In recent news relating to Microsoft"s mission-critical cloud for the U.S. government - Azure Government -, the tech giant announced that its NetApp Files service would be generally available in more Government regions. Earlier this year, meanwhile, the Migrate service was introduced to the cloud as well.
Today, Microsoft has unveiled a slew of enhancements for Azure Government, alongside the expansion of Azure Government Secret, and a new variant of the cloud dubbed Azure Government Top Secret.
For starters, Azure Government now boasts the following new and enhanced features:
- Availability Zones that provide high availability for the most demanding mission-critical applications and data
- Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) to allow for more secure, work-from-anywhere scenarios
- A total of 137 Azure Government services at FedRAMP High, and 97 services at Department of Defense Impact Level 5 (IL5) across all Government regions
- Updates to the tactical edge portfolio
- Network high availability (HA) module and high availability power module for Modular Data Center (MDC)
- General availability for Azure Stack Hub Ruggedized
- General availability for Azure Stack Edge Pro R and Mini R
Moving on, the new Azure Government Top Secret cloud is ready to be made available, and Microsoft is waiting on the U.S. Government"s accreditation. Top Secret regions will provide all the capabilities offered through Azure (commercial), Azure Government, and Azure Government Secret. The services provided will help "meet the demand for greater agility in the classified space", while simultaneously enabling mission owners to leverage a more varied choice in modernizing legacy systems through a secure cloud platform.
Finally, there are some new services for Government Secret. Application developers can now utilize Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Container Instances to deploy and manage containerized applications with ease. Azure Sentinel and Azure Security Center are also now available for the Secret cloud, allowing for unified security and proactive threat management.