Segregated Compute by Design: How StrongDM Ensures Compliance

Segregated compute is more than a checkbox; it’s a core requirement in frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and FedRAMP. At its simplest, it means no user should ever connect directly to sensitive workloads. Every connection must be isolated, controlled, and auditable.

The challenge? Traditional approaches like VPNs and jump hosts blur that line, leaving gaps auditors can spot. StrongDM takes a different path. With a proxy-based Zero Trust architecture, every session is brokered, every credential is hidden, and every action is logged. The result: users get seamless access without ever touching secrets, while compliance teams gain hard proof that segregation is enforced by design, not policy hope.

In this guide, we’ll unpack what regulators expect, why segregated compute matters, and how StrongDM delivers compliance as an architectural guarantee.

What Is Segregated Compute?

Segregated compute is a security and compliance requirement found in frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and FedRAMP. It ensures that end-users can never directly connect to sensitive workloads such as servers, databases, or Kubernetes clusters. Instead, all access must be isolated, controlled, and auditable, providing regulators and auditors with proof that workloads are protected from unauthorized or unmanaged connections.

With StrongDM, segregated compute is delivered by design through a proxy-based Zero Trust architecture. Rather than allowing raw network connections from a user’s laptop to a target system, every session is brokered through a StrongDM proxy. This proxy:

• Enforces contextual policies (identity, device posture, resource sensitivity).
• Injects credentials transparently without exposing them to the user.
• Captures complete session activity, including queries, commands, and RDP replays.

The result is that users get seamless, credential-free access, while compliance teams gain verifiable evidence that:

• No direct connections ever occur.
• All compute paths are properly segregated.
• Every action is logged immutably for audits.

In short, segregated compute means regulated workloads are isolated from direct user access. StrongDM makes this a technical guarantee rather than a policy hope, ensuring organizations meet compliance mandates with confidence.

Here’s a breakdown of how the StrongDM platform achieves this:

Proxy Architecture: The Compute Separation Layer

One of the hardest parts of proving “segregated compute” to auditors is showing that users truly never have a direct line into sensitive systems. Traditional approaches (like jump hosts or VPN gateways) often blur that boundary: a user technically is on the same network, and once inside, monitoring or control is limited.

StrongDM solves this problem at the architectural level with its distributed proxy fabric. Proxies act as the enforced boundary between end-users and target systems. They are deployed inside your environment, under your control, and become the only pathway into regulated resources. This makes the segregation of compute not just a policy you hope users follow, but a hard technical guarantee built into the access flow itself.

Here’s what happens every time a session is initiated:

• Client connection – The StrongDM client intercepts the user’s connection request (SSH, RDP, database, Kubernetes API, etc.).
• Policy check – The client packages identity, device posture, and the requested resource into an authorization call, which StrongDM evaluates in real time.
• Proxy handoff – If approved, the connection is routed through a StrongDM-managed proxy node. This proxy enforces separation and is the only entity allowed to talk to the resource.
• Credential injection – The proxy fetches or generates ephemeral credentials (from your vaults or via StrongDM’s dynamic issuance) and injects them transparently into the session.
• Session flow – All traffic passes through the proxy, ensuring there is never a direct socket between the user and the target system.

Security teams will see that every access path is automatically segregated, enforced, and auditable. Users operate on one side of the boundary; your resources remain safely isolated on the other.

Secretless Access: How Credential Handling is Eliminated

One of the most common weak points auditors look for is credential sprawl and the widespread sharing, copying, and storing of privileged usernames and passwords. In traditional environments, engineers often receive direct credentials to databases, servers, Active Directory, and other types of accounts. Those credentials can be cached, copied to personal devices, committed to code, or even exfiltrated by attackers. Once distributed, they’re nearly impossible to control or fully rotate.

StrongDM eliminates this risk by making access completely secretless for end-users. In other words, a user can log into a production database, SSH into a Linux host, or RDP into a Windows server without ever seeing or handling a credential. The entire exchange happens transparently at the proxy layer.

