Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a “top secret” cloud region designed specifically for classified US government activity.
The reveal of AWS Top Secret-West is the company’s second such launch as it looks to offer services tailored directly to the needs of the US government.
“With two Top Secret Regions, customers in the U.S. defense, intelligence, and national security communities can deploy multi-Region architectures to achieve the highest levels of resiliency and availability essential to their most critical national security missions,” wrote AWS’ Max Peterson in a blog post announcing the news.
Top secret cloud
Peterson added that the new AWS Top Secret-West is accredited to operate workloads at the Top Secret US security classification level, and adds multiple Availability Zones geographically separated from the existing AWS Top Secret-East region.
The multiple zones are made up of “discrete data centers with redundant power and networking”, AWS notes, adding that they are housed in separate facilities, in locations that are carefully selected to mitigate environmental risks to ensure maximum possible uptime.
The new zone also aims to meet the stringent regulatory and compliance requirements demanded by US government customers, with AWS saying it supports more classification levels, laws, regulations, and security frameworks than any other cloud provider.
“AWS is committed to helping our customers and partners in the defense, intelligence, and national security communities deliver their most critical missions,” Peterson added.
“As we continue to innovate with our customers, they gain tools to achieve their missions with greater speed, agility, and security. By removing the undifferentiated heavy lifting of the underlying IT infrastructure, U.S. defense, intelligence, and national security communities are able to focus on keeping the United States secure.
The news comes shortly after AWS announced a significant expansion to its global cloud network as it looks to maintain supremacy in the technology arms race with the launch of 30 new AWS Local Zones in major cities around the world – the first such launches outside the US.
