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Project Hosts is at the Microsoft US Digital Transformation Academy, Announcing HITRUST CSF Certification on Azure

jamesford2014 — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:47:15 +0000

On October 9th, Project Hosts and the ISMScloud were on display at the INFOSEC/27K Summit in Washington DC. The following week, Project Hosts shared their FedRAMP Cloud at the Government Cloud Conference, also in Washington DC. This week, the team is in Las Vegas for Microsoft’s US Digital Transformation Academy Booth# 402, sharing the news of Project Hosts’ Security Envelope on Microsoft Azure gaining HITRUST CSF Certification status.

The HITRUST CSF Certified Status, Project Hosts’ meets key healthcare regulations and requirements for securing sensitive private healthcare information, applications and workloads deployed in Project Hosts’ A6 Security Envelope.

“With a HITRUST CSF Certification, Project Hosts’ A6 Security Envelope provides an ideal Azure environment for Healthcare Providers and ISVs in need of a fully attested cloud platform,” said Hector Rodriguez, Director, Microsoft Worldwide Healthcare at Microsoft Corp. “Project Hosts extends HITRUST CSF certification to the SaaS-level so that organizations can secure ePHI and implement cloud solutions without incurring the effort and expense typically required to design, implement, document and audit the application-level security controls required for full regulatory compliance.”

Data Auditing and eDiscovery Services for Healthcare, made Available through Project Hosts and Netmail in HIPAA/HITRUST Compliant Azure Cloud

jamesford2014 — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:46:42 +0000

Netmail, Inc. and Project Hosts, Inc. announced today that they have teamed up to deliver Netmail’s Hadron Data Auditing and eDiscovery services to healthcare organizations as an on-demand service from a HIPAA/HITRUST compliant Azure Cloud. Now, organizations with sensitive information that must comply with Federal, State and other international privacy regulations such as European Community GDPR and Canada’s PIPEDA, can perform searches for audits from a compliant cloud. Netmail Hadron allows investigations and eDiscovery on file systems, email archives, SharePoint, SharePoint O365, and file sharing solutions such as Box, Egnyte, and Citrix ShareFile.

As American healthcare organizations are required to meet HIPAA regulations, they may be required to perform regular audits to find confidential information such as PHI, PCI, and PII. When these organizations start moving to the cloud, having broad visibility into that data on the cloud and on-premises becomes increasingly difficult. Netmail Hadron provides a secure data auditing solution that will enable healthcare organizations to easily identify and view all of their sensitive data, no matter where it is located before and after migrating this data to the cloud.

“Project Hosts provides Azure security containers that, together with supporting policies and procedures, implement controls related to access, authentication, encryption, auditing, business continuity, change management, incident response, privacy, annual assessment and other areas required for compliance with leading standards, including HIPAA, HITRUST, IS0 27001, and FedRAMP,” said Scott Chapman, CEO and Co-founder of Project Hosts, Inc. “When ISVs or healthcare entities choose to deploy their applications in these containers, they inherit compliance with those standards, allowing them to deliver compliant cloud solutions to their customers.”

Netmail will be demo-ing their Hadron solution in a HIPAA/HITRUST Azure Cloud at the Microsoft Ignite #MSIgnite conference in Orlando, FL, September 25-29, in booth #1244.

Securing your Azure Cloud for Healthcare

jamesford2014 — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 14:38:43 +0000

Healthcare organizations are finding it more cost-effective to garner the services of a reputable Cloud Service Provider (CSP) to manage their Azure cloud. Whether the need is to provide managed services for their Azure cloud subscription, or a need to deploy, host and manage the solution over it’s lifespan using the CSP’s subscription, there is peace of mind that their cloud is compliant and secure.

Azure’s IaaS or PaaS cloud platform allows you to quickly create a Windows or Linux server environment with minimal effort and trust that the infrastructure (servers/storage/network) and platform (operating system/database) elements will be available 24×7. But once servers are spun up, application management services are still needed. Project Hosts’ Azure Managed Services with Extended Security fill the current gap that many enterprises and government agencies have in managing critical elements of their Azure deployments:

Azure Security Management

Continuous Monitoring & Performance Optimization

Applications Access & Management, User Support

Our cloud security experts have the expertise and compliance competency for today’s most rigorous cloud security standards including ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, HIPAA / HITRUST, FedRAMP Moderate, High, and DoD CC SRG IL4/5.

Note: Government security standards such as FedRAMP/DoD are only available in a Project Hosts’ subscription.

