Datadog
What this guide covers
How to actually buy Datadog for a Maryland agency — which statewide vehicle you ride, which reseller fulfills the order, the FedRAMP/ATO path, and the functionality gates to clear before you sign.
Who it’s for
Engineering leads, program staff, and procurement officers at a Maryland State agency or education entity who have decided they need Datadog (or are comparing it against the self-hosted observability stack) and need the path from “we want it” to “it’s authorized and on contract.”
Part of the SaaS Catalog. For the vehicles themselves, see Maryland Master Contracts; for the process and thresholds, see Maryland Procurement.
Disclaimer. Not legal or procurement advice. FedRAMP authorizations, contract catalogs, and BPO numbers change as awards are renewed and authorizations are re-baselined. Verify every figure below against the FedRAMP Marketplace, the Carahsoft Datadog contracts page, and the DoIT Statewide Contracts hub before relying on it. Datadog’s FedRAMP status in particular moved recently (see below) and should be re-checked.
TL;DR
- Category: Observability — metrics, logs, APM, distributed tracing, RUM.
- Maryland vehicle: COTS 2012, BPO 060B2490021, via Carahsoft (Datadog is on the Carahsoft MD COTS publisher list).
- Reseller: Carahsoft is the primary public-sector aggregator.
- Authorization: “Datadog for Government” (US1-FED region) is FedRAMP authorized. It was Moderate (since Jan 2022) and reportedly moved to High in May 2026 — re-verify the current baseline on the Marketplace.
- The ATO trap: Only the US1-FED government boundary is in FedRAMP scope. The commercial Datadog regions (US1, US3, US5, EU) are not.
What This Tool Is
Datadog is a SaaS observability platform — infrastructure metrics, log management, application performance monitoring (APM), distributed tracing, real-user monitoring, and security monitoring in one console. In this stack it is the commercial alternative that the self-hosted Prometheus + Grafana + Loki + Tempo set replaces (see Tools and Software → Observability). Agencies reach for Datadog when they want a single managed pane of glass instead of operating that OSS stack themselves — which is a legitimate trade, but it turns a $0-license self-hosted choice into a procurement-and-ATO exercise. This page is that exercise.
Which Maryland Vehicle
| Vehicle | BPO | How Datadog rides it |
|---|---|---|
| COTS 2012 | 060B2490021 | The primary path. Datadog appears on Carahsoft’s Maryland COTS publisher catalog; you issue an order against the COTS master contract and Carahsoft fulfills it. |
| NASPO ValuePoint Cloud Solutions | Maryland participating addendum (Carahsoft) | A cloud/SaaS alternative the State extended into Maryland. Compare ceiling pricing against COTS before choosing. |
The same publisher can be reachable through more than one Carahsoft vehicle, and which one you ride affects ceiling pricing, terms, and which approvals apply — see Maryland Master Contracts → Where Carahsoft Fits.
Resellers and Pricing Path
Carahsoft is Datadog’s primary public-sector aggregator and the reseller holding the Maryland awards. You do not buy a “Carahsoft contract” — Carahsoft fulfills your order against the COTS master contract (or the NASPO addendum). Request a quote referencing the Maryland COTS BPO 060B2490021 so the order is priced against the statewide ceiling rather than commercial list price. Datadog is usage-metered (per-host, per-GB-ingested, per-million-spans), so the quote depends on your telemetry volume — size it before you ask, and revisit it, because usage-based bills drift upward.
Authorization and ATO
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Authorized offering | Datadog for Government (the US1-FED GovCloud region) |
| FedRAMP status | Authorized — Moderate since Jan 2022; reportedly elevated to High ~May 2026 (volatile — re-verify) |
| Marketplace ID | FR2023864279A |
| GovRAMP (StateRAMP) | Not confirmed — verify on the GovRAMP product list |
| Commercial regions in scope? | No — US1, US3, US5, EU are outside the FedRAMP boundary |
The single thing to get right for the ATO: purchase and provision the US1-FED government environment, not a commercial Datadog org. The FedRAMP authorization — whatever its current baseline — attaches only to that boundary. An order that lands you on commercial Datadog gives you no authorization to inherit, and the gap will surface late in your security review. Confirm the current baseline (Moderate vs. High) matches your system’s data classification before you commit; the two are different boundaries with different control sets.
Functionality Gates to Verify
Clear these before price comparison — any one can disqualify the buy regardless of cost. See the canonical list in Tools and Software → Enterprise Functionality.
| Gate | Datadog-specific note |
|---|---|
| SSO (SAML/OIDC) + SCIM | Supported; confirm SCIM de-provisioning is included at your tier, not gated to a higher plan. |
| Audit logs | Available; confirm retention meets your records policy. |
| RBAC | Granular roles supported; map them to least-privilege before rollout. |
| Data residency / FedRAMP boundary | The US1-FED region is the residency answer — see above. |
| Accessibility (VPAT/ACR) | Request Datadog’s current VPAT; Maryland’s Nonvisual Access (NVA) requirement applies to the procurement. |
| BAA / DPA | Required if any monitored telemetry could carry PII/PHI; confirm availability for the government region. |
Procurement Steps
- Confirm the need over the OSS alternative. Datadog replaces the self-hostable Prometheus/Grafana/Loki/Tempo stack ($0 license). Document why managed observability is worth the spend — that rationale is the core of the budget justification.
- Register / confirm eMMA. Your agency and the reseller must be set up in eMMA.
- Pick the vehicle. Default to COTS 060B2490021; compare the NASPO Cloud addendum if cloud terms suit you better.
- Get a Carahsoft quote referencing the BPO, sized to your telemetry volume, for the US1-FED government offering.
- Check the threshold. The order’s dollar value drives the method — purchasing card, small procurement, or BPW review. See Maryland Procurement → how the value picks the path. Do not split a buy to dodge a threshold.
- Run the ATO package. Inherit the FedRAMP controls for the US1-FED boundary; document the rest. Verify the current baseline first.
- Issue the order against the vehicle once approvals clear.
Sources
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Datadog for Government FedRAMP listing (US1-FED) | FedRAMP Marketplace — FR2023864279A |
| FedRAMP High (~May 2026) | Datadog — FedRAMP High announcement |
| FedRAMP Moderate (Jan 2022) | Datadog — FedRAMP Moderate press release |
| Public-sector reseller path | Carahsoft — Datadog contracts |
| Datadog on the Maryland COTS catalog | Carahsoft — Maryland State Contracts |
Datadog’s FedRAMP baseline changed recently. Re-verify the current impact level and which regions are in boundary against the Marketplace listing before relying on any figure here.
Related Resources
- Next: set it up — Datadog implementation → — Day 0 → Day 2 configuration and gov-readiness
- SaaS Catalog — Playbook — all tools, compared in one matrix
- Maryland Master Contracts — COTS / CATS+ / Carahsoft, the vehicle this rides
- Maryland Procurement — BPW, eMMA, COMAR thresholds, the process that still binds the order
- Tools and Software → Observability — Datadog vs. the self-hosted OSS stack it replaces
- Tools and Software → Enterprise Functionality — the gates to clear before price