“Not all clouds are created equal” seems to be the latest Microsoft pitch when to comes to creating services for the U.S. government. Earlier today, we reported about Microsoft Office 365 becoming compliant with Security Restriction Guidelines on Level 4 and 5. The service has been approved for high-security data for government defensive offices and is being implemented into the Microsoft Government Cloud. This makes Microsoft the first and currently the only commercial cloud provider to have Level 5 clearance for the Department of Defense.
In celebration of this achievement, Corporate Vice President Jason Zander released a blog post that detailed more reasons why the Government Cloud was a cut above the rest.
Some of the key points the post pointed included:
- Microsoft has signed more than six times Criminal Justice Information Services than their closest competition
- There are six data centers for their government cloud across the nation.
- The company has two dedicated data center regions for Department of Defense L5
- Microsoft has well-documented government compliance certifications with the IRS, FERPA, FedRAMP, and more.
- Security is top priority with very select access from approved requests.
There is little doubt that Microsoft Government Cloud is making strides in the industry to ensure the safety of high-level information. Azure Government is already servicing over six million users from federal to local government offices. With the addition of Office 365, now the Department of Defense will have access to all service’s needs across each of their approved devices.
By combing Azure Government and Office 365 U.S. Government Defense services, the Microsoft Government Cloud continues to improve and expand to, even more, data centers. Two of which should be available at the end of the year and another couple joining the list in early 2017.
Further reading: Azure Government, Microsoft, Microsoft Government Cloud, Office 365, Office 365 U.S. Government Defense, US Government
