Microsoft has announced Azure Disk Encryption is now generally available for Azure Government cloud customers. The data security feature is available for both Windows and Linux IaaS VMs. With this service, customers can protect their data and help it meet organizational security and compliance regulations.
Azure Disk Encryption uses BitLocker for Windows and DM-Crypt for Linux.
With these industry standards, the service gives volume encryption for the OS and data disks. Customers secure their Windows and Linux IaaS virtual machines.
The new feature works with Azure Key Vault to give management control for disk encryption in a key vault subscription.
Microsoft explains that this means VM disks are encrypted at rest in Azure storage. Azure disk encryption for Windows and Linux IaaS VMs has moved to General Availability. The service is available in all Azure public regions for Standard VMs and VMs with premium storage.
Azure Disk Encryption Scenarios
The Azure Disk Encryption solution supports the following customer scenarios:
- Enable encryption on new IaaS VMs created from pre-encrypted VHD and encryption keys
- Start encryption on new IaaS VMs created from the Azure Gallery images
- Enable encryption on existing IaaS VMs running in Azure
- Disable encryption on Windows IaaS VMs
- Disable encryption on data drives for Linux IaaS VMs
The solution supports the following for IaaS VMs when enabled in Microsoft Azure:
- Integration with Azure Key Vault
- Standard tier VMs – A, D, DS, G, GS etc. series IaaS VMs
- Enable encryption on Windows and Linux IaaS VMs
- Disable encryption on OS and data drives for Windows IaaS VMs
- Disable encryption on data drives for Linux IaaS VMs
- Enable encryption on IaaS VMs running Windows Client OS
- Enact encryption on volumes with mount paths
- Enable encryption on Linux VMs configured with Software-based RAID system
- Enable encryption on Windows VMs configured with Storage Spaces
- All Azure public regions are supported
