Elevating security capabilities with AWS

At present, many companies in Vietnam are digitalising their operations, with the cloud being the principal solution for accelerating the digital transformation.

Kimberly Dickson, senior security architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) said, “Now that we are out of the pandemic, we see that organisations are starting to think about their strategy and operations in the cloud. As a result, AWS' security services have become increasingly popular.”

Kimberly Dickson, senior security architect at AWS

For example, the Vietnam National University delivered high-quality learning to thousands of English language students by migrating its management system workloads to the cloud, enabling it to scale up virtual English classes for about 5,000 students across 161 classes during the lockdowns.

Elsewhere, Techcombank Vietnam also provides services to their customers by using AWS security services.

Lotte Data Communication Company Vietnam (LDCC VN) is an IT solutions provider and member of Lotte Group, one of South Korea’s leading retail conglomerates. When LDCC VN began building its Lotte API Transit Gateway solution, it chose AWS to leverage its high availability and cloud-native security tools.

Speaking to VIR about the readiness of Vietnamese companies to invest in security solutions, Dickson added, “We're working hard with our partners in Vietnam, including universities and community outreach efforts such as the NAB Innovation Centre Vietnam. What they give us is showing that when we're able to build these security capabilities, the nation understands how to use the cloud securely and is ready to innovate.”

She elaborated that to meet local demands, AWS has made strong investments in the country. For example, it has extended AWS Outposts to Vietnam to run AWS Cloud, providing customers with strong security capabilities. The company has also invested in Local Zones and Edge Locations to reduce latency and increase availability.

Dickson has been working with many customers in the region, from large regulated banks in Vietnam to digital native businesses, not only on the tactical workloads that they move into the cloud, but also in terms of their strategy and operations when it comes to working securely at scale.

“One thing is clear, all the organisations I work with agree that cloud technologies will change the way that we work and do business in the future. We see that advanced digital skill sets, including those for cloud technologies, will increase Asia-Pacific’s GDP. Also, in countries across ASEAN, industries are back to robust pre-pandemic growth levels,” she added.

“There is great potential in Vietnam. According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the digital economy could reach $57 billion in 2025, accounting for 25 to 30 per cent of the nation's GDP.”

Key emerging trends

According to Dickson, there are two key strategic trends emerging in the region. Firstly, customers are asking for help to accelerate innovation in terms of security. They are beginning to understand that the key to success in the cloud is to ensure that they are secure, and that security is an optimiser rather than an obstacle for the business. With strong security in place, the business can then grow and scale on the cloud.

Secondly, customers are asking services providers to help them optimise their security spending. This kind of optimisation comes in many forms, focusing on costs, resource usage, and talent.

How can AWS support?

To accelerate innovation, AWS has helped its customers by providing tools for secure experimentation, enabling greater security and visibility, and democratising access to security technology.

AWS has released Amazon Code-Whisperer, which is its AI-powered coding companion that embeds secure code suggestions and scans for vulnerabilities, providing recommendations directly to developers within their integrated development environment.

To reduce complexity and help customers gain insights from data, AWS has released the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework.

These are the three ways that AWS has helped its customers with the optimisation of their investments. It really comes from clear communication, understanding the pain points, and delivering on what the customer needs.

AWS security services offer consumption-based pricing and have a history of reducing the cost. The company has actually reduced its prices by 129 times since 2006, including those for its security services.

For example, since it was launched, the price of Amazon Macie, its Personally Identifiable Information Discovery Service, has reduced by 80 per cent. Amazon Guard Duty, a threat detection service, has also been reduced by 40 per cent, and AWS Shield Standard, a distributed denial of service standards, is offered to all customers for free.

“In that way, we democratise access to security, and we allow our customers to then build security outcomes that are more meaningful to them while we take on the heavy lifting. AWS also creates and embraces open standards to give customers choice and flexibility when it comes to AWS Cloud Native services or cloud-based security tools from a wide range of our partners,” Dickson added.

AWS has helped uplift the security capabilities of the industry as a whole through training, the expansion of a partner network, and constantly raising the bar for default security settings.

Since 2017, AWS has trained more than 6 million individuals across the Asia-Pacific region on cloud skills, and more than 50,000 individuals in Vietnam alone. It focuses on three parts of the market, namely AWS Skills Guild to help existing customers who are keen to learn more about how to operate securely at scale, AWS re/Start to help those who are unemployed restart and upskill with cloud knowledge, and AWS Academy to empower higher education institutions to prepare students for industry recognised certifications and careers in the cloud.

The AWS Partner Network has expanded to more than 100,000 partners from more than 150 countries globally, with almost 70 per cent of them headquartered outside the United States.

For example, in Vietnam, it has FPT software, Lotte Data Communication Vietnam, and TechX as partners that the company works with to build the security capabilities for the Vietnamese community.

AWS announces new security innovations AWS announced 14 new security offerings across cloud security, management tools, encryption, and more at its AWS re:Inforce 2023 held in mid-June in the United States.

Amazon Security Lake coming to additional AWS Regions soon With its current availability in the United States, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and South America, Amazon Security Lake is expected to expand to additional AWS Regions soon.

Service providers bet on the cloud While venturing further with new investment and products, Vietnamese cloud service providers need smarter approaches to compete with international players.

AWS increases approach to early-stage startups with new programme Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud, on August 25 launched a new AWS Build programme to increase its approach to early-stage startups.