Defence and regulated electronics programs come with requirements that most engineering teams never really have to worry about, things like controlled data residency, US-person access restrictions, and required audit trails for federal review. Electronic design teams working under ITAR or CMMC restrictions often end up using outdated and disconnected workflows to stay in compliance. There are better ways.
GovCloud infrastructure has closed most of the gap between what regulated programs require and what modern Cloud platforms can actually deliver. This article goes through where standard Cloud platforms fall short and how GovCloud is different.
The engineering problem
Designing electronics is a team effort. Engineers from the same team, and even different teams, need to collaborate and communicate with each other in order to make the final product. This remains true, even in highly regulated programs where the design data is heavily controlled and under constant scrutiny.
The easiest way to collaborate is by using an online Cloud platform where all stakeholders can connect and share design data. The problem for these defence programs though is that they need to adhere to stricter data control standards like ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) and CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification).
Most Cloud platforms are not built around these security restrictions, making them unusable to those engineers and companies working in these defence programs. This means that Cloud collaboration and communication are not possible. Therefore, teams use an airgapped workflow. This satisfies DoD requirements but is outdated, slow, and adds risks to the designs.
Why standard Cloud and on-premises approaches each fall short
As we mentioned, the easiest way to collaborate on PCB designs is by using a Cloud platform. But not all Cloud platforms are the same. In this section, we’ll discuss how standard commercial Cloud platforms as well as on premises platforms fall short when it comes to designing PCBs for the defence industry.
Standard commercial Cloud
Standard Cloud environments like AWS, Azure, Google, and IBM have strong security controls: encryption, role-based access, SSO integration, and detailed logging. For those outside of aerospace and defence, this is good enough, but for those of us in a defence program, it’s not. The big issue is ITAR and data residency.
Data residency is all about where your files physically live. Which servers, in which country, and who’s operating them. Standard commercial Cloud providers don’t restrict server access to US persons. Their support and operations teams are global. This means you can’t guarantee that your design data has not been accessed by a non-US person, even if you haven’t intentionally shared anything.
A question that often comes up is whether you can use a Cloud PCB design tool if your project is ITAR controlled? The answer is yes, but only with the right infrastructure. As mentioned, standard Cloud can’t guarantee US-only data residency or US-person access, meaning we’re out of scope for ITAR compliance.
The difference between AWS GovCloud and a standard AWS environment comes down to exactly this: GovCloud is physically separate infrastructure, restricted to US persons at both the staffing and infrastructure level, and designed specifically to support ITAR and EAR workloads.
On-premises ECAD infrastructure
In order to have more control over the collaboration infrastructure, companies and teams may choose to have an in-house solution, like running software on their own local servers. This solves the residency problem as you have your servers, in your facility, run by your people. This can work, but it’s not free of issues.
One issue is the operational cost, it’s significant. You own the entire stack, the servers, storage, networking, backups, and the software on top of it. All these require ongoing maintenance. Plus, there’s no elastic scaling like Cloud provides so you’re either over-provisioned and wasting money or under-provisioned and hitting performance bottlenecks, usually towards critical deadlines.
If you have engineers working remote, then you’ll require VPN access. This introduces latency and reliability issues for large design databases. Version control for PCB files (especially when multiple engineers are working concurrently) is notoriously difficult without a purpose-built platform. Most on-premises ECAD setups rely on a shared drive or Product Data Management (PDM) systems that were not designed for collaborative PCB design. Merge conflicts, file locking, and stale component data are common failure modes.
On-premises also don’t automatically satisfy CMMC Level 2/3. You still need to implement all necessary controls and demonstrate them to a third-party assessor. The infrastructure is yours, but the compliance burden is entirely yours too, with no managed tooling to help carry it.
