Azure NetApp Files is Expanding to Government Data Centers

 We are pleased to announce that Azure NetApp Files is now available in the U.S. government region. The Virginia data center is live, to be followed shortly by the Arizona and Texas government data centers. Azure NetApp Files continues to expand the availability of its fully managed, enterprise-grade, file-share service to meet the high-performance workload needs of federal, state, and local agencies, and the Department of Defense, which have government security and regulatory compliance requirements.  

Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft first-party service enabling government agencies to benefit from high performance, availability, and reliability for their SMB and NFS files in both the Microsoft Azure Public and Government regions. Azure NetApp Files is designed to handle enterprise-grade files, delivering low latency of <1ms and on-premises-like performance. Popular workloads include high-performance computing (HPC), Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), SAP, and Oracle databases.   

Government region availability means that U.S. government agencies can now benefit from Azure NetApp Files – one of the fastest-growing services in the Microsoft Azure portfolio – and take advantage of its 99.99% uptime guarantee. Azure Government services handle data that is subject to government regulations and requirements, such as FedRAMP, NIST 800.171 (DIB), ITAR, IRS 1075, DoD L4, and CJIS. The Azure Government region is comprised of physically isolated data centers and networks located within the United States.

Government customers can get started with Azure NetApp Files quickly and easily, and with three service tiers to choose from, they can scale their storage on-demand as their needs evolve.  

Key benefits to government agencies include:

• Simplify Migration to the Cloud – Azure NetApp Files eliminates the most common barriers to cloud-first mandates by providing the perfect solution for customers’ enterprise storage needs.
• Migrate and Run – Customers can easily migrate their most demanding applications requiring Linux and Windows file shares to the Azure Public and Government clouds without complex code changes.
• Three Performance Tiers – Azure NetApp Files’ performance levels enable customers to scale quickly and easily according to their storage requirements, without sacrificing performance, reliability, or security. They experience on-premises performance, low latency, and scalability for all file-based workloads, including: SAP, Oracle, HPC, and Virtual desktop services.
• No Separate Contracts Required – Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure first-party service delivered through existing Azure agreements. No additional licensing is required. Customers pay only for what they use. 

Today, 65 percent of enterprise workloads are still on-premises, despite the focus on cloud-first strategies. At the same time, 45 percent of enterprise external storage workloads are file-based. This is the ideal time for government customers to let Azure NetApp Files help them meet their cloud-first mandate and manage their enterprise-grade, file-based workloads. In addition, Azure NetApp Files has also been commercial FedRAMP High certified for the public cloud, meaning that government agencies can trust Azure NetApp Files to support high-impact, unclassified data.

Enterprise customers have already demonstrated smooth migrations of their most intensive workloads to the Azure Cloud using Azure NetApp Files. Now is the time to ensure that government agencies reap the same advantages.

Find out more and get Azure NetApp Files working for you right away. Watch this short 45-second video and register to be onboarded to the Microsoft whitelist for Azure NetApp Files today.