VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) has been helping US public sector agencies and private sector customers in highly regulated industries in their IT modernization initiative by helping them migrate their highly sensitive government workloads to the cloud in safe, secure and cost-effective manner.
Every quarter, we come up with some new features and capabilities to help our government customers accelerate their hybrid cloud journey. Just to recap, we expanded regional availability of the service to GovCloud (US-East) region in Jan 2022 and in April 2022, VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) achieved FedRAMP High Joint Authorization Board (JAB) authorization and DISA Impact Level 5 (IL5) provisional authorization. The achievement of a FedRAMP High JAB P-ATO by VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) signifies that the Joint Authorization Board’s three constituent agencies (the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and General Services Administration) have reviewed the FedRAMP compliance of the cloud service and deemed it acceptable for use by the US Federal Government community. Post authorization, the JAB performs continuous monitoring of the service, ensuring that it maintains a security and risk posture that meets the FedRAMP High requirements. DISA’s authorization demonstrates that VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) can scale and handle large-scale and intensive workloads by implementing controlled unclassified information that requires higher level of protection, national security systems. Our DoD customers now can leverage the Provisional Authorization as a baseline for assessing risk associated with DoD CC SRG IL5 requirements. You can learn more about these authorizations in this blog.
Now, let’s see what’s new in VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) this time around:
- StateRAMP Authorization: VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) is on path to achieve StateRAMP authorization. StateRAMP simplifies security by providing state and local governments a common method for verification of cloud security. StateRAMP Authorization implies that VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud meets and maintains the government’s published cybersecurity policies. StateRAMP security status gives state and local governments, their procurement officials, Privacy Officers, and Information Security Officers confidence in VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US)’s data security capabilities to process/store and/or transmit government data including PII, PHI, and/or PCI information.
- Support for VMware HCX: VMware HCX has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization management program (FedRAMP) through the Joint authorization Board (JAB). With this authorization VMware will be able to help federal agencies in migrating their business-critical applications to the VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) with minimal to no downtime. VMware HCX also helps agencies to extend their on-premises and colocation site networks to VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US), enabling workload rebalancing and disaster recovery use cases. The FedRAMP authorization for VMware HCX bolsters the security of various HCX components and hence provides a trusted and secure application mobility platform for US Governments digital transformation journey.
- SDDC Groups and VMware Transit Connect support: VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US) will now support two key networking capabilities: SDDC Groups and VMware Transit Connect. With SDDC Groups, government agencies will be able to manage multiple SDDCs as a single logical entity which will help them simplify the management and operations of the SDDCs. VMware Transit Connect provides high bandwidth, resilient connectivity to SDDCs in an SDDC Group. It operationalizes an AWS Transit Gateway as a VMware managed service for SDDC Groups with automated provisioning and controls to interconnect SDDCs. It simplifies connectivity to AWS VPCs as well as on-premises data centers over an AWS Direct Connect Gateway.
- VMware Site Recovery support for recovery from GovCloud SDDC to GovCloud SDDC: VMware Site Recovery will support cloud-to-cloud DR topologies where both the Active and Failover sites are deployed as VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud SDDCs in GovCloud (US-East) and GovCloud (US-West) regions or vice-versa with federated authentication enabled between vCenter and VMware Cloud Console.
The following capabilities are available today: Support for VMware HCX
The following capabilities/offerings are expected to be available in VMware’s Q3’Fiscal Year 2023: StateRAMP Authorization, SDDC Groups and VMware Transit Connect support, VMware Site Recovery support for recovery from GovCloud SDDC to GovCloud SDDC
For more information about VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud (US), pricing, and to get started please visit https://www.vmware.com/products/vmc-on-aws/govcloud.html or contact your VMware or AWS sales team.
Resources
- Check out VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud(US) website
- Learn more about the offering by reviewing the service description
- Learn about key features and capabilities in the solution brief
- Watch the VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud(US) on-demand webinar
- Catch up on prior announcements:
Disclaimer: VMware makes no guarantee that services announced in preview will become available at a future date. The information in this blog is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. This article may contain hyperlinks to non-VMware websites that are created and maintained by third parties who are solely responsible for the content on such websites.
