Microsoft continues government cloud push with new announcements

While much of the recent tech punditry revolves around the latest smartphone or the newest Intel and Qualcomm chipset, there is a growing wave of cloud adoption by businesses that seems to be going relatively unaddressed.

As with most trends, governments have been slow to adopt cloud IT modernization, but Microsoft is seeing a giant opportunity for to help seed its Azure solutions to perhaps not only its strongest market but it’s largest customer base as demand for its solutions continues to surge.

According to the Microsoft Enterprise blog which posted a portion of the Report to the president of Federal IT Modernization, here are just a couple of recent examples of some government IT modernizations that are taking advantage of new $500 million central modernization fund to boost adoption

• The Commonwealth of Virginia is taking on the nation’s opioid epidemic through an extremely sophisticated cloud architecture that marries sensitive public, health, and prescription data to better understand and triage solutions for this important public health crisis.
• The Small Business Administration (SBA) is planning to adopt all of Microsoft 365 to drive cost savings across mobility, security, and collaboration tool sets while delivering a consistent and modern experience across SBA’s geographically dispersed employee base. The use of technology empowers SBA to achieve its core mission: to help Americans start, build, and grow businesses.
• US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) whose Access to Care web-based application enables patients to more easily schedule VA hospital appointments and track likely wait times, creating a better patient experience.
• The US Air Force, along with the Defense Logistics Agency, leverage Microsoft secure cloud technology to provide the productivity and collaboration services that Service members need to fulfill their mission.
• The State Department’sAirNow project places IoT sensors on embassies and consulates around the world to capture air quality monitoring data. That data is then analyzed using Power BI insights to foster diplomatic conversations about how the US can help other countries improve air quality and national health.
• The City of Chicago moved to the cloud for secure productivity services to reduce costs and on-premises infrastructure and found that process automation and information discovery were added benefits. Plus, employees love the mobility that allows them to work anywhere and on any device.

In parallel with its user’s demands, Microsoft is also evolving the cloud stack offering by introducing Microsoft 365 for US Government, Azure Stack on Azure Government, New Regions Dedicated to Secret US Classified Data and New Certifications for Dynamics 365.

Most of these new services come with the backing of Microsoft’s continued partnerships with government customers to attain well over 72 compliance regime support and the most number of certifications to-date of any cloud solutions provider.

During Microsoft’s Government Tech Summit this month, the company went over more details of its Microsoft 365 for US government general availability features which include:

A complete solution for the modern workplace comprised of Office 365, Enterprise Mobility + Security, and Windows 10, Microsoft 365 for US Government provides agencies with tools for mobile productivity and secure collaboration. With this release, Enterprise Mobility + Security is now also generally available for the US Government with deep integration into both Microsoft 365 and Azure Government. It’s core capabilities are designed to meet the requirements of government by mirroring the functions outlined in the NIST cybersecurity framework– identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.

To learn more about Microsoft 365 for Government, Azure Government Secret, or Dynamics 365, visit the Microsoft Enterprise blog here.