How it Works: Cloud Governance Framework for AWS

How it Works: Cloud Governance Framework for AWS

Cloud governance is a set of rules and practices implemented by companies that run cloud services to enhance security and manage risk.

AWS partners use the AWS cloud governance framework to help clients create the best cloud governance strategy for their business.

Cloud Governance Framework for AWS

The AWS cloud governance framework is based on four pillars: visibility, configuration, operations, and risk.

Visibility Pillar

The visibility pillar ensures an accurate and detailed view of all activities in your cloud environment. It covers AWS accounts, stored data, cloud assets (applications, platforms, etc.), users, and the data they access.

Challenges usually derive from hybrid and multi-cloud environments, where unmanaged IT can easily spread. In practice, this happens when users or departments utilize hardware, software, and/or services without the knowledge of the company’s IT department.

Various AWS services can help with visibility issues:

• AWS Security Hub organizes security alerts from various SWA services, thus providing a comprehensive view of a company’s security posture.
• Amazon GuardDuty constantly monitors activity to detect threats and unauthorized behavior.
• Amazon Macie uses machine learning to discover and protect sensitive data.
• AWS CloudTrail enables the logging and monitoring of account activity, which provides a comprehensive event history that helps with troubleshooting and security analysis.

Configuration Pillar

The configuration pillar is most often thought of in its negative version - misconfiguration, which represents an error that violates a company’s policy or allows behaviors that impact security. This happens, for example, when an unauthorized user gains access to sensitive data or system settings. Misconfigurations are especially problematic in regulated industries, like finance and healthcare, and in the case of GDPR compliance.

The following AWS services can help:

• AWS Foundational Security Best Practices standard recognizes deviations from security best practices while providing a guide to improving security.
• AWS Config Conformance Packs is a collection of rules and actions that can be used to assess an AWS environment.
• AWS IAM Access Analyzer helps to uncover unintended access to data.

Operation Pillar

Operations refer to the fact that, as companies scale up their investment in the cloud, the processes used to manage the various activities are no longer suited for the task.

To better manage operations in the cloud, AWS offers these services:

• AWS System Manager allows companies to view data from multiple AWS services and automate operational tasks.
• AWS Control Tower allows companies to set up a safe multi-account AWS environment.
• AWS Organizations is used to centrally manage a user environment.

Risk Pillar

Finally, risk encompasses all the different types of risks (financial, regulatory, data security, …) that can damage an organization. Therefore, every organization needs to establish processes to find and address security risks.

AWS services can help:

• AWS Audit Manager enables managers to evaluate whether their company’s activities and procedures are efficient.
• AWS Config is used to assess and evaluate AWS resource configurations.

Why Is Cloud Governance Important?

With cloud governance, a cloud can be broken down into accounts that represent projects or departments: this improves visibility and cost control and, at the same time, reduces the impact of security problems. Another critical aspect of cloud governance is centralization: it allows companies to define and apply policies centrally and centralizes cost and access control. Finally, cloud governance improves security by establishing a plan that protects the integrity and privacy of information.

By choosing the AWS cloud governance framework, you can significantly improve the success and security of your cloud system.

If you want to know more about cloud migration, cloud technology in general, AWS cloud, or you want to try AWS services:

• visit our cloud migration service page;
• give us a call at +385 1 3141 562;
• contact our sales department at sales@heptabit.com.

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