Category: AWS GovCloud (US)

Ten years ago, the federal government was only just beginning to adopt cloud computing services. In the early days, there were concerns about how much cloud services would cost and whether they’d be secure enough for sensitive government data. In listening to our government customers, we heard their concerns about cost and security. They also needed to innovate ahead of demand, and required a highly secure and compliant infrastructure to do it. That’s why we launched AWS GovCloud (US) in 2011.

AWS is launching the AWS Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Customer Responsibility Matrix (CRM). The AWS CMMC CRM reduces the level of effort required for CMMC compliance by providing customers a breakdown of the CMMC practices that they can inherit from AWS, and identifies CMMC practice roles and responsibilities when using the AWS Compliant Framework for Federal and DoD Workloads in AWS GovCloud (US).

SAS Viya is a highly available, cloud-native analytics platform. The latest version of SAS Viya on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) allows customers to receive all of Kubernetes’ advantages without the trouble of maintaining their own Kubernetes infrastructure. Plus, customers also inherit AWS compliance controls, which can accelerate the journey to achieving FedRAMP authority to operate (ATO) in AWS US Regions. In this post, we show the key components of the SAS Viya architecture along with its core features to help customers on their journey to the cloud.

To establish network connectivity between on-premises data centers, branch locations, and cloud resources, organizations use a hybrid network. This technical walkthrough explains how to implement hybrid connectivity from your premises to AWS GovCloud (US) and commercial AWS Regions using a dedicated private network connection provided by AWS Direct Connect (DX).

The AWS Compliant Framework is an automated solution designed to help customers reduce the time to setup an environment for running secure and scalable workloads while implementing an initial security baseline that meets US federal government standards. The solution was designed to address the requirements for deploying DoD CMMC and DoD Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide compliant environments.

For defense, speed is important—speed to capabilities, speed to delivery, and speed to service. To deliver at the pace required of the US Navy, Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC PAC) leveraged the AWS Cloud to accelerate development of new features for the nation’s warfighters and to help address compliance at every stage of their cloud journey.

Predictive maintenance solutions involve using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and data analytics tools to monitor operations, detect anomalies, and predict possible defects or breakdowns in equipment before they happen. To help keep aircraft mission ready, the Air Force turned to PavCon, LLC, (PavCon), a woman-owned small business, to create an actionable predictive maintenance solution powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS Training and Certification is now offering a new foundational training course on AWS GovCloud (US) as part of their no-cost training webinar series. Introduction to Governance and Compliance in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions is a training workshop for those looking for a solution to host sensitive data and regulated workloads, or IT professionals just looking to learn more about AWS GovCloud (US). This new live training webinar dives into the basics of how AWS and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions address these stringent security, compliance, and governance requirements.

Internal Revenue Service Publication 1075 (IRS 1075) provides guidance for US government agencies, agents, and contractors that access Federal Tax Information (FTI), to make sure they use policies, practices, controls, and safeguards to protect FTI confidentiality and integrity of FTI throughout its lifecycle. Safeguarding FTI is critical to agencies that receive, process, store or transmit FTI. AWS and AWS Partner programs enable agencies to protect FTI and the confidential relationship between the taxpayer and the IRS.

Providing access through Azure AD to AWS GovCloud (US) reduces the number of credentials administrators need to manage and use for access to AWS GovCloud (US) and can also increase security to the account by using the same Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) mechanism used with Azure AD. This access also allows the use of scripts and programs to help manage resources in the AWS accounts. This post is a walkthrough of using an open-source utility called saml2aws to provide programmatic access to AWS for Azure AD users.