Where is YOUR Office365 Data ?
Microsoft publish a site to show you where your data lives, it’s never a secret so you can check where your Office 365 data resides any time: https://products.office.com/en-us/where-is-your-data-located
Entry is rarely required, the modern Microsoft Data Centre is automated and securely remotely managed
and monitored through Microsoft’s vast, globally managed security infrastructure.
So how secure is your data ?
Microsoft has the tick of approval by the Australian Signals Directorate to host Protected Level data for Australian Government agencies and most state government and their agencies in its public cloud.
Data Geo-location and Security Classifications can get a bit bland and boring but for some it’s reassuring to review and others may just find it interesting but these days there are very few businesses or industries which have a restriction on the geo-location of the Company Data, rather, in our modern world it’s more about the Data Security and Integrity.
The ASD has a certification known as IRAP (Information Security Registered Assessors Program) and the list of IRAP Certified Cloud are: https://acsc.gov.au/infosec/irap/certified_clouds.htm
Our government discusses Data according to various classifications as defined by the “Australian Government security classification system” and details are available here: https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/informationsecurity/Pages/AustralianGovernmentSecurityClassificationSystem.aspx
There’s more available at the announcement here: https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-au/articles/industries/government/federal/azure-achieves-certification-for-protected-data-in-australia/
In short, the opinion here at Solve Business Services is that “Microsoft have far more resources and monitor your data in their cloud far closer than anyone can ever hope to do for data that may be on premise. Their data protection and data center security combined with a security first approach provides, in our opinion, big differentiation between them and the other cloud providers and if our ADS is satisfied with their approach to security then we are too.”
Some Extra for those wanting more…
Microsoft Azure’s Global Infrastructure is covered off here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/
Microsoft Global Datacenters and Network Infrastructure (October 2016)
This gives some idea as to scale and breadth in less than 2 mins.
Inside Azure Datacenter Architecture with Mark Russinovich : Microsoft Build Conference, Published May 2018
This one is detailed and for those technically minded and may bore some of you.