Off Premises Cloud Computing

KPS’s open, standards-based approach to cloud provides the opportunity to build on a robust ecosystem of industry-leading technologies without vendor lock-in. Cloud services are offered in world class data centers and include:

• On-Demand Self-Service – Through the use of a web portal, provision servers and network storage without human interaction, submit payment and invoice for services, and manage infrastructure and equipment.
• Resource Pooling – Operating environments are dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand.
• Rapid Elasticity – Automatically and dynamically scale computing resources, and adjusting computing resources to meet SLAs.
• Measured Service – Pay only for what you use. Reduce upfront investment costs and transparently monitor, control, and report utilization.
• Cyber Security – Data is protected and secure.

Approach to Cloud

Knight Point’s approach to Cloud Computing is based on our experience gained while specializing in Data Center relocations and consolidations. KPS and its cloud partners have migrated numerous applications, all with different requirements, to Public, Private, and Hybrid cloud platforms. Utilizing KPS’ custom built tool, Zeus, you get to view your infrastructure and capacity at the click of a button. Instead of buying equipment for all sites at one time with one large sum of capital money, you are able to use operating expense money and only buy resources as they are ready to deploy.

Cloud Architecture and Access

KPS’s cloud infrastructure is inherently open-source, built on top of predominately Cisco Systems hardware. Our open standards-based approach to cloud provides the customer the opportunity to build on a robust ecosystem of industry-leading technologies (e.g., Cisco, Kernel Virtual Machines, OpenNebula) while avoiding being locked into a single vendor or technology platform.

Our Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud offering in alignment with NIST 800-145 which hosts client software and business applications in an off-premises data center hosting environment. The primary and secondary locations are geographically dispersed and designed to provide shared infrastructure components in a multi-tenant model to the federal government. Primary services consist of telecommunication connections, server hardware, virtual machines, data storage, LAN switching, and firewall support. Our cloud, as a basic requirement of FedRAMP provides two factor authentication through the use of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). SAML is used for exchanging user authentication data as XML between trusted parties and is considered to be the industry standard protocol that allows customers to use their own SAML-supported identity management system when authenticating to our Zeus Management Portal.

Both administrators and users alike connect securely to the environment at all times. Administrators connect via the SSH protocol and the use of two factor authentication through a certificate issued to each individually. End users connect to the Zeus Management Portal via HTTPS which is restricted at the firewall to the environment before being terminated on the portal server and being authenticated through two factor by the application. Information residing within the environment can be safely controlled through the use of encryption at rest mechanisms either through software or hardware based techniques.