Streamlining Compliance in Highly Regulated Sectors with VMware Tanzu Spring

May 7, 2024 Michelle Sebek

Update July 11, 2024 – Release 1.1
We're excited to announce that Release 1.1 now includes validations for PCIv4 and other regulatory compliance standards, in addition to the existing FIPS 140-3 support.

Enterprises operating within tightly regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, and federal sectors are familiar with the extensive compliance audits and strenuous efforts required to meet industry standards. The constant battle to maintain governance and comply with regulatory demands places a heavy load on application development teams. The early access release of Enterprise Spring Boot Governance & Compliance Extension through the Tanzu Spring Enterprise Subscription artifact repository is poised to bring tremendous cost savings to regulatory compliance. 

This blog explores the newest feature of VMware Tanzu Spring Runtime, offering insight into how these innovations assist IT Managers, DevOps Engineers, Developers, and Auditors in navigating the complex terrain of regulatory compliance seamlessly.

Understanding the Challenge

Regulatory audits are a fact of life for enterprises in highly regulated environments. The process of demonstrating compliance is typically fraught with requests for evidence of adherence to specific standards, affecting application development teams' efficiency and productivity. This scenario often leads to a significant diversion of resources towards understanding and implementing the details of regulation requirements, instead of focusing on innovation and development. Tanzu Spring Runtime aims to address these challenges head-on.

Introducing Enterprise Spring Boot Governance Extension

The Tanzu team understands the challenges organizations encounter and has developed a solution:: the Enterprise Spring Boot Governance Extension. This user-friendly tool makes it easy for developers to add libraries to their Spring Boot apps and includes a feature that gives important information needed in compliance audits, making these processes quicker and less demanding.

Features & Benefits:

  • Application Compliance Audit Information: Simplifies the audit process by providing ready access to compliance-related information.

  • Plug-n-Play Library: Easy integration with existing Spring Boot applications, minimizing disruption and learning curves.

  • Governance Spring Boot Auto-configuration Starter: Validates application dependencies against Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS). FIPS-140-3, NIST 800-53, and other regulatory standards, ensuring an application meets applicable compliance requirements.

  • Compliance Auditor Insights: Facilitates auditing with the /actuator/governance endpoint used to map against pentest findings in the validation of settings or versions. 

Caption: It’s Easy! Application Development teams just add a library to their Spring Boot app. Then their application will have an actuator that provides information useful in a compliance audit.

Real-world Validation and Case Studies

The practical application and benefits have already been tested in the public sector, notably by governmental departments and military divisions, where FIPS certification is a prerequisite for all production apps, and authorization to operate (ATO) is a major criterion. These organizations have leveraged a standardized Spring Boot sample app, applying the Enterprise Governance & Compliance Extensions to gain FIPS compliance with minimal effort—showcasing the potential of the Tanzu Spring Runtime in streamlining compliance procedures.

The Impact of Tanzu Spring 

By incorporating the Enterprise Governance & Compliance Extensions feature of the Tanzu Spring, organizations can achieve:

  • Reduced Compliance Drift: Continuous compliance monitoring enables applications to remain within regulatory boundaries between audits.

  • Efficiency in Audit Processes: Rapid access to compliance information can significantly decrease the audit process time and resource allocation.

  • Enhanced Security Postures: Organizations enhance security capabilities by adhering strictly to standards like FIPS-140-3 and NIST 800-53.

A Leap Towards Simplified Compliance

Tanzu Spring Runtime’s newest feature, the Enterprise Spring Boot Governance & Compliance Extensions, represents a significant stride towards simplifying the compliance landscape for enterprises operating in highly regulated sectors. By mitigating the burdens traditionally associated with regulatory audits, this innovation fosters greater efficiency, and security, and enables application development teams to refocus their efforts on core development activities.

Learn more about how Tanzu and Spring can help you achieve governance and compliance at scale while fostering innovation and developer velocity in this webinar - Enhancing Compliance and Security with Spring and read more about the Tanzu Labs Modern Compliance Architect practice here

VMware Tanzu Spring Runtime helps meet compliance and governance standards, demonstrating that the right tools can simplify regulatory challenges and reduce stress.

About the Author

Michelle Sebek

Michelle is a global product line marketing engineer for all things Spring. An accidental technologist who started with selling caller ID, she has worked in and around marketing and sales for a few decades launching new products, working with B2C, B2D, and B2B. Her first line of code was a few years back and she has been working with developers ever since. Michelle lives in the Pittsburgh region with her husband and two children. She loves to cook, entertain, lodge, travel, and binge-watch really bad TV. If you make her laugh, she will be your number one fan.

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