A pivotal day today as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave a Mastermind Keynote at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, discussing Microsoft’s differentiated cloud for global good and how not all clouds are created equal.  Simultaneously, from a FedScoop FedTalk in Washington, DC, Jason Zander, CVP of our Microsoft Azure team, further elaborated on these critical differentiators for U.S. government customers.

As Jason cites in his announcements, in a recent survey conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, government customers rated Microsoft as the most trusted cloud service provider, over AWS, Google and Salesforce. This starts with Azure Government. Already offering the most compliance certifications and attestations for mission-critical government workloads than any other cloud service provider, Jason announced the following additions:

• Department of Defense-specific Azure Government. Starting in November, physically isolated version of Azure Government specifically for the Department of Defense (DoD) will be available in preview followed quickly with general availability.
• DoD Information Impact Level 5. This version of Azure is built from the ground up to meet DoD Impact Level 5 controls. DoD agencies and companies managing controlled information will be able to use Azure Government for Department of Defense National Security System data. Azure Government is on track to achieve a DoD Impact Level 5 Provisional Authorization.
• Two additional Azure Government regions in the South West and South Central United States. Today we’re announcing our intent to expand Azure Government from new regions in Arizona and Texas. Slated to be generally available in 2017, the new regions will add to our existing regions in Virginia and Iowa and are new additions beyond the Department of Defense regions mentioned above. Now, Azure has a total of six dedicated regions for government customers – more than any other cloud provider.

Go to Jason’s announcements to read the facts.  We are passionate about truth and trust. We listen to feedback, offer choice and will continue delivering the most trusted Government Cloud for mission critical workloads. Look for more announcements from me as we approach the Government Cloud Forum October 25, 2016.

For all things related to security, privacy, transparency, and compliance, check out the Microsoft Trust Center.

To experience the power of Azure Government for your organization, sign up for an Azure Government Trial.