AWS Managed Services makes deploying solutions to a capable cloud infrastructure much easier. Rather than dealing with the rigorous process of setting up EC2 instances, connecting storage volumes, and building everything from the ground up, you can now buy provisioned services that are completely managed.

Amazon’s new managed cloud service allows you to focus on the things that matter the most: developing an application that users actually love. Amazon takes care of the rest, including making sure that the basics are covered.

One of the things you get from using AWS Managed Services is better cloud security. The team behind AWS Managed Services will handle going through the cloud security checklist and making sure that all of the best practices – defined by Amazon – are implemented properly. The good news is, AWS Managed Services goes a step further.

A Safe Landing Zone

One of the things that AWS Managed Services offers is a safe landing zone for your application. You only need to follow a simple step-by-step process to make sure that your deployment, as well as the app itself, complies with the required security standards.

AWS Managed Services even offers compliance certification mapping for different security standards. When deploying an application for the healthcare industry, for instance, you can follow the certification mapping for HIPAA compliance. The same is true with other standards, including NIST, ISO, and CIS.

As mentioned before, AWS Managed Services goes a step further by also making monitoring long-term compliance and implementing the right development approach easy. It does so by helping you control the security policies within the infrastructure.

Security as a Service

The foundation of AWS Managed Services is the active maintenance of security standards. All of the standard features you would need to maintain a secure cloud environment. Malware detection is a native feature in AWS Managed Services. The same is true with intrusion detection and intrusion prevention, with the latter being a priority.

This means you already have a secure cloud environment to work with, all without having to manually deploy security measures. AWS Managed Services simply offers security as part of its services. It is also worth noting that AWS Managed Services comes with managed security policies.

Both Identity and Access Management (IAM) and EC2 security groups are configured by default according to the Amazon cloud security best practices. Yes, that’s right; no more going through the checklist manually.

A Developer-Friendly Environment

More and more cloud security experts see the cloud security best practices from Amazon as the go-to standard, which means AWS security compliance gets you to a suitable point for safe and secure application deployment. The fact that AWS Managed Services offers this level of cloud security by default makes the service even more valuable.

The entire AWS Managed Services function is designed to be friendlier to developers. You don’t need to be a DevOps specialist to be able to deploy your own apps. AWS Managed Services works incredibly well with any CI/CD approach you implement as part of your development method.

Still, you maintain complete control over how you secure your cloud environment. AWS IAM and its features are still accessible, so you can customize roles or use corporate credentials for security; you can have your own security policies integrated into the cloud environment.

The same is true with AWS Security Hub. You can still access security alerts should you choose to view them manually. The main difference is that you don’t have to worry about priority alerts yourself since you have a team of cloud specialists securing your environment for you.

A Case for Managed Services

Using AWS Managed Services as a way to improve security and compliance is a viable option regardless of how you see it. AWS Managed Services is configured to be secure and compliant from the start, so you only have to worry about securing your application.

That’s actually the bigger challenge here. Even with a secure cloud environment and the infrastructure designed to be in compliance with security standards, you still need to make sure that your app follows the same security standards.

That said, you have development models and compliance guides to follow, so securing your application is also easier to do. It is easy to see how the security and compliance features (services) offered by AWS Managed Services can be valuable.

Is the extra cost worth absorbing? The answer to this question depends on how you approach deploying apps to the cloud. If you have what it takes to secure your own cloud environment, AWS Managed Services may not seem like an attractive offer. However, using the platform can significantly help enterprises to reduce your operational overhead and risk. It ”unburdens you from infrastructure operations so you can direct resources toward differentiating your business”. What more can you ask for as a growing business?

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Ibexlabs is an experienced DevOps & Managed Services provider and an AWS consulting partner. Our AWS Certified DevOps consultancy team evaluates your infrastructure and make recommendations based on your individual business or personal requirements. Contact us today and set up a free consultation to discuss a custom-built solution tailored just for you.