Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced AWS GovCloud, a new AWS Region designed to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements. AWS GovCloud is an AWS Region designed to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements. Because AWS GovCloud is physically and logically accessible by U.S. persons only, government agencies can now manage more heavily regulated data in AWS while remaining compliant with strict federal requirements. The new Region offers the same high level of security as other AWS Regions and supports existing AWS security controls and certifications such as FISMA, SAS-70, ISO 27001, FIPS 140-2 compliant end points, and PCI DSS Level 1. AWS also provides an environment that enables agencies to comply with HIPAA regulations. This is the kind of announcement I could also see for financial services, where regulators could bless a specific region of a cloud as suitable for banking data. I think this is a huge step to moving forward with truly cloud based financial services. I never thought that service providers would find it economical to make their entire cloud as secure as banks would require. Making a region of the cloud that secure is a viable option. What do you think?