Microsoft to add Dynamics CRM to government cloud
Connecting state and local government leaders
Dynamics CRM Online for government will allow customers to leverage their existing Microsoft investment on premises and in the cloud through hybrid cloud capabilities including integration with the Azure and Office 365 government community clouds.
Adding to its cloud services for government, Microsoft announced a new Dynamics CRM Online service for government users. Dynamics CRM Online for government will be a separate instance of its cloud offerings, allowing customers to leverage their existing Microsoft investment on premises and in the cloud through hybrid cloud capabilities, including integration with the Azure and Office 365 government community clouds, the company said.
The Dynamics CRM Online government cloud will become generally available in early 2015, said Curt Kolcun, vice president of U.S. public sector at Microsoft, in a blog post on Wednesday.
The Dynamics CRM Online government cloud will comply with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and would give government employees access to applications and workflows in the cloud from mobile devices.
Microsoft also announced it is expanding the preview program for its Azure government cloud. Until now, the service was available only as a private preview to select customers and partners. On Wednesday, Microsoft said it is "expanding the preview to more partner and customer solutions and workloads."
Microsoft is accepting requests from government solution partners to participate in the preview program at AzureGov@Microsoft.com.
First announced in October 2013, the Azure government cloud is designed to support the security workloads of U.S. federal agencies. Azure is already FedRAMP-certified, but as an additional security precaution, the government cloud's datacenters in Des Moines, Iowa, and Boydton, Va., are isolated from other Azure public cloud datacenters and are operated by pre-screened U.S. government employees. The servers used will only house data from other government agencies.
The Illinois Department of Corrections is an early user of the Azure government cloud, Microsoft said, and will be using Azure government cloud storage as part of its offender management system.
The government-focused cloud announcements come less than a week before the start of Microsoft's 2014 Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which will take place in Washington, D.C. In a blog post, Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Channel, said the Azure and Dynamics CRM Online government cloud offerings will be among the services Microsoft will highlight at WPC, which kicks off on July 13.
This article originally appeared on Redmond Channel Partner, a sister site to GCN.