Simplify Your Compliance Setup and Evidence Collection with Smartly’s AWS Integration
Phuong Linh
October 7, 2025 • 7 min read
Managing compliance in the cloud can feel overwhelming. SMEs and startups aiming for certifications like ISO 27001 or SOC 2 often run into a common challenge: While AWS (Amazon Web Service) provides powerful tools, such as the AWS Compliance Pack, to support these regulatory standards, companies quickly find themselves facing complicated setups with little to no guidance.
This often leads to hours of configuration, manual evidence gathering: taking screenshots, making spreadsheets, etc., and pure guesswork, frustrating teams and slowing down critical compliance stages. Enter Smartly, built on top of the AWS Compliance Pack, designed to make compliance clear, guided, and automated!
What Makes The AWS Compliance Pack A Challenge To Use?
AWS Compliance Pack is a powerful foundation for companies trying to get certified for ISO 27001. It provides pre-configured templates, audit-ready controls, and cloud-native monitoring, making it a great starting point for meeting compliance standards.
However, using this Compliance Pack isn't always straightforward:
- Complex Setup: Configuring the necessary AWS services for compliance often requires expertise in both AWS architecture and the specific compliance framework (like ISO 27001). A small misconfiguration can lead to serious gaps in control coverage and leave your organization vulnerable.
- Minimal Guidance: AWS documentation is robust, but it normally assumes a high level of user familiarity with cloud security concepts. Teams without dedicated compliance specialists often struggle to figure out which steps to take first, how to interpret the controls, and what the overall priority should be.
- Manual Workload: Even once the initial setup is complete, tracking ongoing progress and generating the necessary evidence for an audit requires manual work, e.g., collecting screenshots, updating spreadsheets, and chasing teams for updates, taking up considerable time from teams.
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How Smartly Builds On And Enhances The AWS Compliance Pack
Smartly is designed to build on the strengths of the AWS Compliance Pack and eliminate its common pain points. By layering guidance, automation, and real-time reporting directly on top of your existing AWS setup, Smartly transforms a complex compliance setup into a smooth and structured workflow.
1. Clear, Step-by-Step Guidance:
Smartly acts like your expert compliance consultant, walking your team through every single control and step required. Every control is clearly explained, automatically mapped to your specific AWS environment, and converted into a clear, actionable task. Your team will know exactly what to do and when.
2. Automatic Control Mapping and Evidence Collection:
Smartly automatically maps the security controls within your AWS environment to the specific requirements of ISO 27001 or SOC 2. This eliminates the need for manual spreadsheets and ensures your cloud setup is always aligned.
3. Centralized Real-Time Compliance Dashboard:
Forget about digging through multiple AWS consoles or outdated spreadsheets to check on progress! Smartly gives you a centralized, easy-to-read dashboard where you can monitor overall progress in real time. Quickly see where gaps exist, track completed actions, and ensure your team is always on top of its compliance tasks.
4. Audit-Ready Reporting:
Smartly automatically generates audit-ready reports, ready for internal review or external audits, including all the necessary evidence collected directly from your AWS environment. No more stitching together screenshots, compiling outdated spreadsheets, or chasing people for documents. Smartly centralizes all required documentation, making audits faster and much less stressful.
5. Seamless AWS Integration:
By connecting directly to your AWS environment, Smartly continuously monitors resources and configurations. Any changes that affect compliance are automatically flagged, keeping your system secure and up to date.
The Benefits of AWS Integration On Smartly
By combining the powerful foundation of the AWS Compliance Pack with Smartly’s intelligent guidance and automation, your team can gain immediate and measurable advantages:
| Benefit | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Time Efficiency | Reduce the initial setup time from weeks to just a few days. |
| Accuracy | Minimize errors with guided workflows and automated control mapping. |
| Visibility | Track and report on compliance progress instantly in a single, centralized dashboard. |
| Simplicity | Replace manual screenshots and confusing setup instructions with a guided, automated process. |
| Confidence | Go into internal and external audits fully prepared, without scrambling for missing evidence. |
Client Testimony
“Setting up ISO 27001 used to take weeks of manual work and countless screenshots. With Smartly, the process is guided, automated, and audit-ready. We can focus on compliance implementation instead of figuring out what to do next.”
[CTO, AQUILA.is]
Compliance doesn’t have to be painful or a drain on your resources. By leveraging the AWS Compliance Pack with Smartly’s guidance and automation, companies can streamline your ISO 27001 or SOC 2 setup, reduce operational risk, and save valuable time that can be better spent innovating.
Ready to simplify your compliance journey? Book a demo with Smartly today and experience effortless ISO 27001 certification in your AWS environment.