Advancing Data Security Management with the AWS Landing Zone Accelerator

As the adoption of new cloud computing technologies accelerates, there is an increased focus on the ethical responsibility of data privacy and protection. Securing sensitive information in data-compliant cloud environments has become a requirement that must be addressed before accelerating cloud growth.

The exponential adoption of the cloud has impacted nearly every industry. However, for highly regulated industries such as government, defense, financial, aerospace, education, healthcare, and nonprofits, cloud migration has been a complex venture. Offering a solution to this challenge, AWS Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA), can expedite data security and compliance program readiness, while respecting timelines and relieving tight budget constraints.

AWS LZA is an open-source solution that automates account structure, networking, security, and access management by spinning up compliant environments with industry-recommended presets. Before deploying AWS LZA, the pre-requisite is to set up AWS Control Tower, a no-code solution that can be utilized for continuous, simplified operations by offering users the ability to quickly standardize deploying new, compliant accounts. Together, these solutions help organizations keep within compliance by providing prescriptive industry configurations.

These solutions help organizations create a scalable, secure, and workable solution that reduces manual steps and accelerates cloud compliance programs. This allows enterprises in highly regulated industries to maximize productivity with time and cost savings by speeding up traditionally extensive but necessary operational tasks. 

In the following sections, we’ll explore how AWS LZA improves cost and operational resilience, counters challenges with scale, and equips your organization with better visibility and security to optimize next-gen cloud applications.

Automate and scale your secure environment creation processes with AWS Landing Zone Accelerator

Utilizing AWS LZA is foundational for all highly regulated industry clients using AWS services.

Adopting a starting point for net new development and experimentation for new cloud environments can appear daunting for some. The AWS LZA, however, was uniquely designed to facilitate a seamless customer experience and ease adoption from day 1, day 10, and day N with support through the entire AWS journey. Some of these key features and benefits that ease the transition include: 

• Accelerated Deployment: Provides a set of pre-defined AWS account structures and configurations, allowing organizations to rapidly deploy a standardized and secure AWS environment. This saves time and effort in manually setting up and configuring individual AWS accounts.

• Security and Compliance: Incorporate AWS security best practices and enables organizations to implement security controls consistently across multiple AWS accounts. Enforce security standards, automate compliance checks, and improve overall security posture.

• Scalability and Flexibility: Enable organizations to create a scalable AWS environment that can accommodate the growth of their workloads. AWS LZA provides a flexible foundation for building and managing applications, allowing for easy provisioning of resources across multiple accounts.

• Automation and Orchestration: Leverage automation to streamline the setup and configuration of AWS resources. AWS LZA enables organizations to define and automate the deployment of infrastructure and application stacks, reducing manual effort, and minimizing human errors.

• Cost Optimization: Optimize costs by providing guidance on resource allocation, usage, and tagging. Enable efficient cost management practices and allows for better visibility into resource utilization and cost allocation across different AWS accounts.

• Operational Efficiency: Simplify the management and governance of AWS accounts. Provides centralized control and enhanced visibility. Organizations can manage access, permissions, and compliance policies across multiple accounts from a single management console.

• AWS Best Practices: Designed with AWS best practices for security, reliability, performance, and operational excellence. AWS LZA incorporates recommended architectural patterns and configurations, helping organizations implement a standardized and well-architected AWS environment.

Addressing Cloud Governance and Regulatory Compliance with AWS Landing Zone Accelerator

With more and more applications and workloads moving to the cloud, enterprises require a well-architected and secure AWS LZA environment that serves as a baseline foundation for governance and compliant migration. Implementing and monitoring a framework of policies like this helps regulate how users work in cloud environments and create consistency in system services and performance.

AWS LZA helps establish core accounts and resources with a baseline and set of pre-configured security functions and framework that guides cloud operations. With pre-built industry-specific features, AWS LZA creates standardized compliance with proper security controls necessary to accelerate cloud adoption confidently. In application, this allows highly regulated financial service organizations to meet unique technical and operational PCI standards while also extending to industries like Aerospace to meet International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) requirements. 

For example, deploying AWS LZA for the Aerospace Industry within the AWS GovCloud region will satisfy these requirements: 

• Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High 
• Department of Defense (DoD) Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide (CC SRG) for hosting Impact Level IL4 and IL5 workloads
• DoD Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) readiness
• M-21-31 Logging and retention requirements

As another example of another highly regulated industry, for US-based finance (tax) teams, AWS LZA configurations help organizations align with these requirements:

• Federal Tax Information (FTI) data
• US Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-1075
  
  

While the AWS LZA will not make an organization compliant by itself, it provides the framework and necessary infrastructure.

With centralized access and deployable open-source solutions, AWS LZA makes managing a sustainable multi-account architecture easier than ever before. A clear separation of duties, environmental level control, access to a robust content library, and reference architecture diagrams following best practices make for an adaptable, flexible, configurable solution to support evolving mission requirements. 

Getting Started 

As an AWS Premier Tier Services consulting partner, Effectual delivers this secure and compliant AWS environment in days instead of months or years. This allows you to focus your time and critical budgets on migration, transformation, and innovation with technical expertise and support along the way.

With documentation to demonstrate that compliance requirements are met, this shortens the time to prepare for accreditation of your AWS environment and maximizes your cloud investment. Counter challenges with scale and implementation to gain better visibility and security controls to optimize their next-gen cloud applications for highly-regulated enterprises in the public sector, aerospace, and financial services industries.

To get started or for more information on the delivery and implementation of the landing zone accelerator on AWS, get in touch today.