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Streamlining DoD Security Compliance and Cloud Adoption

By December 13, 2023No Comments

Reducing barriers to cloud adoption and enabling mission owners to rapidly build compliant architectures

 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has launched a new Secure Cloud Computing Architecture (SCCA) for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The solution is designed to simplify security compliance and cloud adoption for mission-critical workloads, using a framework of cloud-native services.

SCCA is a DoD security framework aimed at establishing standardized boundary and application-level security for Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Impact Level 4 and 5 data hosted in commercial cloud environments. Traditionally, achieving SCCA compliance has required substantial investments from DoD mission owners in terms of independent development efforts and third-party software licenses. These costs and time requirements pose significant challenges during cloud migrations.

The Oracle Cloud Native SCCA Landing Zone provides a secure framework for running DoD mission workloads and storing DISA Impact Level 2, 4, and 5 data within OCI government regions. Through automation, this solution empowers DoD mission owners to establish a compliant security architecture in a matter of hours or days, as opposed to the months it previously required. Leveraging cloud-native infrastructure services significantly accelerates the deployment of mission-critical workloads, reducing architectural complexities and decision-making points.

“Oracle Cloud Native SCCA Landing Zone is a game changer for our customers. What we are doing is fundamentally different,” said Rand Waldron, Vice President, OCI Global Government Sector. “We will deliver all the capabilities necessary for SCCA completely in native OCI services. Our customers will no longer have to manage multiple licenses, multiple vendor relationships, or multiple kinds of security configurations. Our SCCA solution will provide everything the customer needs to stand up an SCCA-compliant workload in the cloud.”

Utilizing standardized Infrastructure-as-Code (IAC) templates based on Terraform, OCI Landing Zones enable one-click, best-practice deployments of multiple Oracle services. Customers can initiate these templates from the Cloud Native SCCA Landing Zone, answer a few configuration questions, and have their architecture ready on the same day.

The solution also addresses the four key technical components of the SCCA framework, which include the Virtual Data Center Security Stack (VDSS), Cloud Access Point (CAP), Virtual Data Center Management Service (VDMS), and Trusted Cloud Credential Manager (TCCM). Customers opting for the secure baseline using the Cloud Native SCCA Landing Zone gain access to an architecture guide, requirements checklist, implementation guide, reference architecture, and best practices, all designed to accelerate the accreditation of their applications on OCI.

The Oracle Cloud Native SCCA Landing Zone script and related technical documentation are available at no extra charge under a customer’s contract. However, any underlying consumable cloud services used to establish Oracle Cloud Native SCCA within a customer’s tenancy may be subject to billing in accordance with the customer’s contract. Oracle Cloud for DoD services adheres to consistent global pricing, aligning with DISA Impact Levels 2, 4, and 5 and FedRAMP+ authorization standards.

OCI customers have the flexibility to leverage custom security zones with the SCCA and other OCI Landing Zones, enabling organizations to apply security policies and safeguard their configurations quickly and easily.


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