Category: Federal

Amazon Web Services today announced the launch of the Federal Addendum to the Standard Contract for AWS Marketplace (SCMP). This novel approach to contracting can help streamline government approvals of software procurement and speed up the government’s access to third-party software solutions using AWS Marketplace by offering a pre-negotiated and consistent end-user license agreement (EULA) for each purchase. Read this post to learn more.

As the primary agency of the US government responsible for biomedical and public health research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one of the leading medical research centers in the world. The NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis (OPA) is tasked with helping NIH prioritize its research. OPA wanted to find a better way to optimize its cloud costs as its analytical research demands continued to grow. That need led OPA to work with AWS Partner Govplace, a systems integrator and solution provider for the public sector. Read this post to learn more about how OPA reduced research costs and scaled on demand.

Global leaders are convening in Germany this week at the annual Munich Security Conference (MSC) to discuss key foreign policy and security challenges. Amid these discussions, one thing is clear: global leadership increasingly hinges on technological progress. In particular, the rapid progress of artificial intelligence (AI) presents an extraordinary opportunity for transformative innovation. For the U.S. government, this moment marks a crucial inflection point: embrace bold modernization of digital infrastructure and AI investment or risk being outpaced by global competitors.

In today’s digital landscape, federal agencies face unprecedented challenges in securing their complex information technology (IT) infrastructure. Traditional security models require more capability, which is why departments like the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are mandating zero trust architectures across their agencies. Renzo Rodriguez, managing director of US Federal Solutions Architecture at Amazon Web Services (AWS), sat down with Les Call, director of the Department of Defense CIO Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office, in a recent episode of “Mission Innovation, powered by AWS,” to explore the challenges and strategies of implementing zero trust within the DoD. Read this post for a recap of their conversation.

Zero trust in the US public sector has become critical, especially as cyber threats targeting government agencies grow more complex and sophisticated. In line with the federal mandate for zero trust architecture (ZTA) outlined in Executive Order M-22-09, government agencies are required to adopt a comprehensive security framework that continuously verifies trust for every access request. In this post, we demonstrate how Cisco Umbrella for Government, built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), plays a key role in ZTA by providing multi-layered security and granular visibility across on premises and AWS.

David Appel, vice president of United States (US) Federal Sales at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector (WWPS), is a determined and inspirational trailblazer who has built a service-based, customer obsessed career focused on making communities around the US and world a better place. In the 11th episode of AWS Behind the Cloud, he shared how mission innovation powered by AWS can help federal agencies solve complex problems and address mission-critical needs. Learn about this and much more by watching the latest episode.

Amazon Bedrock is now generally available in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Top Secret cloud. With authority to operate in the AWS Top Secret Cloud, Amazon Bedrock is providing U.S. Government customers with secure access to foundation models (FMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities within AWS’s classified environment.

Precise Software Solutions, Inc. (Precise), an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner, participated in the AWS Think Big for Small Business Program (TBSB) to expand their AWS capabilities and to grow their business in the public sector. After completion of the program, Precise achieved Advanced tier partner status and was selected by a federal government agency to create a machine learning as a service (MLaaS) platform on AWS. The platform helped the agency gain a four-fold productivity improvement by streamlining and automating labor-intensive manual processes. Read this post to learn more.

Federal agencies can use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to meet Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) 3.0 requirements. To facilitate this, AWS has published detailed architectural overlays that demonstrate how to effectively implement TIC 3.0 guidelines within AWS deployments. AWS Verified Access (AVA) is a cloud-based service that enables secure access to applications without requiring the use of a virtual private network (VPN). It evaluates each application request and gives users access to each application only when they meet the specified security requirements. AVA supports TIC 3.0 requirements in the areas of configuration management, centralized log management, strong authentication features, resilience, and policy enforcement. Read this post to learn more.

Ash Thankey, director of national security sales at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector (WWPS), is an empathetic and energizing trailblazer who has built a career embedded in diversity of thought and problem solving, with customer obsession at the forefront. If there is anyone who knows how to consider multiple viewpoints to make informed decisions that directly assist in mission outcomes, it’s Ash. Learn more as you watch the 10th episode of the AWS Behind the Cloud vodcast.