Understanding the Cloud Migration Roadmap

jamesford2014 — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 14:36:48 +0000

Cloud migration can be a daunting task. What are the necessary steps to ease your transition from on-premises to the cloud?

First, you want to decide which applications and workloads you will be migrating. Many factors must be considered before deciding which on-premises applications should be moved to the cloud when considering cloud migration. Here are some general guidelines that we typically encounter in working with healthcare providers. Cloud migration should be considered under the following circumstances:

Applications that are not ISO 27001, HIPAA or HITRUST compliant , yet need to be
Customer-facing web-or-mobile applications that are operational of in-develpment
Applications and OS/database platforms* that are several revisions back and are scheduled for larger scale upgrades (Such as Windows Server/SQL Server or Linux/My SQL)
Any on-premises infrastructure that is: limiting application performance, cannot scale up or down as needed, lacks adequate storage, or cannot meet disaster recovery or business continuity needs
Any on-premises application/solution which requires additional integration with external PHI/EHR system in a secure manner (i.e. hybrid-cloud solutions)
Workloads that can be more efficiently and economically managed in a cloud platform such as backup, date archiving or disaster recovery

Having a Complete Migration Plan helps to organize the migration by outlining all aspects of the move, including OS’s, databases, applications and their associated upgrades, licensing considerations, security aspects and pricing. After a pre-migration audit, Project Hosts can create a new HIPAA/HITRUST compliant Azure Cloud in either your subscription, or our own, with the most up-to-date databases and applications, and migrate your data, workloads and configuration settings for you.

For more information about Cloud Migration, contact Project Hosts today.

The Healthcare Industry is Migrating to the Cloud with the help of Microsoft’s Azure Security Containers

jamesford2014 — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 16:45:13 +0000

More healthcare providers are migrating to the cloud to cut costs and increase security through measurable compliance, but many are having trouble deciding where to start. Fortunately for, there are well respected industry leaders, such as Microsoft, who have developed solutions for healthcare’s cloud computing needs. Microsoft now offers Azure Security Containers for Healthcare companies and ISVs who need to ensure their cloud apps and workloads are fully compliant with regulatory standards at the software and data level. CSPs, like Project Hosts are providing complete migration plans and Azure Managed Services, giving healthcare providers and ISVs a one-stop solution to their migration needs.

Azure Security Containers

The Azure Security Container enables Healthcare providers to move their on-premises apps and workloads into the cloud with full HIPAA/HITRUST compliance, quickly, cleanly and affordably. This is achieved through Project Hosts’ Complete Migration Process, Managed Security Services, and Compliance Documentation and Management.

The HIPAA/HITRUST Azure Security Container offers a complete, ready-to-run environment that includes:

Azure Security Services – A turnkey Azure environment that ensures that any Windows or Linux apps deployed are fully compliant with ISO 27001, HIPAA and HITRUST security standards at the software (SaaS) level. Elements of this include: HIPAA/HITRUST Security Compliance, Azure Applications and Access Management Services, Azure Performance Management Services, and Documentation and Compliance Management.
Backup and Archiving Services – Leverage Azure services and third party tools to provide archiving for Office 365 email – a necessity for security and eDiscovery requirements.
Disaster Recovery Services – Advanced Disaster Recovery for on-premises solutions that support the recovery of secured data and applications when an customer on-premises outage happens at their primary datacenter.
Compliance Management Tools / Services – For healthcare providers managing their own Azure subscriptions, the ISMScloud.com provides a secure, online application to help manage and document the process of gaining your HIPAA/HITRUST compliance.

Azure Security Management

Project Hosts’ Azure Security Management services include implementing and managing the following:

HIPAA Security Controls (as defined by NIST 800-66)
HiTRUST Security Controls (as defined by HiTRUST CSF-certification)
Azure subnets with their NSG “firewall” access controls
An Active Directory Domain to manage servers and group policy
Web Application Proxy (WAP) servers as the controlled front door to the Deployment
McAfee Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) on every server, and EndPoint Protection centrally managed by ePolicy Orchestrator

Click here for more information about FedRAMP SaaS Compliant Solutions.

