Microsoft announces U.S. general availability of Microsoft Azure Government

REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Tuesday, at Microsoft Corp.'s Government Cloud Summit in Washington, D.C., the company announced the U.S. general availability of Microsoft Azure Government and upcoming availability of Dynamics CRM Online for Government. These offerings together with Office 365 Government provide the most complete cloud for U.S. government customers.  

With the importance of enabling citizen services at all levels of government while keeping costs contained, the Microsoft Cloud for Government services meet or exceed public sector security, privacy and compliance standards. In fact, Microsoft's government cloud services have been designed from the ground up to help government agencies integrate disparate on-premises, cloud and data systems and enable seamless communication and collaboration to operate in this new cloud-first world. 

"The Microsoft Cloud for Government is the most complete cloud for any government organization aiming to be more productive, agile and efficient in today's mobile-first and cloud-first world," said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. "We are proud to offer Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online to the growing number of government agencies that are ready to deploy leading-edge cloud computing solutions."

Microsoft Azure Government

Now generally available in the United States, Azure Government is Microsoft's government community cloud platform for U.S. state, local and federal government agencies. Integrated services such as compute resources, storage, data, networking and applications are hosted in Microsoft datacenters located within the U.S. and managed by cleared U.S. personnel. Unlike any other cloud service provider, Azure Government provides hybrid, hyperscale, enterprise-grade solutions that enable government agencies to run the operating systems, languages and application of choice in Microsoft's government cloud, public cloud or their own datacenter with a consistent platform and the flexibility and capacity to scale up or down on demand. 

Azure Government also includes safeguards such as administrative and physical security measures as part of efforts to join Microsoft Azure in receiving Provisional Authority to Operate by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board. Furthermore, other industry bodies and experts recognize Microsoft as a leader in the cloud market.

Microsoft is currently the only vendor to be positioned as a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrants for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Server Virtualization, Application Platform as a Service and Cloud Storage Services, and we believe this validates Microsoft's strategy to enable the power of choice as we deliver industry-leading infrastructure services, platform services and hybrid solutions.

Dynamics CRM Online for Government

Dynamics CRM Online for Government will be generally available in January and is based on the Microsoft Dynamics' public cloud offering, designed for FedRAMP compliance and operated by cleared U.S. personnel. Dynamics customers will be able to use existing on- premises investments and benefit from integration with Azure and Office 365 government community clouds to help ensure anytime, anywhere access to public sector applications and workflows in a secure environment.

Government customers benefit from the cloud

Customers in the public sector are already seeing the benefits from the Microsoft Cloud for Government: 

• The state of Texas recently deployed over 110,000 seats of Office 365 Government as part of an effort to modernize email, communications and collaboration platforms across its many agencies and departments. This has allowed increase in efficiencies and decreases in costs all while meeting complex regulatory requirements. In addition, Texas is planning a number of initiatives with Azure Government. As such, Texas and Microsoft have expanded their Criminal Justice Information Security (CJIS) Addendum to include Azure Government to ensure that law enforcement agencies, which require CJIS agreements, can participate in the move to the Microsoft Cloud for Government.
• The state of Alabama is deploying Office 365 Government and a hybrid cloud initiative involving Azure Government to host and manage Alabama Medicaid's entire Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Alabama's CARES system for multiprogram eligibility and enrollment.
• The U.S. Navy is deploying Office 365 to a first wave of 8,000 Navy reservists, providing them with new mobility options and access to the collaboration and communication tools needed to do their job. The plan is to deploy to 40,000 plus Navy reservists, enabling them to complete training, administrative and operational tasks regardless of where they are located, rather than having to be in a Navy office.
• King County, Wash., is migrating a number of citizen service solutions and correspondence tracking workloads to Dynamics CRM Online for Government.

More about the Microsoft Cloud for Government can be found at http://microsoft.com/government.

More about the art of achieving compliance in the cloud can be found in an illustration.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services, devices and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

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