Microsoft Secures Provisional Authority to Host Secret Government Data

Tom Keane, vice president of Microsoft’s Azure Global, has confirmed that the company’s Azure Government Secret offering has received approval to host “secret” government data.

Keane specified in a blog post that Azure Government Secret secured the provisional authority at the Department of Defense’s Impact Level 6, along with other standards compliant with intelligence community requirements to host classified secret workloads.

Keane explained that Azure Government Secret simultaneously delivers dedicated regions to secure classified secret workloads and enables reliable access to critical data, Nextgov reported.

The provisional authority also enables Microsoft to comply with a requirement in the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract that calls for hosting of classified secret workloads for up to 270 days from the time of award.

In December, Microsoft gained a temporary provisional authority to host classified secret workloads.