Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide Secure Services to California Department of Justice

In what in some ways can be seen as a significant affirmation of cloud security relating to public clouds, Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) (AWS) announced that it has expanded its push into the government and law enforcement sector with the announcement of a new contract in California. The cloud giant has signed a Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Addendum with the California Department of Justice, enabling local law enforcement agencies in the state to run their CJIS workloads in the cloud.

The CJIS gives law enforcement agencies assurance that their data is secure in the cloud and will also pass CJIS-compliance audits at the state and local levels. AWS offers a variety of security features, including encryption and access control measures like biometrics and identity history to ensure law enforcement customers meet compliance mandates.

“The cloud is an essential part of our strategy to securely deliver innovative digital services to all law enforcement agencies across California,” said Adrian Farley, CIO, California DOJ. “With the CJIS addendum, law enforcement agencies statewide can adopt a cloud-first approach, and benefit from the cloud’s agility, cost savings, and breadth of functionality.”

AWS has been ramping up its government initiatives over the past month, and just announced a deal through its subsidiary, Vadata, to build a specialty data center at the Warrenton Training Center in Virginia. Codenamed “Project Sunrise,” the purported $200 million facility is being designed to serve the cloud needs of the federal government and is being collocated at a government communications complex that serves the CIA, NSA and Department of Defense.

AWS also maintains a specialty data center on the West Coast that hosts GovCloud, designed to meet unique government regulatory and compliance requirements. The California DOJ maintains its JusticeCloud with AWS, enabling fast delivery of cloud services. The department is building service catalogs with a number of cloud service providers to enable local law enforcement agencies to access a variety of architectures and services that meet security compliance mandates.

The California DOJ is one of more than 2,000 government agencies working with AWS to secure and process mission-critical workloads. 

Edited by Peter Bernstein