What is the difference between cloud governance and cloud compliance?

Cloud Governance vs. Cloud Compliance: A Quick Overview

Cloud governance establishes a framework of rules, policies, and controls that dictate how an organization’s cloud resources are utilized. It’s all about managing cloud operations to ensure that resources are used efficiently, securely, and in alignment with business goals.

On the other hand, cloud security compliance refers to adhering to external and internal compliance standards. These standards could be industry-specific (such as HIPAA for healthcare or PCI DSS for financial services) or based on regulatory frameworks like GDPR or CCPA. Cloud compliance management ensures that your organization meets the required legal, regulatory, and security obligations when using cloud services.

The Key Components of Cloud Governance

Cloud governance ensures an organization maintains control over the cloud ecosystem. Some of its primary goals include:

• Resource Optimization: Cloud governance frameworks establish rules that help manage the allocation and usage of cloud resources. This ensures efficiency and cost management.
• Security and Access Control: Governance defines how users access cloud services and helps mitigate risks by enforcing identity and access management (IAM) policies.
• Performance Monitoring: With governance in place, organizations can continuously track performance to identify bottlenecks and ensure smooth operations.
• Policy Enforcement: This involves automating and enforcing policies across all cloud environments, whether hybrid, public, or private.

The Role of Cloud Compliance

While cloud governance focuses on internal processes and management, cloud compliance involves adhering to external regulations and standards. For businesses, the most important compliance aspect is ensuring data security and privacy—especially in cloud environments, which are often multi-tenant and distributed across various regions.

Key aspects of cloud compliance management include:

• Compliance with Regulatory Standards: Organizations must ensure their cloud services meet the applicable cloud compliance standards for their industry or region, such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA.
• Risk Management: Compliance frameworks often incorporate regular risk assessments to evaluate vulnerabilities within cloud services.
• Data Protection: To meet compliance standards, organizations must implement data encryption, secure backups, and access controls to prevent data breaches.

How Cloud Compliance and Governance Align

• Policy Creation vs. Policy Enforcement: Governance focuses on defining the policies, while compliance ensures that those policies align with cloud compliance standards and are being followed.
• Security Measures: Cloud governance establishes security protocols for cloud usage, while cloud compliance verifies that these protocols meet legal obligations for data protection.

Audits and Monitoring: Governance sets up continuous monitoring of cloud services to maintain performance, while compliance ensures that this monitoring also includes regular audits to meet regulatory standards.