Amazon Bats Eyes at Gov’t Sector with New Cloud Services
Today Amazon made an announcement that placed it two steps of the competition: it unveiled GovCloud, what is essentially an ultra secure version of six Amazon Web Services designed for the use of government agencies: Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, Elastic Block Store, Virtual Private Cloud, Identity and Access Management, and CloudWatch. That number will grow to encompass additional services as well, with updates expected to be rolled out in the near future.
“Because AWS GovCloud is physically and logically accessible by U.S. persons only (the actual instances reside within an AWS virtual private cloud), government agencies can now manage more heavily regulated data in AWS while remaining compliant with strict federal requirements.”
The different between GovCloud and the standard AWS is that the former complies with sensitive data regulations such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulation, which prohibits non-U.S citizens from accessing that data. The Federal Information Security Management Act and the Federal Information Processing Standard. This comes on top of what Amazon already offers to its private customers, such as PCI DSS compliance.
Several government agencies, including NASA, are already using Amazon Web Services, but it seems the new offering is aimed at drastically increasing that number. It also likely indicates an upturn in public sector spending on cloud services, according to CNET’S Dave Rosenberg. govCloud is priced higher than other AWS services aimed for private sector customers.
VMware is another company that’s going after government agencies, and has seen some success in doing so. The Department of Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy is using technology developed by the company and partner FedStore, while an unnamed U.S defense agency is levbaraging VMware View, according to a recent release.
Cloud adoption in the public sector is seeing acceleration, but security remains a concern. In particular, the launch of Office 365 in Europe was surrounded by concerns after Microsoft declared the U.S government can obtain access to European servers under the Patriot Act.
A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:
Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.
- 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more
- 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network.
About SiliconANGLE Media
SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.
Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.