Here’s how StrongDM enforces secretless access in practice:

• Vault integrations – The StrongDM proxy natively integrates with enterprise-grade secret stores like HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, and Azure Key Vault. Credentials are pulled on demand, injected into the session, and never exposed to the human operator.
• Dynamic credentialing for databases – Every database connection established through StrongDM is ephemeral by design. Sessions are created on demand, brokered through the proxy, and automatically terminated when the user disconnects. This ensures that no persistent connections linger outside of policy controls, and every session is fully auditable from start to finish.
• SSH certificate issuance – For Linux systems, StrongDM issues short-lived SSH certificates signed by an internal certificate authority. These certificates are valid only for the duration of the session and are useless if intercepted or replayed later.
• Windows RDP and Active Directory –  Windows environments, StrongDM enables organizations to securely connect using either certificate-based RDP authentication or dynamically issued ephemeral Active Directory credentials. Certificates or credentials are automatically rotated and managed by StrongDM, ensuring seamless user access while keeping the underlying credential lifecycle completely invisible to end users..

By shifting all credential handling into the proxy, StrongDM achieves several compliance-aligned outcomes:

• No credential exposure – Users never touch or even see privileged secrets.
• No credential persistence – Every credential used is short-lived and auto-expired.
• No credential reuse – Because secrets never reach the user, they can’t be copied, stored, or replayed.

This design blocks a common attack vector and also provides auditable proof that privileged access was granted without any credential ever leaving the vault or proxy boundary, which provides an assurance that compliance frameworks such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and FedRAMP increasingly expect.

Context-Aware Enforcement: Policy at Session Establishment

Compliance frameworks also mandate that access must be conditional, contextual, and based on least privilege. In other words, it’s not enough to isolate workloads; organizations must also prove that only the right people, using the right devices, under the right circumstances, can establish a session.

Traditional access models struggle here. VPNs and firewalls treat access as binary: once you’re “on the network,” you often have broad, persistent access. StrongDM takes a fundamentally different approach, embedding context-aware policy enforcement directly into the session initiation process.

Here’s how StrongDM ensures every connection aligns with compliance principles:

• Identity validation – StrongDM integrates with leading SSO and identity providers (Okta, Azure AD, Ping, etc.) as well as identity governance platforms (IGA) to verify who the user is, what groups or roles they belong to, and what entitlements they’ve been granted. This ensures that role-based access decisions align with centralized governance policies and can be enforced consistently across the environment—without creating separate identity silos inside StrongDM.
• Device trust checks – Before allowing a session, StrongDM evaluates the posture of the endpoint device. Policies can require a specific OS version, the presence of security tooling, or even possession of valid machine certificates. This prevents unmanaged or non-compliant devices from ever reaching sensitive resources.
• Resource sensitivity awareness – Policies are not one-size-fits-all. StrongDM lets you enforce stricter controls for production or PCI-scoped environments (e.g., MFA every time, no copy/paste, session approval required) while allowing lighter requirements for dev/test systems. This dynamic enforcement aligns with compliance mandates for segregation of duties and tiered protection levels.
• Just-in-time access – Instead of granting standing privileges, StrongDM enables temporary, request-based access. A user can request a database connection, receive manager approval, and automatically lose that entitlement once the session ends. This directly supports least privilege by ensuring access is time-bound and purpose-driven.

The net effect is that every session must pass through multiple layers of context-aware checks before it even begins. For compliance purposes, this provides strong, auditable evidence that:

• Only authorized users gain access.
• Access is conditional on the state of the user and their device.
• Policies are enforced differently based on resource sensitivity.
• Privileges are temporary, not permanent.

This approach aligns perfectly with PCI DSS requirements for strong authentication and role-based access control, HIPAA’s mandate for technical access safeguards, and FedRAMP’s controls around least privilege and just-in-time authorization. With StrongDM, segregation starts at the architectural level, but it’s also contextual and enforceable in real-time.

Auditing & Session Capture: Immutable Evidence of Isolation

Auditors don’t care about intent; they want evidence. Auditors want to see not only that access paths are controlled and isolated, but also that there is an immutable record showing exactly who did what, when, and where. Without this, it’s impossible to prove that segregated compute requirements are being met in practice.

