AWS Public Sector Blog

James Kierstead

Author: James Kierstead

James is a senior solutions architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) based in Ottawa, Canada. He is passionate about helping Canada's federal government use AWS to deliver services to Canadians.

AWS branded background with text overlay that says "Supporting security assessors in the Canadian public sector with AWS and Deloitte"

Supporting security assessors in the Canadian public sector with AWS and Deloitte

In this blog post, learn how Amazon Web Services (AWS) helps Government of Canada (GC) customers move workloads into production in the AWS Canadian Regions. This requires putting their workloads through the Security Assessment & Authorization (SA&A) process and can pose headwinds for GC customers developing applications to support digital modernization efforts.

How Government of Canada customers can use AWS to securely migrate data

How Government of Canada customers can use AWS to securely migrate data

Learn how AWS Snowcone and Amazon S3 can help Government of Canada (GC) organizations securely transfer and store their data, and how two GC organizations have already used these services to migrate data securely. Find out how these AWS services address data security, privacy, and compliance with regulatory requirements specific to GC customers.

How NRCan used an AWS open source solution to complete a PBMM evidence package in 60 days

Since signing a framework agreement with the Government of Canada (GC) in 2019, AWS has developed an open source solution to automate the deployment of security controls for GC customers, which can reduce the time it takes to achieve an Authority to Operate (ATO). Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) used this solution to implement their cloud landing zone controls aligned with the Protected B, Medium Integrity, Medium Availability (PBMM) profile. They worked with AWS Partner Kainos to complete an ATO evidence package in only 60 days—a process that typically takes 18 months.

How Natural Resources Canada migrated petabytes of geospatial data to the cloud

Since 1971, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has accumulated an Earth observation (EO) data archive in excess of two petabytes (PB). NRCan wanted to modernize its geospatial offerings at a faster pace, so they turned to the AWS Snow Family on AWS to migrate their large volume of data.

Canada’s Federal Geospatial Platform supports decision-making using AWS

Data has become a new global currency in the digital age, thus the capacity to turn it into useful information is becoming increasingly important. Geospatial data is collected and used by the Canadian government to support goals such as economic growth, environmental management, and social well-being.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security adds additional AWS services to its assessment of the AWS Canada (Central) Region

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) added more AWS services to its assessment of the AWS Canada (Central) Region, bringing the total number of assessed AWS services to 120. This provides Canadian public sector customers additional confidence that AWS Cloud services meet the Government of Canada’s security control requirements. Using these services in conjunction with the deployment of the open source AWS Secure Environment Accelerator (ASEA) solution reduces cloud service configuration time from months to days.