US Air Force Implements Cloud Email Using Office 365
In efforts to reduce costs, the United States Air Force has just announced that they will begin implementing Office 365 for service members. Using the Defense Logistics Agency, the USAF was allowed to procure over 100,000 licenses for Office 365.
The new deal will allow the US Air Force to cut computing costs over the next three years, while providing service members with an intuitive interface to access their emails, create robust documents and collaborate with other airmen by utilizing a secure interface.
“The Air Force will have access to secure e-mail, calendaring, Office Web Applications, Skype for Business, and other important collaboration tools, helping the agency communicate more easily across active, civilian, and reserve personnel and move toward a consolidated mobile and messaging platform,” says Leigh Madden from Microsoft.
“Just as important, the Air Force anticipates that the migration will help it realign critical resources to better support its mission in a trusted cloud environment,” adds Madden.
The deployment of Office 365 will not begin until the next fiscal year for the US government. It should be noted that the Air Force’s migration to Office 365 is the largest commercial cloud contract in the Department of Defence’s history.
The migration to cloud for the US Department of Defense helps the government achieve one of its major goals: to be able to provide on demand data and information to those who need it most. By implementing Microsoft’s Cloud, service members are able to gain real time information which helps the government make smarter decisions throughout its daily operations.
The Air Force has built its Office 365 deployment using the DoD’s Enterprise Email initiative. This initiative implements best practices which ensures tight security concerning the cloud email offering.
“No organization deserves a more enterprise- and security-ready approach than the Air Force,” says Microsoft in a blog post. More information about the Air Force’s migration to Office 365 can be found on the Microsoft blog.
