AWS CloudHSM vs AWS Service Catalog: What are the differences?

Developers describe AWS CloudHSM as "Dedicated Hardware Security Module (HSM) appliances within the AWS cloud". The AWS CloudHSM service allows you to protect your encryption keys within HSMs designed and validated to government standards for secure key management. You can securely generate, store, and manage the cryptographic keys used for data encryption such that they are accessible only by you. AWS CloudHSM helps you comply with strict key management requirements without sacrificing application performance. On the other hand, AWS Service Catalog is detailed as "Create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS". AWS Service Catalog allows IT administrators to create, manage, and distribute catalogs of approved products to end users, who can then access the products they need in a personalized portal. Administrators can control which users have access to each application or AWS resource to enforce compliance with organizational business policies. AWS Service Catalog allows your organization to benefit from increased agility and reduced costs because end users can find and launch only the products they need from a catalog that you control.

AWS CloudHSM and AWS Service Catalog are primarily classified as "Data Security Services" and "Cloud Access Management" tools respectively.

Some of the features offered by AWS CloudHSM are:

• Protect and store your cryptographic keys with industry standard, tamper-resistant HSM appliances. No one but you has access to your keys (including Amazon administrators who manage and maintain the appliance).
• Use your most sensitive and regulated data on Amazon EC2 without giving applications direct access to your data's encryption keys.
• Store and access data reliably from your applications that demand highly available and durable key storage and cryptographic operations.

On the other hand, AWS Service Catalog provides the following key features:

• Ensure Compliance with Corporate Standards
• Help Employees Quickly Find and Deploy Approved IT Services
• Centrally Manage IT Service Lifecycle