New Mexico State University Physical Science Laboratory drives agile and compliant federal research with Ubuntu

When fulfilling research contracts for the United States government and the Department of Defense (DoD), agility and comprehensive regulatory compliance are mission-critical.

With the introduction of new cybersecurity requirements for DoD contractors, New Mexico State University (NMSU) Physical Science Laboratory (PSL) set its sights on becoming fully CMMC and FIPS 140 compliant within one year. This new regulation coincided with the announcement that CentOS, PSL’s legacy operating system, would soon be discontinued. To achieve compliance quickly and cost-effectively while maximising agility and reliable resources to its students, the organisation pivoted to Ubuntu.

“To support our researchers and their projects, both the Information Technology department and the Information Security Operations Center have a lot of responsibilities. We regularly hire students, but we don’t have time to hold their hands. Part of how we educate them is to throw them in at the deep end managing their own Linux servers, so we need an OS that is easy to use, learn and troubleshoot.”

Gregory Cooper, Information Systems Security Officer at PSL

Highlights

Why PSL chose Ubuntu to replace CentOS and enable FIPS compliance in line with new DoD regulations, including Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC)
Ubuntu’s ease of use and community support empowers student hires to run their own Linux servers seamlessly
Ubuntu Pro provides FIPS 140 certified cryptographic packages at a cost 4-5 times lower than alternative solutions

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