White Paper
The SaaS Visibility Gap: Why Federal Enterprise Architecture Is Increasingly Incomplete
Your agency invests millions annually maintaining enterprise architecture (EA) frameworks, technical reference models, and governance processes. Yet a parallel technology landscape is proliferating largely invisible to traditional architecture: decentralized SaaS adoption.
The Reality: When Aquia investigated the SaaS landscape for one of our large federal customers, we discovered more than 1,500 distinct applications operating on its networks. Nearly 600 were business-critical applications that had never been formally assessed, less than 15% were integrated with identity management, and approximately 276 lacked any FedRAMP or provisional authorization.
Why it matters: Federal agencies are executing multi-billion-dollar modernization initiatives under OMB M-23-22, implementing zero trust architecture under M-22-09, and meeting federal data strategy requirements. These strategic initiatives assume you know what you have. When EA documentation excludes hundreds of operational applications, these initiatives fail before they begin.
What You'll Learn
This white paper reveals why traditional enterprise architecture can't keep pace with modern SaaS adoption and provides a proven framework for closing the visibility gap:
The disconnect between architecture and reality: Why even agencies with sophisticated EA processes have hundreds of undocumented applications in production
The FedRAMP compliance crisis: How the gap between policy requirements and procurement reality creates material non-compliance across federal agencies
Why traditional controls fail: Why even CASB and SASE deployments can't prevent shadow SaaS proliferation
A three-step governance framework: Aquia’s proven approach to bridge documented architecture and operational reality
Proven results: Real federal agency outcomes, including 95.33% remediation rate for critical findings and 91.92% reduction in compliance violations
"When enterprise architecture documentation excludes hundreds of operational applications, strategic initiatives fail before they begin. You cannot modernize or govern what you cannot see."
— Daniel Wallace, principal security architect, Aquia
We’re in good company.
