What Does GovCloud Mean?
GovCloud refers to all the cloud computing and virtualization products and solutions that are developed specifically for government organizations and institutions.
GovCloud is a global initiative to address and design cloud solutions that meet the needs of IT as well as the strategic, financial and operational objectives of federal governments worldwide.
Techopedia Explains GovCloud
A GovCloud initiative of some sort is occurring in many countries based on their federal and local laws, regulations and overall strategy. However, the prime objective of all of them is to provide a framework and set of guidelines for sourcing and deploying a cloud computing solution for governments and their controlled authorities.
For example, the GovCloud program in the U.S. facilitates the implementation of cloud computing solutions under formal standards and procedures, with prime emphasis on security and interoperability. They have published several guidelines under this program such as the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, the Federal CIO’s 25-Point Roadmap plan and the NIST Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap.
Besides being government-specific, GovCloud is also offered as a branded product of several private cloud vendors such as Amazon AWS, providing similar solutions for government institutes.