What a better technical workflow looks like
Ensuring IT security and compliance in Cloud-based PCB design platforms starts with the workflow itself. In order to protect your IP and stay compliant, the engineering workflow for regulated PCB design needs to satisfy a few specific requirements that standard design workflows don’t always explicitly address:
- Uninterrupted design flow: compliance controls should operate in the background without adding steps to the design process
- Data residency verification: knowing where files are stored and under what access controls at the infrastructure level
- Identity-based access control: generating an audit trail showing who accessed defence electronics design files requires a platform that logs file-level access events, including user identity, file accessed, timestamp, and source, not just login events. Logs need to be unalterable and exportable for program security officer review
- Immutable audit logging: generating an audit trail showing who accessed defence electronics design files requires a platform that logs file-level access events like user identity, file accessed, timestamp, and source, not just login events. Logs need to be tamper-evident and exportable for program security officer review
- Tagging for export control: associating design packages with their ITAR or EAR classification so access decisions are consistently applied
- Controlled release workflows: ensuring that manufacturing outputs (Gerbers, BOMs, assembly drawings) are reviewed and approved before they leave a controlled environment
None of these requirements is tied to a specific Cloud deployment model and they can be fulfilled by either a on-premises or in a GovCloud-hosted environment. What is just as important is whether the platform was designed with these controls in mind or whether compliance is being achieved after the fact through workarounds using manual logs, separate approval emails, or self-reported access records that sit outside the tool and depend on people following a process consistently.
The ideal workflow allows engineers to be focused on what matters most to them, PCB design, and not compliance paperwork. The ideal platform will handle access control, logging, and release approvals in the background, so the design workflow stays intact while the compliance record builds itself.
Where modern platforms support this workflow
For engineering teams working on defence or aerospace programs, the question isn’t whether a PCB design platform can be made ITAR-compliant, because with the right infrastructure, most can. The real question is what it costs to get there, and whether Cloud collaboration is still on the table once you do. Of the major PCB design platforms, only one currently offers a vendor-hosted GovCloud deployment designed from the ground up for regulated electronics programs.
Altium 365 GovCloud: Cloud collaboration built for regulated industries
Altium 365 GovCloud is the Cloud collaboration platform offering a dedicated GovCloud region situated within the US, operated exclusively by US Persons in the AWS GovCloud region, with Inbound Traffic Control that limits workspace access from non-US IP addresses. This combination of US-person-operated infrastructure, named user provisioning, and network-level IP blocking is how access gets restricted so only US persons can view controlled design files.
It’s the only major PCB design platform with a vendor-hosted, purpose-built GovCloud deployment, and Altium has completed SOC 2 Type 2 certification for the platform. Engineers get the full Cloud collaboration experience, in design commenting, task management, version control, and managed libraries, on infrastructure that addresses the ITAR data residency and US-person access requirements a commercial Cloud can’t meet.
How do I get started?
To get started, you need to ask yourself three things:
- What are your compliance obligations?
- How much infrastructure work do you want to own?
- How much does collaboration matter to your team?
If your work isn’t export-controlled, a standard Cloud workspace is the simplest path. If you’re handling regulated, secure data and have the IT resources to build and maintain it, on-premises gives you full control but at a high cost. And if you need to stay compliant without giving up Cloud collaboration, or you simply want a solution you can plug into rather than build, a GovCloud platform is the most direct route. Currently, only Altium’s GovCloud is the only PCB-specific option in that category.
Frequently asked questions
Which electronics design tools offer GovCloud or secure Cloud support for defence projects?
Among the major PCB design platforms, Altium 365 GovCloud is the only vendor-hosted option built on AWS GovCloud infrastructure. Other platforms, such as Cadence, Siemens, and Zuken, support defence programs through on-premises deployments, but none currently offer a purpose-built, vendor-managed GovCloud environment for PCB design.
Which PCB design platforms are ITAR and EAR compliant for defence contractors?
Most major PCB design platforms can be configured for ITAR and EAR compliance when deployed on appropriate infrastructure. The distinction is how much of that compliance burden falls on your team. On-premises deployments with tools like Cadence Allegro X Pulse or Siemens Xpedition put the full infrastructure and compliance responsibility on the contractor. Altium 365 GovCloud shifts the infrastructure baseline to a vendor-managed environment already designed for controlled technical data, reducing the overhead on your team.
How does Altium 365 GovCloud compare to an on-premises ECAD setup for ITAR compliance?
Both can support ITAR data handling. The difference is operational. On-premises gives you physical control over data but requires VPN for remote access, manual version control, and significant IT overhead with the full compliance burden sitting with your team. Altium 365 GovCloud provides the collaboration and version management of a Cloud platform while meeting the US data residency and US-person access requirements that standard commercial Cloud cannot, with the infrastructure baseline managed by Altium rather than your own IT team.
