Fractional AWS Cloud Operations – Security, FinOps & Compliance

Hiring a senior cloud engineer costs $150,000–$250,000 loaded. Even if you find one, they can't be expert in everything you need. Most growth-stage SaaS, healthcare, and biotech companies need someone who can architect networks, manage security posture, optimize AWS costs, prepare for SOC 2 or HIPAA audits, and respond to incidents at 2am. That's not one person — that's a team. But you don't need a full team yet. You need senior experts available when something matters, without the cost or commitment of building an internal cloud organization.

The Hex Networks Fractional Cloud Operations service is a monthly retainer that gives you a senior AWS architecture team on-demand. You get the breadth of a full cloud organization at roughly 30% of the cost of a single senior hire — and zero ramp time.

What's covered every month:

• Continuous Hex Sweeper monitoring across all your AWS accounts, surfacing security misconfigurations, cost waste, and compliance drift the moment they appear
• Cloud architecture support — design reviews, infrastructure-as-code reviews, multi-region planning, scaling guidance
• Security operations — IAM hygiene, GuardDuty triage, Security Hub findings remediation, vulnerability response, penetration test follow-up
• FinOps — monthly cost reviews, Savings Plan and RI strategy, rightsizing, anomaly investigation
• Compliance posture maintenance — ongoing SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GxP control hygiene; Vanta evidence collection support; audit prep when audit time comes
• Incident response — investigation, remediation, and root-cause analysis for critical AWS events
• Monthly executive reporting and quarterly Well-Architected Reviews
• Direct Slack/Teams and email access to senior architects (no junior subcontractors, no support tiers)

What's NOT included (scoped separately as project work):

• New NVA or network architecture builds
• Multi-region migration projects
• SOC 2 readiness assessments (use HX-SOC2-READY-001)
• Major cost optimization assessments (use HX-COST-OPT-001)

Typical engagement: 12-month minimum contract, billed monthly. Onboarding takes 1–2 weeks (read-only IAM access provisioning, environment baseline, Hex Sweeper deployment, runbook handoff).

We've operated as the fractional cloud team for AWS-native SaaS, healthcare, and biotech companies ranging from Series A startups to mid-market enterprises. Average client retention: 18+ months. Average AWS bill reduction within the first 90 days: 20%. We're an AWS partner with Vanta, Fortinet, and Tailscale partnerships, an in-house testing lab, and proprietary Hex Sweeper continuous monitoring. We follow AWS Well-Architected Framework principles and align with FinOps and DevSecOps best practices.