Microsoft and Lockheed Martin Team Up for Government Cloud Platform
October 8th, 2013Via: Information Week:
Microsoft will soon launch a dedicated multi-tenant cloud environment that meets the distinct requirements of U.S. government agencies.
The Windows Azure U.S. Government Cloud will be an exclusive community cloud available for U.S. state, local and federal government agencies. It will be hosted in Microsoft data centers located in the U.S. and managed by U.S. citizens. Cloud facilities that share content with non-governmental organizations or fail to meet data residency and oversight requirements have generally been out of the running for most federal agencies due to security concerns.
The difference between this government-only cloud and Microsoft’s public Windows Azure cloud computing environment is “we can guarantee government tenants are physically and logically separated from other tenants — and we’ll meet the more stringent security controls required by Department of Defense,” said Susie Adams, CTO for Microsoft’s federal government business, in an interview with InformationWeek.
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According to details in a blog post by Adams, Microsoft is working with Lockheed Martin and others to meet government-mandated requirements. The dedicated government cloud will be hosted in two specially constructed data centers collocated in Boydton, Va., and Des Moines, Iowa, with logical, physical and network isolation from Microsoft’s Azure Public Cloud. Data will reside on servers that contain only data from other U.S. federal, state and local government customers. All operating personnel will be U.S. citizens screened for PPT-Moderate clearance.