StrongDM was built with this requirement in mind. Every session that passes through a StrongDM proxy is captured in detail, creating an immutable audit trail that covers both metadata and full activity. This makes it easy to prove to auditors that sensitive workloads are only accessed through controlled, segregated paths, and that every action is fully attributable.

Here’s how StrongDM enforces complete visibility:

• Connection metadata – Every access attempt and session is logged with rich context: user identity, device posture, target resource, timestamp, and the policy decision that governed the request. This provides auditors with a clear “chain of custody” for access.
• Full command/query logging – For text-based protocols (SSH, Kubernetes, databases), StrongDM logs each command or query executed within the session. This granular detail goes beyond simply knowing a connection happened—it shows exactly what was done.
• RDP/VNC session replay – For graphical Windows sessions, StrongDM records full video replays of user activity. Auditors can review screen-by-screen playback of exactly what occurred in an RDP session. While StrongDM also facilitates VNC connections, replay functionality is currently specific to RDP.
• Immutable log storage – All logs and session captures can be exported in real time to SIEM and SOC tools such as Splunk, ELK, or Datadog. Because logs are generated and stored at the proxy (outside of user control), they are tamper-resistant, ensuring integrity and evidentiary value.

The result is a complete, end-to-end record of access activity that cannot be bypassed or altered. For compliance teams, this provides direct answers to critical auditor questions:

• Were workloads accessed only through controlled compute paths? Yes, logs show every session originated from a StrongDM proxy.
• Who accessed which resource, and when? Metadata ties users to resources with timestamps.
• What actions were performed during the session? Command logs and replays show the exact activity.
• Can we prove the integrity of this evidence?  Immutable logs stored in external SIEM/SOC systems guarantee it.

This aligns with PCI DSS requirements for monitoring and logging all access to cardholder data, HIPAA’s audit controls under §164.312(b), and FedRAMP’s mandates for continuous monitoring and log integrity. With StrongDM, you don’t just claim compliance—you have the evidence to prove it beyond doubt.

Why This Satisfies Segregated Compute Requirements

Regulators want assurance that the design of your access layer enforces separation by default. That’s the key distinction between “bolted-on” network segmentation and StrongDM’s proxy-based architecture: compliance outcomes are not dependent on manual processes or user behavior, but are guaranteed by the system itself.

Here’s how StrongDM’s model maps directly to the core elements auditors look for:

• No direct connections – End-users never open a raw TCP socket to a production database, server, or cluster. Every session is brokered through a StrongDM proxy, which acts as the enforcement boundary.
• Isolated compute path – All traffic is funneled through StrongDM proxies, creating a natural segregation layer. This makes it straightforward to demonstrate that regulated workloads are isolated from ungoverned user endpoints.
• Credential abstraction – Secrets are never distributed to users. Instead, StrongDM injects credentials at the last hop, ensuring there’s no credential sprawl, reuse, or leakage—a common weakness that PCI DSS, HIPAA, and FedRAMP specifically aim to prevent.
• Dynamic enforcement – Access decisions are evaluated in real time based on user identity, device trust, and resource sensitivity. This ensures that even if a user is entitled to connect, compliance requirements like least privilege and segregation of duties are continuously upheld.
• Proven evidence – Every connection, query, command, and session replay is captured immutably at the proxy layer. This produces verifiable, tamper-resistant proof that all access occurred through a segregated compute path.

With StrongDM, segregated compute isn’t simulated through jump hosts, firewall rules, or custom segmentation tricks. It’s a first-class property of the architecture itself. It has been designed to enforce isolation, eliminate credential risk, and produce the evidence auditors demand.

Bottom Line

For compliance regimes, the concern is whether workloads are isolated, brokered, and auditable. With StrongDM, they are—by default. There’s no need for additional jump hosts, manual credential rotation, or complex segmentation. Instead, you get a modern Zero Trust access platform that enforces segregation while streamlining operations.

Ready to see how StrongDM delivers segregated compute by design? Book a demo today.