DTA adopting Office 365 for Protected docs

The Digital Transformation Agency has revealed it will become the first Australian government agency to deploy Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud suite for Protected-level email and collaboration.

Microsoft secured Protected certification from the Australian Signals Directorate for Office 365 as well as its Azure cloud earlier this year, and in April launched two new Azure cloud regions in Canberra to support government and critical infrastructure provider customers.

The DTA is currently piloting the use of Office 365 at the Protected level ahead of an agency-wide deployment planned for later this year. An initial pilot for 20 staff has been completed, and this is now being scaled up to a group of up to 40 users.

The solution being piloted has been developed by Microsoft in partnership with the DTA, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC) and Delivery Quality Assurance (DQA).

It has been designed to serve as a template for other agencies that need to manage and work on Protected-level documents from within secure cloud environments. The platform also has the potential to be directly adopted by similar sized agencies across government.

“The solution that Delivery Quality Assurance has developed for the DTA demonstrates to other agencies how to establish a cloud-based, Protected computing ecosystem that can support inter and intra department communication and collaboration and drive enterprise efficiency,” Microsoft Australia Director Public Sector George Stavrakakis said.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/demango23

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