CloudAware: An Integrated Cloud Platform for Government Sector

The myriad benefits of cloud computing is no secret to the public sector who has started to capitalize on it. With the changes in the technology and security landscape of the public sector, policies such as ‘Cloud First’ have urged organizations to move towards cloud. Based in New York, CloudAware Federal provides the technology, people, and process to enable complete and secure cloud operations for government organizations. The company’s CloudAware platform enables federal agencies, cloud service providers, and system integrators to manage and deliver their own multi-cloud services and develops the workflow, governance, and collaboration model for a FedRAMP-compliant cloud environment.. “Cloudaware is a scalable, high-performing enterprise cloud management platform for secure computing. With its unique Continuous Monitoring and Threat Center capabilities, it is widely deployed in U.S. government agencies,” remarks Mikhail Malamud, CEO, CloudAware.

The firm is an Advanced Amazon Technology Partner that helps in bringing government experience in managing and deploying sensitive workloads to address their specific regulatory requirements, while having access to many unreleased products and solutions into the AWS GovCloud (US). In addition, CloudAware platform has been thoroughly tested with all of the AWS offerings such as GovCloud, EC2, S3, RDS, EMR and all other products.. The CloudAware platform provides clients with an-array of modules that would enable government agencies to improve IT flexibility and responsiveness with minimum cost involved. With CloudAware Continuous Monitoring Module, the agencies can ensure that all its contributors are collaborating with complete visibility, compliance, and governance along with situational awareness of the cloud environment all the time. Another module of the platform is the change management system that routes change requests to the most appropriate queue. The clients’ designated approvers can request additional information, reject or approve changes directly through e-mail or from a mobile device. With the real time change detention feature CloudAware continuously monitors AWS accounts, vulnerability scan results, and trusted advisors violations so that for any significant event, a change in the management process is activated automatically.

With the help of this module, every non-standard change is recorded and the information is stored in the audit-books which are electronic evidences that are complied with PCI section 2.2, HIPPA 164.308, and FISMA 3544.

CloudAware FedRAMP Continuous Monitoring Module provides a single solution into the security posture and operational dashboard for FedRAMP compliance and on-going assessments

The Office of Management and Budgets (OMB) mandate puts forward the condition that all agencies must use the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) while conducting risk assessments and security authorizations before granting permission to ATOs for the use of cloud services. “CloudAware FedRAMP Continuous Monitoring Module provides a single solution into the security posture and operational dashboard for FedRAMP compliance and on-going assessments,” says Malamud. Clients benefit from this module as it provides a complete Cloud Configuration Management Database (CMDB) that ensures the state of a system boundary along with its inventory. Through the module’s Incident Response Framework, clients can ensure access control and network security. The module provides vulnerability scanning reports and alerts by notifying on percentage of high, moderate, and low.

CloudAware AWS management platform was utilized by one of their clients, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide a secure environment by using a consistent approach across the board. By leveraging CloudAware platform, the client could increase policy flexibility and reduce cloud security complexity. The solution also supported rich application security policies and could generate domain boundary security policies.

CloudAware considers expanding its AWS management solutions and plans to incorporate more features into its integrated platform. “We want to explore the government cloud space and come up with innovative ideas that could enhance our client satisfaction,” concludes Malamud.