The research and development arm of the Department of the Navy has launched an Amazon Web Services-supported cloud environment where Impact Level 6-classified information can be stored and processed.
AWS said Thursday users of the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific's Secret Wide Area Network and external customers of the Navy and Department of Defense can now access the AWS Secret Region IL-6 environment, enabling classified secret level workloads to be tackled through the commercial cloud.
Delores Washburn, chief engineer of NIWC PAC, said the move is aimed at expanding cloud service coverage from IL-4 and IL-5 to IL-6 projects.
Cloud services with provisional authorization from the Defense Information Systems Agency for secret workloads are provided through the AWS Secret Region.
The environment is in line with a Navy policy aimed at optimizing use of commercial cloud hosting services for operation, sustainment, design and transfer of information technology capabilities.
AWS received a blanket purchase agreement in June 2019 for DOD Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide IL-6 cloud services.
