San Diego, CA. Mar 25, 2019 - Agile IT — a provider of cloud managed services, business intelligence, and software integration — has become one of only six vendors approved by Microsoft to sell licenses for Office 365 Government Community Cloud High (GCC High) to organizations with fewer than 500 employees. The Microsoft Agreement for Online Services-Government (AOS-G) partnership shows a continued drive towards excellence and solidifies the ongoing relationship between Agile IT and Microsoft. (Further reading: What is GCC High?)
By pairing Agile IT’s in-depth cloud migration and management experience with Microsoft’s robust government cloud solutions, Agile IT is in a prime position to offer continued support and a wealth of options to their customer base.
This new achievement will allow Agile IT to offer superior government cloud solutions. San Diego has a robust and rapidly growing military and government contractor population, and Agile IT now has the tools to provide full-scale cloud solutions and GCC migrations to this population — no matter the size of their business or work nature. This means that contractors handling DOD UIC will have the capability to scale to a cloud environment that can handle this information with security and compliance (e.g., NIST 800-53, DFARS 252.204-7012, DOD SRG L5/4, etc.).
Agile IT also offers business intelligence solutions, IT integration for mergers, acquisitions, & divestitures, backup & recovery solutions, managed cybersecurity services, single sign-on identity management, managed DevOps and a plethora of additional services that focus on cloud solutions.
About Microsoft GCC and GCC High
Microsoft’s GCC and GCC High solutions help U.S. government employees and leaders remain productive, secure, and compliance-ready through a highly-secured cloud architecture. While GCC and GCC High mirror many of the commercial cloud offerings, they come with additional features and functionality in a unique environment custom-tailored for government standards.
To help the United States government sector meet compliance and regulatory concerns as well as safety protocols, Microsoft developed its government cloud solutions with the commitments to meet the needs of various sectors. The GCC High environment is only available to organizations who have received GCC High validation from Microsoft.
Understanding GCC High
Microsoft GCC High was built to satisfy DOD and government contractors supplied with DOD Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). While GCC High shares many similarities with Office 365 and Microsoft’s core commercial offerings, it does differ in a few distinct ways.
First, GCC High has baked-in commitments, including:
- The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) compliance — with security protocols outlined in National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-53
- The necessary security components described in the United States Department of Defense Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide (SRG) for documents and data up to Impact Level 5 (L5)
- International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) compliance
- Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS) compliance
- GCC High meets CMMC compliance requirements
On top of this, Microsoft provides background checks to all personnel prior to granting access to a GCC High/DOD environment. This includes:
- U.S. Citizenship
- Employment History
- Criminal History
- Office of Foreign Assets Control List (or OFAC)
- Bureau of Industry and Security List (or BIS)
- SSN Check
- Office of Defense Trade Controls Debarred Persons Lists (or DDTC)
- Department of Defense IT-2
- Education Verification
- and Fingerprint Checks
These background checks help keep the entire environment secure from internal threats, as well as helps governments stay ITAR compliant.
While GCC High will still have access to the core features that make Office 365 approachable — Skype, Exchange, SharePoint, etc. — there will be minor variations that are necessary to maintain compliance and government-level security. This includes additional SharePoint user controls and multi-factor authentication that’s capable of accepting PIV and CAC cards.
About Agile IT
With headquarters in San Diego, Agile IT has been providing best-of-breed cloud managed services for the past 12 years. Agile IT has various specialties specifically for Microsoft clients, and is a Microsoft partner across multiple channels — including commercial and government.
This doesn’t mark the first time that Agile IT has been hand-selected to assist Microsoft clients with adoption, migration, and overall framework management. Agile IT was also one of the first commercial partners chosen to work with Azure Government Cloud services — a solution for governments looking to take advantage of cloud architecture with additional security and government-specific features and compliance. They are also among the group of Microsoft partners chosen to be FastTrack Ready for Office 365’s FastTrack solution— which helps businesses rapidly migrate to cloud environments.
Beyond their capability to resell and migrate multiple cloud solutions, Agile IT is also approved to accept Microsoft Software Assurance Vouchers — which are bundled with some Microsoft enterprise licenses. These vouchers are a way for businesses to quickly scale cloud solutions in-house through collaborative vendor-provided training and planning days that follow rigorous Microsoft guidelines.
Currently, Agile IT has Microsoft Gold Competencies in over 15 Software Assurance categories, including:
- Application Development & Integration
- Cloud & Data Platforms
- Enterprise Mobility Management
- Communications
- Datacenter
- Enterprise Mobility Management
- Messaging
- Windows and Devices
- Cloud Productivity
- Collaboration and Content
- DevOps
Agile IT has been chosen for Microsoft Cloud Partner of the Year for four consecutive years and is one of the top-rated Microsoft Partner vendors in the world.
Conclusion
Agile IT now has the capability to offer GCC and GCC High solutions to businesses or contractors with under 500 employees. As Microsoft partners, Agile IT continues to provide best-of-breed support and services to clients across the United States. With its proximity to the dense contractor and military population in San Diego, Agile IT is the perfect partner to provide these solutions to in-need clients.
Microsoft continues to grow in the private sector, and this new offering will see them solidify relationships with multiple smaller agencies and contractors. Of course, Microsoft offers DOD licensing strictly dedicated to DOD leaders. But, GCC High has deep tissue compliance and security features glued to its framework, which makes it an ideal solution for the rapidly evolving and increasingly complex regulatory environments of government workers.
Getting Started With Microsoft Government Solutions
Need the added security, and compliance of the Microsoft Government Cloud? Request a free quote today:
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