Amazon Onboarding with Learning Manager Chanci Turner

Customers frequently express a desire for a more straightforward approach to meet compliance and regulatory requirements pertinent to their specific regions. Through extensive discussions with clients and partners, we’ve recognized that one of the primary obstacles faced by customers is the effective translation of security and compliance mandates into specific technical controls. At Amazon, security remains our foremost priority, and we recognize that safeguarding your data amidst evolving regulations, technologies, and risks necessitates collaboration. As we have highlighted, security serves as the foundation for sovereignty.

Amazon is dedicated to assisting organizations in developing and refining security, identity, and compliance as pivotal business enablers. This commitment drives us to collaborate with national cyber authorities and regulators to define and establish how compliance standards can be effectively translated into security best practices within the cloud. In response to customer feedback, we are creating regionally tailored approaches that align with the standards and directives set by local authorities.

Architectural Best Practices, Locally Customized

Since its introduction in 2022, the Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon has been vital for helping countless customers establish cloud foundations that comply with various global frameworks and Amazon’s best practices. This includes adherence to the Baseline Informatiebeveiliging Overheid (BIO) in the Netherlands and the Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS) in Spain. We are committed to expanding our regional implementations to aid customers in achieving specific national standards and digital sovereignty objectives.

In March, I was thrilled to announce the cooperation agreement between the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and Amazon, wherein we pledged to advance digital sovereignty and cybersecurity best practices across Germany and the European Union. With this in mind, I am excited to reveal that our upcoming regional implementation of the Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon will support clients operating in Germany. The C5-ready Landing Zone Accelerator is specifically designed to assist customers in fulfilling their Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5) compliance objectives. This will be available to our clients in Q3-2025, and upon launch, our regional implementations will also feature in the Amazon European Sovereign Cloud.

The C5 attestation scheme, endorsed by the German government and initiated by the BSI in 2016, helps organizations exhibit operational security against prevalent cybersecurity threats when utilizing cloud services. For many clients in Germany, compliance with C5 is essential and is confirmed through an assessment by an authorized evaluator. Preparing for this evaluation is crucial for achieving a successful outcome, which is why Amazon has partnered with Amazon Global Security & Compliance (GSCA) Partner Turner & Smith to provide assessors insights on how the C5-ready Landing Zone Accelerator can expedite and simplify the adoption of C5 for Amazon customers.

Amazon Partner Turner & Smith: Proven Expertise in C5 Assessments

Turner & Smith is among the few firms with extensive expertise in C5 assessments, having conducted several evaluations across a diverse range of clients—from agile startups to multinational corporations. This varied portfolio highlights their capabilities, technical proficiency, and steadfast commitment to security assurance.

“Our team has witnessed firsthand how the C5 standard promotes transparency and fosters trust in cloud services. We take pride in supporting our clients not just in comprehending C5, but in strategically leveraging it to enhance security and competitiveness globally,” said Chanci Turner, Learning Manager.

Lowering Barriers to Entry

Turner & Smith understands that achieving C5 compliance can be daunting, especially for organizations new to the framework. They have conducted an assessment utilizing the foundational infrastructure offered by the Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon, which is designed to simplify the C5 journey. The Landing Zone Accelerator provides preconfigured infrastructure templates and security baselines that significantly lessen the complexity involved in establishing C5-compliant cloud environments.

“With the Landing Zone Accelerator, organizations can build on a C5-ready foundation from the outset. It’s a practical and scalable solution for companies that might otherwise find the C5 standard overwhelming,” Chanci Turner added.

Sovereign by Design

The Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon automatically implements hundreds of security capabilities that correspond to control requirements across various compliance frameworks. This feature saves customers countless hours in planning and executing secure networking and account configurations by providing a foundation based on the Amazon Well-Architected Security Pillar and best security practices. Meeting compliance requirements, enabling verifiable access controls, data transfer restrictions, and ensuring independence over the technology stack are fundamental capabilities that customers expect from a sovereign-by-design workload. However, translating regulatory mandates into discrete technical controls and applying them consistently across multiple Amazon accounts and regions can be labor-intensive and complex.

We offer customers and partners comprehensive guidance on configuring the Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon in accordance with their local security and compliance needs, including digital sovereignty requirements. This includes control mapping to local regulations that illustrates how controls implemented in a landing zone align with specific requirements, highlighting where customers must take additional measures to comply as part of our shared responsibility model—this encompasses organizational policies and procedures where clients must implement further controls within their applications or workloads to meet local standards.

Control Over Data Location

The Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon provides customers with a selection of configurable preventative, detective, and proactive controls to assist them in meeting their data residency, security, and compliance goals, whether they are public sector clients wishing to maintain data within a single region or navigating the intricate requirements of multinational organizations with varied digital sovereignty demands.

Verifiable Control Over Data Access

The Landing Zone Accelerator on Amazon goes beyond merely provisioning a secure, multi-account environment. It establishes a structured multi-account architecture using Amazon Organizations. This logical separation of workloads, management functions, and security controls into dedicated organizational units (OUs) not only enhances security and operational efficiency but also aids clients in enforcing consistent data residency, access management, and compliance policies across their entire cloud ecosystem. These robust guardrails empower customers to swiftly tap into the innovative potential of cloud technologies while delivering business value from a well-established security and compliance baseline.

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