Microsoft will has made available two new Microsoft Azure cloud regions within the Canberra Data Centres facilities, designed specifically to support government and national infrastructure.
The announcement follows on the heels of Microsoft becoming the first global cloud provider to be awarded Protected Certification by the Australian Signals Directorate for both the Azure service and Office 365, opening the door for government agencies to host higher classified data sets in Microsoft cloud services.
Azure Australia Central, as the new cloud regions will be known, are being used by 47 local and international partners, including SAP, Telstra Health, AXON, DXC, Accenture, Dimension Data, Veritas, Citrix and Leidos. SAP’s private managed cloud service, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, is hosted on Microsoft Azure, enabling customers to access the S/4HANA platform.
While Microsoft has operated Azure regions in Sydney and Melbourne since 2014, the new service has been targeted specifically to the needs of government and national infrastructure, offering features specifically for IT and application development including infrastructure virtualisation, data management, security management and application services as a platform. In the future, the range of capability of services will grow to address scenarios in artificial intelligence, data science and the Internet of Things.
Steven Worrall, managing director, Microsoft Australia, said: “Microsoft is deeply committed to Australia and New Zealand and our continued and significant investment in mission critical cloud is testament to that. We expect Azure Australia Central to play a catalysing role in accelerating the transformation of the public sector and through that, enhance the government services millions citizens in both countries utilise every day.”
Approved critical infrastructure clients including banks, utilities, telecommunications, healthcare, transport and other sectors will be part of the restricted community allowed access to the Azure Australia Central regions.
Damien Bueno, VP strategic industries and markets, SAP Australia and New Zealand, said: “We are taking our global partnership with Microsoft to the next level in Australia via the Azure Australia Central regions. SAP and Microsoft will help Federal Government customers run their most mission-critical applications and workloads within the secure Private SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud on Microsoft Azure in the Canberra Data Centres. The SAP HANA Enterprise Managed Private Cloud provides our customers with a guided path to move from an on-premise environment to a cloud-ready state.
“The Azure Australia Central facility in Canberra addresses the requirements of our government customers who are eager to apply the real-time capabilities of in-memory computing in the cloud, but may have concerns about hosting data remotely. As part of our partnership, SAP and Microsoft jointly plan to co-engineer, go to market, and provide support services for solutions that will help ensure the best cloud experience for our government customers.”
