Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has received provisional authorization from the Department of Defense to allow its Azure cloud infrastructure-as-a-service offering to host secret classified data for 90 days, Nextgov reported Thursday.
Christopher Sherwood, a spokesman for DoD, told the publication the Defense Information Systems Agency issued on Dec. 12 the authorization permitting Microsoft to operate Azure IaaS at Impact Level 6. Amazon Web Services also holds IL6 accreditation.
œThe three-month period will be available for pilot projects to ensure policies, processes, and procedures are developed and tested before a longer [provisional authority] will be considered, Sherwood added.
Sherwood said the temporary authority œis wholly separate from the potential 10-year, $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing contract the Pentagon awarded to Microsoft in October.
