The Defense Information System Agency (DISA) plans to begin limited user testing of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) first-ever cloud environment authorized to host classified data, the agency said on Jan. 31.
DoD365-Secret will provide the tools for warfighters to operate ahead of adversaries, and meet their missions anytime and anywhere while bringing consistent capabilities across the networks.
The new cloud environment includes Exchange, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 Apps enabling secure collaboration among users.
“The DoD365-Secret is the latest in DISA’s efforts to modernize the mission network and supply industry-leading applications, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security to the department and the warfighter,” DISA said in a press release.
The pilot testing for DoD365-Secret follows the general availability of Microsoft’s Office 365 Government Secret, which offers a set of cloud-based productivity, compliance, collaboration, and security tools that can handle classified military and government data – Impact Level 6.
“Secure cloud productivity tools can enable greater operational capabilities for our service members wherever they are. This new environment will run the latest enterprise-grade Office 365 Secret productivity, security, compliance, and collaboration applications,” Paul Lorimer, corporate vice president for the Office 365 enterprise and cloud engineering at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.
DoD organizations looking to participate in the pilot can submit applications to DISA; the agency began accepting applications on Jan 30.
