Earlier this week, my colleagues and I attended the 2017 Microsoft Government Cloud Forum at the Ronald Reagan building in D.C. This invitation-only event discussed topics such as IT modernization, cybersecurity, mobility, shared services, citizen engagement, and workforce management, all of which are top-of-mind these days for government employees.

AIS spent the day with Microsoft, government leaders and other partners, as we collaborated on how to both innovate and deliver more efficiently and effectively.

Lots of exciting news came out of the event, and we wanted to take a quick second to go over some of the bigger announcements:

  • Azure Government Secret: In order to better meet the mission-critical and data needs of  U.S. Government customers, Microsoft announced expansion plans to make Azure Government Secret available to support government agencies and partners who have secret-level classified data.
  • Blockchain for Azure Government: Blockchain technologies deployed on Azure are applicable to many complex problems facing government today, including distribution of funds after natural disasters, registration of property ownership, and other issues involving tracking ownership of funds or assets through multiple transactions.
  • Unified Security Management with Azure Security Center: To help customers address their security challenges, Azure Security Center is coming to Azure Government.
  • Expanding High-Performance Computing in Azure Government: To address data-driven government demand, Microsoft is extending their existing public sector HPC offerings, including the NC-series and Azure Batch, to include the H-series virtual machines.
  • New Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Options in the Cloud: With Citrix VDI on Azure Government, customers can now extend existing Citrix environments and deploy Windows 10 desktops into Azure Government from Citrix Cloud.

For more details check out the full announcement from Tom Keane, head of global infrastructure, Microsoft Azure, about all the exciting new capabilities coming to Azure Government!