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
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.