Moving the Ukrainian Government to the Cloud

Overall, Microsoft has donated more than $100 million of technology support and services free of charge to the Ukrainian government. This includes helping the Ukrainian government move their IT to the cloud.

“One week before that war began in February of this year, the Ukrainian government was running entirely on-premises in server rooms and government buildings. The government realised that was a very dangerous place to place its digital infrastructure,” said Smith. “So we started to work with the Ukrainian government. In a matter of weeks and days, we moved the Ukrainian government to the cloud.

“We moved 16 of the 17 ministries of the Ukrainian government to the cloud. We moved in record time. We recognised that we needed not just to remove the move their data and their infrastructure to the cloud, but to move it to the cloud outside Ukraine. And that’s one of the most interesting lessons of this aspect of the work. The best way to protect our country in a time of war is to ensure its continuity by dispersing its digital assets — something you can do when you’re a company like Microsoft that has spent $12 billion in the last two years alone, building data centers in 17 countries across Europe.

“In the Baltics and other countries today, governments are recognising that you are most safe when people don’t know where your data is — when you can move it at light speed when you can move it across borders. It is something that we have done as a company for the Ukrainian government at no charge.

“We have provided now more than $100 million of technology support and services without asking to be paid a penny,” he added.