Cascade Hosting for Government
Managed Cascade Hosting for Government Agencies
Cascade CMS publishes your agency's site to a separate production environment. We operate that environment, the CDN in front of it, and everything that keeps it fast, secure, and accessible for residents.
What is managed Cascade hosting for government?
Managed Cascade hosting for government is Cascade Website Hosting for public agencies: the managed production environment that receives what Cascade CMS publishes and serves it to residents. Because Cascade typically publishes static files, the public site has no CMS login or database exposed to the internet. eWay Corp operates that environment on AWS or Azure with WCAG 2.1 AA monitoring, NIST-aligned controls, and a 99.9% monthly uptime SLA.
- Monthly uptime SLA
99.9%
Monthly uptime SLA
- Severity-1 response, 24x7
15 min
Severity-1 response, 24x7
- Monitored ahead of the Title II deadline
WCAG 2.1 AA
Monitored ahead of the Title II deadline
- Plus Carahsoft and AWS Marketplace
SBA 8(a)
Plus Carahsoft and AWS Marketplace
The Civic Calendar
Residents come when it matters.So the site has to be there.
Static pages behind a CDN are the strongest starting point for a public site under pressure. We size the publish destination and the CDN for the days that test it.
Emergencies and severe weather
Closures, evacuations, and shelter information must publish instantly and stay up when the whole community checks at once.
How we run it: A 15-minute severity-1 response around the clock, and a CDN purge the moment an alert publishes, so nobody sees a stale page.
Elections
Polling places, sample ballots, and results pages take a year of traffic in a night.
How we run it: Results and polling pages cached at the edge, capacity planned ahead of election day, and monitoring through the count.
Tax, permit, and benefit deadlines
Forms and payment pages slow down exactly when residents are rushing to finish.
How we run it: Capacity planned against your deadline calendar, with the pages that lead to payments and applications tested before the rush.
Public meetings and livestreams
Agendas, packets, and meeting streams draw sudden interest when an issue is in the news.
How we run it: Large documents served from the CDN, and embedded streams kept off the web servers so the rest of the site stays fast.
Breaking news
A single story can send thousands of readers to one page in minutes.
How we run it: Full-page caching and auto-scaling absorb the spike, and alerts fire on response time before readers notice.
New online services
A new permit portal or resident service launches to the whole jurisdiction on day one.
How we run it: Changes go through staging with a rehearsed rollback, and launch day is monitored by the team that deployed it.
What We Run
Everything downstream of the Cascade publish button
Hannon Hill operates the Cascade CMS application. We operate what it publishes to, the same Cascade Website Hosting we run for universities, set up for how agencies publish.
The publish destination
Production servers sized for full-site publishes, so a large Publish All completes without filling queues or tripping rate limits, with an alert if a publish finishes only partially.
CDN and cache invalidation
Published pages served from the edge, with the cache cleared automatically when a publish completes, so residents see changes as soon as editors publish them.
Security controls
TLS, a web application firewall, hardened servers, audit logging, and access reviews, with controls aligned to NIST 800-53 and StateRAMP for your security review.
Single sign-on for editors
Staff sign in to Cascade with Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, or another SAML 2.0 identity provider, configured and maintained by us.
Accessibility under Title II
State and local governments must meet WCAG 2.1 AA by April 26, 2027, or April 26, 2028 for smaller entities. We scan templates and new content continuously, so a new page does not quietly undo last year's remediation.
Continuity and recovery
Backups, tested restores, disaster recovery, and runbooks that do not depend on one person, so the site survives staff turnover, vendor changes, and bad days.
Where it runs: your cloud account or ours
In your agency's AWS account
We operate your Cascade publish destination inside the AWS account your agency already owns. The infrastructure, the data, and the bill stay with you, which often simplifies procurement and security review.
Hosted by eWay
We provide the infrastructure as part of the engagement, with one invoice for hosting and operations. Same team, same SLA, same reporting.
Accessibility remediation and ongoing conformance are also available as a dedicated accessibility compliance service. Security controls are summarized in our Trust Center.
Why Cascade Suits Government
A publishing model built for public websites
Most CMS platforms serve every page from the same application editors log in to. Cascade separates the two, and that separation is worth a great deal to a public agency.
A smaller attack surface
The authoring application is separate from the public site, and the public site is typically published as static files. There is no public CMS login to attack and no database behind every page.
Resilience under load
Static pages cache completely at the CDN, which is how a site stays up when an emergency sends the whole jurisdiction to it at once.
A clean line of responsibility
Hannon Hill operates the CMS application; we operate the production environment. Your security review gets a clear boundary and one accountable operator for the public side.
Governed publishing
Cascade's workflows and permissions control who publishes what, and every publish lands on the same destination we monitor and protect.
Fast on any connection
Static pages load quickly on older phones and slow mobile connections, which is how many residents reach public services.
Procurement you already use
Buy through SBA 8(a) paths where your rules allow, Carahsoft, AWS Marketplace, or a statewide or cooperative contract your agency already holds.
Our Work
Cascade operations for universities, platforms for government
Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island
Custom Drupal Site, Custom Modules, and Multi-Year Platform Operations
Read the case studyIowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council
Drupal Redesign for a Statewide STEM Education Council
Read the case studyPolk County Crisis & Advocacy Services
Custom Case Management System for a County Crisis & Advocacy Division
Read the case studyThe same operations team runs production websites for Xavier University, Morehead State University, and Central Washington University through our Cascade Website Hosting service. See everything we do for agencies on our government page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions about Cascade hosting for government
Is Cascade CMS a good fit for government websites?
Cascade is best known in higher education, and the same strengths suit public agencies: structured content, governed publishing workflows, and a public site that is typically published as static files. Static files mean no public CMS login and no database behind every page, which narrows the attack surface and lets a CDN carry heavy traffic during an emergency.
How does Cascade hosting fit an agency's security review?
The boundary is clean. Hannon Hill operates the Cascade CMS application. We operate the production environment that receives what Cascade publishes: the servers, CDN, web application firewall, TLS, monitoring, and access controls, aligned to NIST 800-53 and StateRAMP. Your reviewers assess one accountable operator for the public side of the site.
Can you host our Cascade site in our agency's own AWS account?
Yes. We can operate your Cascade publish destination inside the AWS account your agency already owns, so the infrastructure, the data, and the bill stay with you, or we can provide the hosting as part of the engagement. The operations, the SLA, and the team are the same either way.
How can an agency buy managed Cascade hosting?
Through SBA 8(a) set-aside or direct-award paths where your rules allow, Carahsoft contract vehicles, AWS Marketplace, or a statewide or cooperative contract your agency already uses. Most agencies fund it from the operating budget as an annual service.
Does a static Cascade site still need accessibility monitoring?
Yes. Static publishing makes a site fast and secure, but accessibility depends on templates and on the content editors publish every day. Under the ADA Title II rule, state and local governments must meet WCAG 2.1 AA by April 26, 2027 (or April 26, 2028 for smaller entities), so we scan published pages continuously, not only at launch.
What service levels come with managed Cascade hosting for government?
A 99.9% monthly uptime SLA and a 15-minute response to severity-1 (site down) incidents, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, written into the engagement, plus alerts when a publish completes only partially.
Start with an assessment
Find out what your Cascade site needs before the Title II deadline.
We review your published site and the environment behind it: servers, CDN, security, performance, accessibility, and how publishing behaves under load. You get a plain-language report and a plan, whether or not you work with us afterwards.