Kion, an automated CloudOps platform provider for multicloud environments, has announced the launch of version 3.11 of its platform.
The latest update introduces new features designed to enhance identity and access management (IAM), compliance automation, and financial operations (FinOps).
These updates are expected to benefit organisations, including higher education institutions, by offering improved management and automation of multicloud infrastructure through policy-based controls and enforcements.
Kion will also collaborate with Northwestern University and Texas A&M University in a presentation focused on creating accountability within cloud operations, adopting a “governance by default” approach.
Kion version 3.11 offers support for the system for cross-domain identity management (SCIM), which allows CloudOps teams to manage identity information more securely and efficiently.
The SCIM integration enables platforms like Microsoft Entra and Okta to update and govern cloud access faster.
Kion has also introduced custom variables for compliance automation, enabling CloudOps teams to ensure full tag compliance at both the project and organisational levels.
This feature allows users to configure compliance checks. University researchers will benefit from this feature, as it simplifies the process of adhering to grant compliance requirements while allowing cloud engineers to manage specific needs at scale.
In addition, the platform now supports the FinOps foundation’s open cost and usage specification (FOCUS), allowing users to integrate billing data from major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI.
This ensures consistency across cloud platforms and provides detailed spend metrics, such as list or amortised and attributed costs.
Kion chief customer officer Randy Shore said: “Managing cloud identity in higher education is extremely complex – especially when you weigh the impacts that permissions and access can have on your cost and compliance posture. Faculty, staff, students, and researchers are groups with constant change.
“The fluidity and large turnover often lead to thousands of groups to manage for least privileged access. We are continuing to invest in providing an easy solution for cloud permissions management, especially for higher education institutions where cloud access, provisioning and deprovisioning are critical.”
