Mark Russiovich is the CTO of Microsoft Azure. When Mark Russiovich came to Australia for the first time just last week, it was for a very special event, the opening of the two Canberra Azure regions with a special event April 3 & April 5 in both Sydney & Melbourne.

There’s me with the man himself.

Sky news recorded a special interview with Mark Russinovich talking about the new Canberra datacenters, some highlights below:

• New “Protected status certification” for Azure itself, however with the co-location option in the CDC, data of all classifications, including Public, Unclassified (DLM), Protected, Secret and Top Secret can reside in the CDC and talk directly to Azure across the ICON network.
• • Public
  • Unclassified
  • Protected (SCEC Zone 3) | across all Azure / O365 regions in Australia.
  • • The PROTECTED security classification should be used when the compromise of the confidentiality of information could be expected to cause damage to the National Interest, organisations or individuals
  • Secret (SCEC Zone 4)
  • Top Secret (SCEC Zone 5)
  • Details of the classifications can be found here https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/informationsecurity/Documents/AustralianGovernmentclassificationsystem.pdf
• “Microsoft spends a billion dollars a year on cyber security”
• “We have the best network in the world”
• “Microsoft runs on trust”
• “Windows is now part of the Azure organisation, Windows is an operating system that delivers cloud & edge services”
• “We do not compete on any vertical with any of our customers, we are an enabler of technology & platforms for customers to operate their business”
• Citadel Group shows off first ‘protected’ application on Microsoft Azure

Other media articles last week cover the awesome things Microsoft is doing with data, data stored on glass and in DNA – ‘Tape is the new tape,’ says Azure CTO – for now

For a recap of the Mark Russinovich event covering everything else he talked about, check out this article from ARN.

And…. Other things in the news last week, an update to Microsoft’s data-privacy case which began in 2013 over emails from a drug trafficking investigation suspect stored in Microsoft servers in Dublin. A federal judge in New York issued a warrant for the emails, and Microsoft decided to challenge the order in court.

From Brad Smith, the official Microsoft blog on The CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act. People deserve to have their privacy protected by their own country’s laws. If the U.S. Government obtains the power to unilaterally search and seize the private communications of foreign citizens that are stored exclusively in foreign countries, then other governments will be emboldened to do the same to us. Foreign countries will demand that tech companies copy and transmit to them the private emails of U.S. persons without regard for local law and without the knowledge or consent of the local government or the account owner.