Amazon Web Services (AWS) rang in the new year with a renewed commitment to help organizations run sensitive workloads in the cloud and announced Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorizations across a spate of services.

The cloud giant claims to have brought seven of its services into compliance with moderate FedRAMP requirements in the company's U.S. East/West regions. These include Amazon Comprehend, Transcribe, Translate, AWS Batch, DataSync, License Manager, and Trusted Advisor.

With the exception of AWS Batch, AWS GovCloud regions also gained FedRAMP compliance with an additional nine services: Amazon Cloud Directory, Kinesis Data Firehose, Route 53, AWS CodeBuild, CodeCommit, IoT Greengrass, Organizations, Service Catalog, and Web Application Firewall.

FedRAMP provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.

The latest announcement comes just weeks after AWS announced FedRAMP compliance with another 26 services in early December.

Amazon claims to have bolstered its FedRAMP compliance by nearly 18% since the beginning of December, bring the total number of compliant services to 78 with in the U.S. East/West regions and 70 in the AWS GovCloud regions.

Compliance testing for all of these services was done by 3PAO, an independent assessment organization, to ensure the technical, management, and operational security controls against the FedRAMP National Institute of Standards and Technology requirements and baselines, according to AWS.

Compliance with federal regulations was a key factor in Amazon's failed bid for the Department of Defense's (DoD) Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract.

In fact, Google ultimately pulled its bid for the lucrative contract in part because some of the government certifications were, according to a spokesperson, “beyond the scope” of the cloud provider's current offering. However, Google claimed the decision was largely influenced by concerns that the work did not align with the company's artificial intelligence (AI) principals.

Microsoft ultimately won the contentious contract, reportedly worth $10 billion over a 10-year period, in a surprise win over Amazon, which had been considered the frontrunner.

The contract has been mired in controversy from the start and marred by rumblings of misconduct within the contract process as well as a very public feud between President Donald Trump and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Amazon filed a lawsuit against the DoD in late November challenging the Pentagon's decision to award the JEDI contract to Microsoft.

However, the basis of Amazon's complaint wasn't clear. Amazon, at the time, had requested a protective order claiming that “the complaint and related filings contained source selection information, as well as AWS's proprietary information, trade secrets, and confidential financial information.”

While it isn’t clear what Amazon is alleging, what is known is Amazon’s case will likely center around President Donald Trump and Department of Defense (DoD) CIO Dana Deasy, both of whom are cited in a notice describing several video clips submitted into evidence.

The clips reportedly depict Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Texas in February 2016 and at a press conference on July 2019. The notice also makes reference to a video of Deasy’s confirmation testimony on Oct. 29 and a clip from Fox News on July 21.

Amazon still has its eyes on the JEDI and plans to battle it out in court if necessary. During a press conference at AWS re:Invent AWS CEO Andy Jassy decried "significant political interference" in the matter and said the contentious process and eventual decision is "really risky for the country and for democracy."