{"id":39905,"date":"2021-09-08T17:31:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T17:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vmengine.net\/2021\/09\/08\/confidential-computing-the-perspective-of-aws\/"},"modified":"2025-05-23T17:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T17:32:11","slug":"confidential-computing-the-perspective-of-aws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/temp_new.vmenginelab.com\/en\/2021\/09\/08\/confidential-computing-the-perspective-of-aws\/","title":{"rendered":"Confidential computing, the perspective of AWS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Customers from all over the world and of all types entrust their most sensitive data and applications to
\n Amazon Web Services<\/strong>
\n<\/a>. For this reason, over the years, AWS has invested more and more in technologies and systems designed precisely to continue to maintain and increase the level of security and confidentiality of its customers. Particularly in the last year, there has been a growing interest in the concept of Confidential computing.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n
\n

AWS defines
\n Confidential Computing as “the use of specialized hardware and associated firmware to protect customer code and data during processing from external access.”<\/strong>
\n<\/em>
In addition, confidential computing distinguishes between two dimensions: security and privacy. The most important dimension is the protection of the customer’s code and data from the operator of the underlying cloud infrastructure. The second dimension is the ability of customers to divide their workloads into more reliable and less reliable components, or to design a system that allows parties to build systems that work in close collaboration while maintaining the confidentiality of each party’s code and data.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n

AWS and the Nitro System <\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\n
\n

To meet both levels of security and privacy, AWS has developed the
\n Nitro System<\/strong>
\n<\/a> (first security dimension) and the
\n Nitro Enclave<\/strong>
\n<\/a> system (second security dimension). During the last edition of
\n Re:Inforce<\/strong>
\n<\/a>, an AWS event entirely dedicated to security, space was given to the presentation of the Nitro system.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n
\n

Nitro consists of three main parts: the Nitro cards<\/strong>, the Nitro security chip<\/strong> , and the Nitro hypervisor<\/strong>. Nitro cards<\/strong> are dedicated hardware components with compute capabilities that perform I\/O functions, such as the Nitro card<\/strong> for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), the Nitro card<\/strong> for Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), and the Nitro card<\/strong> for Amazon EC2 instance storage.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
Watch Nitro&apos;s presentation at Re:Inforce<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

The Three Approaches of the Nitro System <\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\n
Let’s try to see specifically how the Nitro system manages to offer different levels of security.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n