Project Hosts Shares a Much Faster Road to FedRAMP for Microsoft ISVs at the U.S. Public Sector FY18 Kickoff and ISU Event

jamesford2014 — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 17:19:10 +0000

Project Hosts is proud to be in attendance at Microsoft’s U.S. Public Sector FY18 Kickoff and ISU event in Seattle Washington, showcasing it’s Federal Private Cloud, a fully FedRAMP SaaS-level authorized cloud at the Moderate, High and DoD CC SRG 4/5 level. Project Hosts builds on top of Azure’s IaaS/SaaS FedRAMP compliant platform to ensure that government agencies and ISVs alike are compliant at the required SaaS-level.

Project Hosts’ Federal Sales Manager, Sean Barkey

Project Hosts works with ISVs, who want to sell their application as a cloud service to U.S. federal and state government agencies. By working with more than 17 ISVs, we know that the FedRAMP process can take you anywhere from 1 to 2 years, and cost upwards of 1 million to 2 million dollars if you do it yourself. The ISV FedRAMP program ensures that your application is 100% FedRAMP compliant and available from a FedRAMP SaaS -level authorized cloud faster and at a fraction of the cost.

Project Hosts’ Federal Private cloud boasts more than 20 applications for Government agencies of all types – Federal, State and Local. Applications include:

Microsoft SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Project Server, TFS, Remote Desktop
AvePoint SharePoint Infrastructure Mgmt
Birst Business Intelligence / Analytics
BrightWork SharePoint Project Mgmt
Drawloop Salesforce Document Mgmt
Drupal Website/CMS
eSignLive e-Signature Solution
FlowVU Secure Collaboration Solution
Gimmal SharePoint Records Mgmt
Innovative-e PPM Reports
Joomla! Website/CMS
Nintex SharePoint Workflow
RMS Property Management
UMT360 Enterprise Portfolio Mgmt
Urban Turtle SW Development
Veritas Office 365 email Archiving
WordPress Website/CMS

Project Hosts Announces ‘Ready-to-Run’ HIPAA/HITRUST Security Containers on Microsoft Azure

jamesford2014 — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 18:38:24 +0000

Healthcare Providers and ISVs now have a ready-to-run, HIPAA/HITRUST compliant cloud solution for their software and data, all on the industry leading Microsoft Azure platform. The Azure Security Container, with complete HIPAA/HITRUST compliance, enables healthcare providers to move their on-premises apps and workloads into the cloud, quickly, cleanly and affordably.

To read the entire press release, please click here.

Click here for more information about FedRAMP SaaS Compliant Solutions.

Federal CIOs, Struggle No Longer – Compliant Managed Cloud Services

jamesford2014 — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 15:11:27 +0000

In a CIO.com article titled, “5 years into the ‘cloud-first policy’ CIO’s still struggling”, Marlon Andrew, deputy CIO at the National Archives and Records Administration was quoted, saying, “The greatest challenge is not getting a contract in place, but what you find out is where those boundaries cross of who’s now responsible because you’re in a different infrastructure set-up, and what the cloud provider’s going to do versus the contract staff, versus the application support staff versus the infrastructure staff,” Andrews says. “So, that’s the greatest challenge we’re having now is defining roles and responsibilities and who’s going to do what because the world has changed as we’ve known it, and we’ve been client-server for so many years that this is truly a different environment for us.” He continues with this question, “What does the word ‘manage’ mean in a cloud environment.”

It’s a great question, and like so many questions, the answer is “it depends.” It really depends on the type of cloud solution provider you’re working with, the types or levels of services they offer, and the amount of control they’re willing give you. When it comes to “managing,” Project Hosts offers a range of “managed services”. From helping or assisting you in your subscription, to co-supporting an environment based on the software layer, to fully managed hosting services. In this way, you can apply the talent and resources you have where they’re most likely most needed and valued — typically at the application layer where you’ve done custom development or configuration for your software solution. You should consider offloading things like infrastructure, server, platform and networking management to a cloud solutions provider as they can manage and monitor the environment more cost effectively than using your own staff.

In addition, some CSPs, like Project Hosts, offer advanced management services such as security controls implementation and management to ensure compliancy with regulatory standards. Project Hosts provides ready-to-run containers that support the necessary security controls including ISO 27001, HIPAA/HITRUST, NIST 800-53, and FedRAMP Moderate, High and DoD CC SRG IL4/5 level with full compliancy.

So in summary, we provide the managed services to deploy, host, monitor, and maintain your subscription, ensuring ongoing trouble-free operation in a highly secured cloud. Whether you need us to provide managed services for your Azure cloud subscription, or you need us to deploy, host and manage the solution over it’s lifespan using our subscription, rest assured we will secure your cloud.