Microsoft Announces New Cloud for Top-Secret Government Use

Microsoft has launched a new cloud capability for classified information as part of the company's Azure Government suite of offerings. 

Azure Government Top Secret was designed to provide greater agility in the classified space and to provide deeper insights from data sourced from any location, Nextgov reported Monday.

Microsoft said that Azure Government Top Secret regions provide the same capabilities as Azure (commercial), Azure Government and Azure Government Secret.

The new offering can also help users modernize legacy systems through a secure cloud platform that works on open standards and open frameworks, Microsoft said. 

Tom Keane, corporate vice president of Azure Global, said that Azure Top Secret will serve as a “natural extension” of the cloud-based services that the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense are already using. 

“We think that this is a unique and differentiated capability—and something that our government customers have been asking us very clearly for," Keane added.

Microsoft also announced new functionality in its Azure Government Secret suite. Azure Sentinel and Azure Security Center are now available in Azure Government, Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Container Instances. 

Carroll Moon, the chief technology officer of CloudFit Software, said the offerings provide consistency for developers of all skill levels and ultimately lowers overall costs. 

“Microsoft is focused on mission enablement. Missions are enabled with workloads. Workloads live within enclaves that house varied levels of data. Microsoft is enabling seamless, secure, cost-contained agility across mission workloads at scale," Moon added.