Month: February 2024

As a leading cloud services supplier and creator of the Climate Pledge, Amazon is fully invested in building sustainability awareness. The company works with all AWS customers, partners, and suppliers to promote sustainable cloud computing solutions and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

How AWS Engages With Customers for Sustainability
One of the six pillars of the Amazon Well-Architected Framework is sustainability. Customers using Amazon Web Services (AWS) have access to numerous Amazon services and tools to monitor and enhance the sustainability of their workflows.

Commonly used AWS tools for sustainability include the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, AWS Graviton and EC2 Spot instances, and the availability of carbon-neutral or near-carbon-neutral AWS regions.

While research shows that simply moving to AWS can help a customer reduce its carbon footprint, Amazon also provides many valuable resources and best practices to improve sustainability.

AWS documentation contains tips, pointers, and recommendations to achieve the following sustainability goals:

Choosing the most energy-efficient AWS regions to meet business and sustainability needs
Efficient usage of scalable infrastructure to ensure your organisation only uses the resources it needs, minimising wastage
Software and architecture optimisations to minimise unnecessary hardware load
Changing or developing a sustainability process and culture within your organisation

Amazon Partnerships to Promote Sustainability
Amazon works with multiple organisations to help AWS users find third-party sustainability data through the AWS Data Exchange.

Businesses of all sizes and types can use the Data Exchange to factor climate risks into their organisational portfolio, reduce their carbon footprint, or simply become compliant with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) requirements.

Other Amazon partnerships for sustainability, such as Global Optimism, the Nature Conservancy, and the We Mean Business Coalition, are focused on helping the company reach its stated Climate Pledge goals. These partnerships help Amazon get to net-zero carbon emissions, benefitting AWS users with more sustainable cloud computing.

Responsible and Sustainable Supply Chain Management with AWS
One of Amazon’s major supply chain commitments is an engagement toward environmental protection. Amazon pledges to source products and services from suppliers with a sustainability pledge, ensuring the supply chain is more respectful of the environment.

AWS users benefit from the company’s responsible supply chain management in multiple ways. The energy used to power AWS data centres increasingly comes from renewable sources, helping your organisation reduce its carbon footprint.

Many of the hardware elements in Amazon data centres receive continuous improvements to enhance their performance and energy efficiency, such as the AWS Graviton processors.

Achieve Your Objectives with WOLK
The WOLK team can help your business grow while meeting sustainability objectives. We can help you engage and become compliant with the AWS Sustainability pillar to create responsible, energy-efficient workloads. Contact WOLK today to learn more.

Implementing Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring for a Secure Modern Workplace on AWS

In the modern workplace on AWS, security is a crucial part of your daily operations. Implementing automation and continuous monitoring is vital. This ensures proactive detection and response to potential threats.

Learn how organisations can harness the power of AWS to improve their security posture, protect sensitive data, and maintain a resilient environment.

Understanding Security Automation
Implementing security automation measures improves efficiency and consistency and reduces human error in security tasks. This approach strengthens your company’s security posture, enables swift incident responses, and ensures a secure environment on AWS. Key components of security automation include:

● Identity and Access Management (IAM): Provides fine-grained control over user access to resources.
● Security Groups and Network Access Control: Helps enforce network security measures and control inbound/outbound traffic.
● Automated Threat Detection and Incident Response: Uses automated tools to detect and respond to potential security threats.
● Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Offers centralised monitoring and analysis of security events for proactive security management.

Implementing Security Automation on AWS
Implementing these security automation measures can improve your AWS security. Use the following steps to support a secure modern workplace:

● Set Up a Secure AWS Environment
When setting up a secure AWS environment, follow IAM best practices to manage user identities and permissions. This includes using principles of least privilege, creating individual user accounts, and enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA).

You should also configure security groups and network access controls to add an extra layer of protection. Security groups help control inbound and outbound traffic to instances, while network access controls allow for granular control over network traffic flow within Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).

● Leverage AWS Security Services
Use AWS CloudTrail for audit logging and monitoring and AWS Config for tracking and managing resource configurations. Also, try AWS GuardDuty for intelligent threat detection and AWS Security Hub for centralised security visibility and compliance.

Automate Security Tasks with AWS Lambda
Build AWS Lambda functions to automate specific security actions and responses, enabling you to streamline security operations and reduce manual effort.

Lambda functions can be designed to automatically scan and analyse logs for security events, such as detecting suspicious patterns or unauthorised access attempts. These functions can trigger immediate actions like sending notifications, blocking IP addresses, or initiating incident response workflows.

Lambda functions can also be used to perform regular security checks and configuration audits, ensuring compliance with security policies and industry standards. This includes validating SSL certificate expiration dates, verifying access controls, or scanning for known vulnerabilities in application dependencies.

● Implement Continuous Monitoring
Enable real-time monitoring of AWS services and resources using AWS CloudWatch, allowing for automated monitoring and alerting to promptly identify and respond to security incidents.

WOLK’s Network Operations Center (NOC)
At WOLK, we go beyond standard security practices by incorporating our NOC (Network Operations Center) expertise. Our NOC operates around the clock, vigilantly overseeing your AWS environment. We meticulously monitor and manage security parameters, ensuring your system aligns with Well-Architected standards. This proactive stance enables us to address potential issues swiftly and maintain a secure and compliant AWS infrastructure.

Achieve Ironclad Security: Protect Your Modern Workplace on AWS
Achieve ironclad security for your modern workplace on AWS when partnering with WOLK, a trusted long-term AWS partner. Safeguard your valuable assets and ensure a secure future for your organisation. Contact WOLK today for expert guidance and comprehensive security solutions.