New in Release 2.24: Azure Policy Compliance, AWS Security Hub Integration, and More!

Last updated on February 2nd, 2023 at 3:06pm

cloudtamer.io release 2.24 is now live, and it includes some awesome integrations for those that use multiple tools for compliance. Plus, we have enhanced some of the features our users love most.

Read on to learn more about the highlights of 2.24!

For Azure users: Azure policy definitions as compliance checks

cloudtamer.io has long supported the use of Azure policies to enforce rules for your Azure resources. But Azure policies can also be used to check for compliance, and you can now scan for Azure policy compliance using compliance checks.

Why use Azure policies for compliance?

Azure policies let you scan your existing Azure resources to ensure the right configurations and settings. They use a policy written in JSON code to audit your resources for compliance. In cloudtamer.io, they're an alternative to Cloud Custodian policies for you to build customizable compliance checks for Azure resources.

But why use Azure policies for compliance within cloudtamer.io, specifically?

Using Azure policies for compliance within cloudtamer.io lets you leverage JSON code you may already have in your Azure portal for auditing. So if you're already using Azure policies in the Azure portal, creating compliance checks will be even faster.

Once you start tracking Azure policy compliance in cloudtamer.io, you'll also enjoy added visibility over what you can see in the Azure portal. It's easy to see finding-related info, like the affected region and resource group, the policy information, and more. Plus, you can always use filters on compliance check lists if you only want to view your Azure policy checks.

Best of all, using Azure policies in cloudtamer.io allows you to view your Azure policy compliance findings alongside your Cloud Custodian findings in the compliance overview. So you can easily view compliance across policy types and cloud providers for a more complete picture--without rebuilding policies you have in the Azure portal.

For AWS users: integration with AWS Security Hub

AWS Security Hub is a service that provides a view of security alerts and findings across your AWS accounts, and it's the newest tool we've integrated with cloudtamer.io. We now let you send and receive findings via AWS Security Hub, and you can create compliance checks using native Cloud Custodian policies that interact with AWS Security Hub in each of your accounts.

How do I set it up?

• Post and update findings on any resource type to AWS Security Hub (action: post-finding). This will send a new finding to both cloudtamer.io and AWS Security Hub when it's detected, so if you're using AWS Security Hub, you won't have to do double work by adding detection both there and in cloudtamer.io.
• Query with filtering of resources based on findings. This policy will query findings from AWS Security Hub instead of the resources themselves and then perform an action (filter: finding). This is useful if you are sending findings into AWS Security Hub from multiple tools and want to set up easy, automated remediations using cloudtamer.io on select items.
• Create a lambda (lambda execution mode) that triggers on ingestion of AWS Security Hub findings (mode: hub-finding). This sets up a listener so you can trigger remediations as soon as a finding is added to AWS Security Hub from any ingestion source including cloudtamer.io. This is the quickest way to remediate findings.
• Create a lambda (lambda execution mode) that can be triggered manually in the AWS Security Hub UI. These custom actions, which you define, work with both findings and insights (mode: hub-action). This lets you build a customized action you would like to take whenever a user triggers it on a finding or insight within AWS Security Hub.

All of these actions can be set up using policy text we provide in our knowledge base and compliance checks.

For everyone: expanding a little of everything in cloudtamer.io

We've expanded some of our users' favorite things in this release.

In-App Validation

We hate it when we fat-finger our account numbers, so we added buttons to test Azure credentials on the Add a Billing Source page. This allows you to test the validity of Azure credentials before adding the billing source to cloudtamer.io.

We also now validate that Service Control Policies (SCPs) are enabled for your organization before attempting to sync them. This improves performance since it makes fewer calls to AWS.

Filters

We're all about total, easy visibility, so we've added lots of new filters. These filters will help you quickly narrow down results on list pages and more:

• On-track, overburning, and overspending filters on projects and OUs.
• An expired filter on projects.
• Cloud provider, compliance check type, and “failing” state filters on compliance checks.
• A filter for user-created IAM policies within the drop-down when creating a cloud access role.

Plus, we now sort savings opportunities by potential value, so you’ll see opportunities with the biggest impact first.

Reports

You can never have too many report options, so there’s a new financial drilldown report for OUs available in the report builder. This report gives an in-depth look into spend information for all OUs and projects under the selected OU.

Savings Opportunities

Find even more ways to save by enabling decommissioning of underutilized RDS cluster snapshots. We added settings to check for snapshots that are 30-60 days old, or 60 or more days old. That brings the total up to 30 types of savings opportunity checks you can run on each cloud resource!

There's more to come!

Make sure you check out the Support Center if you’re an existing customer to see a full list of features and changes in 2.24. And keep your eyes peeled for the exciting changes in our next release!

If you're new to cloudtamer.io, you can request a demo to learn more about our comprehensive cloud management software.