One of the most common comments received during an Azure training session is that State or Federal governments will never use cloud computing services, like Azure due to data security issues and the need to host the data locally. In fact, State and Federal agencies ARE moving to the cloud.

Microsoft has dedicated datacenters for hosting government data, exclusively. It is known as "Azure Government". These data centers are designed to meet the stringent security requirements needed by governmental agencies. Azure Government is compliant with many standards, including the Trusted Internet Connections initiative, Us Federal Risk & Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and Secure Cloud Computing Architecture (SCCA).

While Azure Government resides on separate Microsoft data centers, the good news is that the interface used to manage Azure Government is the same as that used for the public Azure datacenter and have similar feature and service offerings. This means that your Azure training and certifications will apply to Azure Government. Learn more about Azure training. Learn more about Azure Government.