Dynamics 365 vs Azure in the Government Cloud

Working in the Pub sector space has been a learning experience.   There are many nuances associated with putting your customer in the Government cloud.

Did you know that if you need a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement tenant in the Government cloud that is it segmented in a GCC (Government Community Cloud) tenant.   This is totally separate than what they consider the Azure Government Cloud.

With this revelation (for me anyhow), this means if you need a secure connection between your Azure Government Cloud and your GCC cloud. You will need an Express Route or similar to secure the connection between the two.   If not the connection will go over the public internet which is a red flag for several agencies.  This connection is an additional expense that you will have to account for.

So a couple of suggestions when using Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the GCC Cloud.

1. Check to ensure your features / add-ons / solutions are available in the GCC Cloud https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/government-feature-availability   (notice only limited functionality of power platform admin at the writing of this article)
2. Plan out what integrations you will need and how you will connect. (IE. if you are using other Azure services and need to have pieces in the Azure Government cloud)
3. How you are using your logins aka credentials (Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and Azure Active Directory Government (Azure AD Government) are not part of the Dynamics 365 US Government accreditation boundary)

In conclusion, the Government cloud is getting more widely accepted and utilized but you definitely need to plan a little differently putting Dynamics 365 CE in the government cloud than going into the commercial cloud.