Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of AWS Snowcone, a new small, ultra-portable, rugged, and secure edge computing and data transfer device, the company reported on Thursday.

“Thousands of our customers have found AWS Snowball devices to be ideal for collecting data and running applications in remote and harsh environments. Since 2015, customer use of Snowball devices has greatly increased, as has their need for an even smaller device with even greater portability,” said Bill Vass, VP of Storage, Automation and Management Services, AWS.

AWS Snowcone has been built to withstand harsh conditions and is designed for a variety of use cases in environments outside of the traditional data center that lack consistent network connectivity or require portability, including healthcare, industrial IoT, drones, tactical edge computing, content distribution, data migration, video content creation and transportation.

The solution will enable customers to collect and process data, run local computing applications, and move large volumes of data from log files, digital media, genomic data and sensor data from connected devices to AWS.

AWS Snowcone will also provide maximum flexibility for edge computing environments, offering a small, ultra-portable, rugged, and military grade secure device to run applications and migrate data to AWS.

Snowcone will integrate anti-tamper and tamper-evident features to help ensure data on the device stays secure during transit. AWS’ solution has complied with ruggedization standards such as ISTA-3A, ASTM D4169 and MIL-STD-810G standards.

“With more applications running at the edge for an expanding range of use cases, like analyzing IoT sensor data and machine learning inference, AWS Snowcone makes it easier to collect, store, pre-process, and transfer data from harsh environments with limited space to AWS for more intensive processing,” added Vass.

AWS Snowcone will enable customers to move data to AWS offline by shipping the device and online using Ethernet or Wi-Fi with AWS DataSync, which are integrated into the device. The solution will feature 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, 8 TB of storage, and USB-C power.

The company’s offering will be able to operate in extreme environments or disconnected remote sites, including oil rigs, first responder vehicles, military operations, factory floors, remote offices, hospitals, or movie theaters, for long periods of time without traditional data center conditions.

Novetta has integrated AWS Snowcone in the advanced analytics solutions. The company has focused on mission success for its customers in the public sector, defense, intelligence, and federal law enforcement communities.

“Snowcone gives us a rugged, secure, and portable edge computing platform that we can use in disaster zones and austere edge locations. In our recent field exercises, Snowcone performed admirably as a sensor hub at the edge to track people and assets in a disaster zone,” said Rob Sheen, Senior Vice President, Client Operations at Novetta.

About Amazon Web Services

For 14 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform.

AWS offers over 175 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 76 Availability Zones (AZs) within 24 geographic regions, with announced plans for nine more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Japan, and Spain.

Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs.

Derek Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, said the Department of Defense should launch and demonstrate first the initial tranche of a proliferated satellite architecture before integrating SDA into the U.S. Space Force, National Defense reported Thursday.

SDA expects the Tranche 0 satellites of the proliferated National Defense Space Architecture in low-Earth orbit to be deployed by the end of fiscal year 2022 and reach the demonstration phase by FY 2023. The agency issued a request for information on potential Tranche 0 launch service providers in May.

“We need enough runway to be able to demonstrate that military utility,” Tournear said at a SmallSat Alliance-hosted virtual discussion. “We have to be able to demonstrate that constructive disruption first.”

He said he believes the first tranche of satellites could demonstrate its military functionality by 2023 and that if DoD officials should wait for that prior to the integration, "there will be enough … critical mass at that point and enough pull on the capabilities that it won't be stopped."

SDA officially launched in March 2019 and is expected to be integrated into the Space Force by October 2022.

Anne Neuberger, director of the cybersecurity directorate at the National Security Agency and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said NSA has begun a pilot program that could help small- and medium-sized defense companies improve their cybersecurity posture, Defense One reported Thursday.

The pilot allows some companies to work with third parties to ensure the security of their domain name system use.

“We began a pilot called secure DNS,” she told the publication in an interview. “Our analysis highlighted that using secure DNS would reduce the ability for 92% of malware attacks both from command and control perspective, deploying malware on a given network.”

Neuberger said her office partnered with the Department of Defense’s chief information officer to implement the pilot to understand threat actors’ efforts to target the defense industrial base and ways to protect against potential attacks.

She noted that NSA wants the pilot to help identify a provider that would offer a secure DNA service and encourage small- and medium-sized businesses to adopt it.

An Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) report says the Joint Authorization Board and the program management office for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) should require agencies to designate a FedRAMP liaison and conduct pilot programs to identify ways how to streamline the program to facilitate reviews and authorization of cloud services.

Congress should also pass a bill that would provide FedRAMP with needed funds to employ more professionals to help accelerate assessments of cloud offerings, ITIF said in the report published Monday.

“Without the necessary changes and funding, the program risks helping, but also hindering, federal agencies to adopt cloud services,” Michael McLaughlin, a research analyst at Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank ITIF, wrote in the report.

The House passed in February a bill that would codify FedRAMP. ITIF called on Congress to make some changes to the proposed FedRAMP Authorization Act to increase the security and availability of cloud platforms for use by federal agencies.

These are expanding the JAB, hiring technical professionals within the PMO to develop automation tools and other platforms, broadening the number of authorization metrics tracked, requiring the JAB and agencies to offer authorization packages to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and increasing reuse of authorizations by requiring agencies to secure exemptions.