AWS Security Blog

Logical separation: Moving beyond physical isolation in the cloud computing era

We’re sharing an update to the Logical Separation on AWS: Moving Beyond Physical Isolation in the Era of Cloud Computing whitepaper to help customers benefit from the security and innovation benefits of logical separation in the cloud. This paper discusses using a multi-pronged approach—leveraging identity management, network security, serverless and containers services, host and instance features, logging, and encryption—to build logical security mechanisms that meet and often exceed the security results of physical separation of resources and other on-premises security approaches. Public sector and commercial organizations worldwide can leverage these mechanisms to more confidently migrate sensitive workloads to the cloud without the need for physically dedicated infrastructure.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) addresses the concerns driving physical separation requirements through the logical security capabilities we provide customers and the security controls we have in place to protect customer data. The strength of that isolation combined with the automation and flexibility that the isolation provides is on par with or better than the security controls seen in traditional physically separated environments.

The paper also highlights a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) use case demonstrating how the AWS logical separation capabilities met the intent behind a DoD requirement for dedicated, physically isolated infrastructure for its most sensitive unclassified workloads.

Download and read the updated whitepaper.

If you have questions or want to learn more, contact your account executive or contact AWS Support. If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Note: The post announcing the original version of the whitepaper can be found here: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-aws-meets-a-physical-separation-requirement-with-a-logical-separation-approach/

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Author

Min Hyun

Min is the Global Lead for Growth Strategies at AWS. Her team’s mission is to set the industry bar in thought leadership for security and data privacy assurance in emerging technology, trends, and strategy to advance customers’ journeys to AWS. View her other Security Blog publications here

Author

Tim Anderson

Tim is a Senior Security Advisor with AWS Security where he addresses security, compliance, and privacy needs of customers and industry globally. He also designs solutions, capabilities, and practices to teach and democratize security concepts to meet challenges across the global landscape. Before AWS, Tim spent 16 years managing security and compliance programs for DoD and other federal agencies.