Canonical has made Ubuntu Pro images available on the AWS marketplace.
They are present in three flavors – Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS – and these are premium images designed for businesses which come with important security and compliance features automatically enabled, not to mention extended maintenance.
The idea is you can purchase and run such an instance on Amazon EC2 in a seamless manner – with no contract required – and have all these benefits immediately.
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So what exactly are you buying? 10 years of security maintenance and package updates, for starters, although that’s for 18.04 LTS (with the previous versions, it’s eight years).
You also get Kernel Livepatch, which facilitates continuous security patching, as well as the ability to apply kernel security updates with no reboot (and therefore no downtime). Patch coverage is also provided for app repositories, and fleet-wide systems management courtesy of Landscape (including the ability to selectively apply updates).
Science of compliance
On the compliance front, Ubuntu Pro offers: “Customized FIPS and Common Criteria EAL-compliant components for use in environments under compliance regimes such as FedRAMP, PCI, HIPAA and ISO.”
There’s also integration with various AWS security and compliance features, including the AWS Security Hub – although that won’t be available until the first quarter of next year.
Christian Reis, VP of Public Cloud at Canonical, commented: “Users have been running Ubuntu on AWS since 2006. As Canonical assists enterprises moving their mission-critical workloads to AWS, the feedback we receive is that they demand expanded security coverage, greater operational efficiency and native compatibility with AWS features.
“It has been exciting to collaborate with AWS to fulfill that demand through Ubuntu Pro for AWS, available now directly in AWS Marketplace.”
Those keen to sign up can find the relevant Ubuntu Pro images in the AWS Marketplace.
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