How the Office 365 U.S. Government Cloud meets the regulatory and compliance needs of the Department of Defense
Today’s post was written by Ron Markezich, corporate vice president for Office 365.
In talking with customers every day, I see digital transformation taking place at organizations around the world—and it’s moving fast. As a cloud-based productivity suite that’s built to address the security and compliance needs of even the most highly regulated organizations, Office 365 is helping our customers transform the way they work. I am especially proud of the work we’ve done to bring Office 365 to U.S. Government customers because meeting their needs is a testament to the security and compliance capabilities of the Office 365 service.
We are continually investing to deliver a complete, compliant and secure Office 365 U.S. Government Cloud. Today, we announced the Office 365 U.S. Government Defense compliance service, which makes Security Requirements Guidelines (SRG) L5 and L4 controls available to U.S. Government defense departments and defense industry organizations holding Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). The service will help the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) continue its digital transformation and take advantage of cloud computing to deliver flexible, cost-efficient and secure productivity solutions. My colleague, Bob Davis, will provide more details about this service next week at the at the Microsoft Government Cloud Forum in Washington D.C., which I would highly recommend attending to learn more about how to accelerate the digital transformation of government organizations.
Microsoft delivers superior protection for its government-only infrastructure through four hardened U.S. datacenters operated by screened personnel. Access to the Office 365 U.S. Government Cloud service is controlled by a formal eligibility process, and data in the service is protected through multi-layered physical and software-based systems.
By adopting Office 365, DoD employees benefit from the familiar capabilities of Microsoft Office, Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business. Because Office 365 is a cloud-based solution, employees can work securely across devices, save and share information in the cloud and always benefit from the latest technology and innovation.
At Microsoft, we believe that not all clouds are created equal. Microsoft wants to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To do that, we are working to ensure that Office 365 meets the security and compliance needs of every customer, while also providing a comprehensive productivity solution. The U.S. Government Defense compliance service is one more example of how we optimize our services to meet our customer requirements.
—Ron Markezich
