There are literally thousands of software solutions on the market promising to improve an agency’s ability to deliver on the mission. With all these choices, how can agencies ensure they’re selecting the right vendor? A Common Criteria evaluation is one tool agencies can implement to ensure they’re working with secure technology.

The Common Criteria is an international set of guidelines designed to ensure information security solutions meet security standards for government deployments with rigorous testing and evaluations. “This evaluation provides a certain level of confidence and comfort that the desired criteria have been met,” said Brandon Shopp, vice president of product strategies for SolarWinds, whose Orion^® Suite version 4.0 recently underwent evaluation. “This is a certification just like you see in other areas of the industry. It’s just like HIPAA with healthcare, a baseline criteria to which software companies must adhere to deploy into agencies. It boils down to filtering out the thousands of unsafe software companies.” 

To ensure safety, security, and compliance while implementing new technologies, Shopp suggests identifying partners whose tools not only do the job but meet these important industry standards. “Agencies should look for partners providing solutions for today and invest in innovation capable of continuing into the future. These partners must get their criteria updated once or twice a year,” he shared. “As agencies want to maintain and update infrastructure, we’re building things to support the demand, and keeping up with evaluations makes it easy for agencies to implement new technology.” 

A Common Criteria evaluation demonstrates a commitment to agencies and organizations—a commitment to continuously improve. “When you have a vendor with a history of updating portfolios so IT pros can continue enhancing and growing, it’s a partner who won’t just be there today but as the mission continues to evolve,” said Shopp.