Alice Chambers |
Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty is now generally available across all Microsoft Azure regions to help governments accelerate digital transformation while prioritising regulatory compliance and data security.
“Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty helps governments meet their compliance, security, and policy requirements while utilising the cloud to provide superior value to their citizens,” said Corey Sanders, corporate vice president for Microsoft Cloud for Industry, in a blog post titled ‘Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty now generally available, opening new pathways for government innovation’.
Microsoft built the service on more than 60 cloud regions to provide enhanced cybersecurity and compliance coverage. It also provides sovereign controls to protect and encrypt sensitive data, and customers can adopt specific sovereignty-focused Azure policy initiatives to address the complexity of compliance with national and regional regulatory requirements.
The service was available to eligible customers for public preview in October, where they used the cloud to meet their data compliance and security requirements. Through the product development lifecycle, Microsoft has worked with various customers and partners around the world including the Municipality of Amsterdam and Inspark, a Microsoft Cloud Incubator for governments and enterprises; Leonardo, a technological partner for governments, defence agencies, institutions and enterprises in Italy; and mobile digital communications company Proximus in Belgium.
“This global service will offer governance, security, transparency and sovereign technology, and provide industry-leading cybersecurity along with the broadest compliance coverage and most regions of any cloud provider,” said Satish Thomas, corporate vice president at Microsoft. “I’m especially grateful to our early customers and partners that have been on the journey with us to reach this milestone. We could not have done this without the close relationship with them – the workshops, the feedback, the co-development work, were all invaluable.”
Thomas joined Kathleen Mitford, corporate vice president of global industry marketing at Microsoft, to discuss the new service in the Winter 2023 issue of Technology Record, which will be published soon. Sign up to read the free digital edition.