Sounds great and really secure, because Microsoft has such a good record of security, privacy and keeping private keys private. I’m being facetious of course. It is my hope that governments quit looking for convenience by outsourcing to third party private corporations.
A wild Solarwind appears
Microsoft casts sunburst, it was unsuccessful
Windows1
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Microsoft is pushing the AUKUS trio – Australia, the UK, and the US – to update cross-border info collaboration, and - of course - it has just the thing: the classified Azure Government Cloud.
The call was made by Scott Gills, program manager in defense and intelligence for Microsoft, and noted the need for the three English-speaking nations to collaborate securely in light of the specter of Software Defined Warfare.
Gills rattled off a list of capabilities needed by AUKUS partners, from collaborating through familiar tools, analytics, and decision-making to research and innovation.
As a reminder: a large chunk of Microsoft’s cloud in Australia fell over in August, an incident attributed - in part - to a lack of staff on site.
AUKUS is all about defense capability and cooperation between the three countries and the most notable result so far has been around nuclear submarines with contracts recently signed off for the design and purchase of long-lead items for a new generation of underwater predators.
While lead times measured in years - or decades - might be all well and good for something like a nuclear submarine, it’s less than ideal in the fast-moving cybersecurity landscape.
The original article contains 436 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
MS joining the MIC? Shrewd.
There are no big tech companies that have ever not been a part of it.
Microsoft, slapping a label on something and adding a few more simple features an some “lock” icons to make you feel secure. Then upcharging.
Quite a bit more to it than that, but yes definitely upcharging like crazy.
Like what?
Lots and lots (thousands) of government security requirements covering every aspect of the enclave and everyone who’s allowed to touch it.
GovCloud isn’t just some marketing label Microsoft made up to cash in. It’s a US federal system that operates in commercial clouds (AWS and Azure, thus far). And the federal government doesn’t trust cloud at all, so they’ve made earning the GovCloud designation about as painful as they possibly can.
Amazon has a good description of the standards they have to meet here, and it’s the same for Microsoft:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/latest/UserGuide/govcloud-compliance.html