serious benefits, including the ability to centralize processes and allow employees mobile access to their work files. However, the sensitive nature of the data that many agencies deal with means that the stability and security of cloud services is one of their top priorities, and something that has hindered their adoption until now. To overcome these concerns, FedRAMP was tasked with creating a baseline standard for agencies as they consider the best provider to meet their unique requirements.

Amazon will be quietly hopeful that it can gain an advantage over its rivals by becoming the first cloud service provider to get the thumbs up from the feds. As SiliconANGLE’s Ryan Cox pointed out yesterday in his analysis of the “New Public Cloud Wars”, Amazon faces some tough competition from the likes of Google as it vies to win over larger businesses that have to deal with strict compliance regulations.