How AWS can help your US federal agency meet the executive order on improving the nation’s cybersecurity

AWS can support your information security modernization program to meet the President’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (issued May 12^th, 2021). When working with AWS, a US federal agency gains access to resources, expertise, technology, professional services, and our AWS Partner Network (APN), which can help the agency meet the security and compliance requirements of the executive order.

For federal agencies, the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity requires an update to agency plans to prioritize cloud adoption, identify the most sensitive data and update the protections for that data, encrypt data at rest and in transit, implement multi-factor authentication, and meet expanded logging requirements. It also introduces Zero Trust Architectures and, for the first time, requires an agency to develop plans implementing Zero Trust concepts.

This post focuses on how AWS can help you plan for and accelerate cloud adoption. In the rest of the series you’ll learn how AWS offers guidance for building architectures with a Zero Trust security model, multi-factor authentication, encryption for data at-rest and in-transit, and logging capabilities required to increase visibility for security and compliance purposes.

Prioritize the adoption and use of cloud technologies

AWS has developed multiple frameworks to help you plan your migration to AWS and establish a structured, programmatic approach to AWS adoption. We provide a variety of tools, including server, data, and database features, to rapidly migrate various types of applications from on-premises to AWS. The following lists include links and helpful information regarding the ways AWS can help accelerate your cloud adoption.

Planning tools

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) – We developed the AWS CAF to assist your organization in developing and implementing efficient and effective plans for cloud adoption. The guidance and best practices provided by the framework help you build a comprehensive approach to cloud computing across your organization, and throughout the IT lifecycle. Using the AWS CAF will help you realize measurable business benefits from cloud adoption faster, and with less risk.
Migration Evaluator – You can build a data-driven business case for your cloud adoption on AWS by using our Migration Evaluator (formerly TSO Logic) to gain access to insights and help accelerate decision-making for migration to AWS.
AWS Migration Acceleration Program – This program assists your organization with migrating to the cloud by providing you training, professional services, and service credits to streamline your migration, helping your agency more quickly decommission legacy hardware, software, and data centers.

AWS services and technologies for migration

AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) – This service allows you to replicate entire servers to AWS using block-level replication, performs tests to verify the migration, and executes the cutover to AWS. This is the simplest and fastest method to migrate to AWS.
AWS CloudEndure Migration Factory Solution – This solution enables you to replicate entire servers to AWS using block-level replication and executes the cutover to AWS. This solution is designed to coordinate and automate manual processes for large-scale migrations involving a substantial number of servers.
AWS Server Migration Service – This is an agentless service that automates the migration of your on-premises VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V/SCVMM, and Azure virtual machines to AWS. It replicates existing servers as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), enabling you to transition more quickly and easily to AWS.
AWS Database Migration Service – This service automates replication of your on-premises databases to AWS, making it much easier for you to migrate large and complex applications to AWS with minimal downtime.
AWS DataSync – This is an online data transfer service that simplifies, automates, and accelerates moving your data between on-premises storage systems and AWS.
VMware Cloud on AWS – This service simplifies and speeds up your migration to AWS by enabling your agency to use the same VMware Cloud Foundation technologies across your on-premises environments and in the AWS Cloud. VMware workloads running on AWS have access to more than 200 AWS services, making it easier to move and modernize applications without having to purchase new hardware, rewrite applications, or modify your operations.
AWS Snow Family – These services provide devices that can physically transport exabytes of data into and out of AWS. These devices are fully encrypted and integrate with AWS security, monitoring, storage management, and computing capabilities to help accelerate your migration of large data sets to AWS.

AWS Professional Services

AWS Professional Services – Use the AWS Cloud to more effectively reach your constituents and better achieve your core mission. This is a global team of experts that can help you realize your desired business outcomes when using the AWS Cloud. Each offering delivers a set of activities, best practices, and documentation reflecting our experience supporting hundreds of customers in their journey to the AWS Cloud.

AWS Partners

AWS Government Competency Partners – This page identifies partners who have demonstrated their ability to help government customers accelerate their migration of applications and legacy infrastructure to AWS.

AWS has solutions and partners to assist in your planning and accelerating your migration to the cloud. We can help you develop integrated, cost-effective solutions to help secure your environment and implement the executive order requirements. In short, AWS is ready to help you meet the accelerated timeline goals set in this executive order.

Next steps

For further reading, see the blog post Zero Trust architectures: An AWS perspective, and to learn more about how AWS can help you meet the requirements of the executive order, see the other posts in this series:

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