Case Study Automation & Orchestration Continuous Compliance Financial Management Government Cloud Operations
Last updated on March 12th, 2024 at 2:38pm
ManTech is a $2.55 billion government services contractor recognized for its expertise in a wide array of advanced technology solutions, including cloud migration and multi-cloud management for U.S. federal civilian, defense, and intelligence customers. Among its recent achievements in the cloud arena is Fernglas™, a patented multi-cloud management platform that provides end-to-end visibility and capabilities from a single pane of glass – a unified management console that presents data from multiple sources and cloud environments.
Most federal agencies operate five to seven cloud environments, each with hundreds of user accounts. This scenario makes 100% visibility across cloud environments next to impossible. Fernglas resolves this longstanding dilemma, empowering government customers to manage and view activity in any multi-cloud environment, all from one central location.
The end result is efficiency, savings, and innovation, all at the highest levels of security:
- FedRAMP and NIST 800-53 and 800-171
- Upcoming revised Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) standard
- Alignment with the NIST Risk Management Framework in real-time as needed to ensure management of cloud assets at the speed of the mission
These capabilities all rely on a rules-based approach to governance.
The Challenge of Multi-Cloud Governance
From the outset, ManTech understood the challenges of operating in a multi-cloud world. Success hinges on following a strict set of rules.
As Sandeep Shilawat, Vice President of Cloud and Edge Computing at ManTech notes: “Whether using one cloud or many, cloud governance is a key requirement.”
Cloud governance is the process of establishing the framework, rules, policies and enforcements around cloud resources to ensure that only the right people have access to the right resources at the right time for the right reasons. Furthermore, a robust governance approach means having visibility into this access and adjusting access as the needs of the customer change.
For a single-cloud environment, instituting a cloud governance framework is comparatively simple. When multiple clouds are in the mix, governance becomes a monumental task. Operational differences between each cloud provider, coupled with the added need for visibility for adequate control and compliance attestation, highlight the importance of rules that ensure internal IT and managed service compliance. The same level of governance is essential for external sources.
ManTech had several objectives when evaluating a partner to satisfy both internal and external governance requirements:
- Set and enforce rules and policies across all the major cloud service providers.
- Ensure visibility of the compliance posture across the organization for RMF, NIST standards, and upcoming CMMC requirements.
- Ensure ability to create and enforce organization-wide budget limits with granularity and also create these limits at the project level.
That’s where Kion fits.
Fernglas + Kion = Top-notch Multi-Cloud Governance
Coupled with Fernglas, Kion makes sense of diverse cloud service provider environments across billing, access, compliance, and governance. Standardizing with Kion’s cloud rules across the cloud providers means engineers and developers only need to do the work once instead of learning how to do the work multiple times for different cloud service providers.
Kion gives real-time visibility into the governance of the various cloud environments under ManTech’s management to help ensure they meet compliance and regulatory requirements. With Kion’s cloud rules, ManTech puts proactive governance and financial enforcements in place to lower cost and prevent security and compliance violations.
As multi-cloud continues to grow in adoption in the modern enterprise, having one platform that enables engineers to work and think in one “language” – and use one solution to set and enforce the rules of governance – is essential to unlocking the promise of the cloud in a multi-cloud environment.
"As ManTech empowers public and private sector customers in a multi-cloud world, governance and security are paramount to our mission. Kion is an integral part of ManTech’s multi-cloud governance and compliance strategy," said Sandeep Shilawat.
About the Author
Austin Fuller
Austin has nearly a decade of experience in enterprise software and cybersecurity and is an AWS-certified cloud practitioner.
