Mastering the Microsoft Power Platform with managed governance, security, and operations
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, managing your organization’s digital environment at scale is more critical than ever. At Microsoft Ignite 2024, we introduced a suite of enhancements to the Microsoft Power Platform that are designed to help you achieve just that. These enhancements focus on three key pillars: managed governance, managed security, and managed operations. Together, they provide a comprehensive solution to ensure your digital assets are secure, well-governed, and efficiently operated.
The Evolution of Managed Environments
For those of you who have been with us on this journey, you may already be familiar with the concept of managed environments. Managed environments have been our solution to help organizations manage their digital assets at scale. As we’ve engaged with many of you and your organizations, we’ve identified common questions and concerns that arise from different roles within your organization.
When we talk to individuals in the security part of your organization, especially those who report to the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), the questions often revolve around data protection. “How do I ensure my data is protected from threats?” “How do I prevent data exfiltration?” “How do I stay compliant and limit risk?” These are critical concerns that need robust solutions.
On the other hand, when we engage with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and their team, the focus shifts to governance. “How do I establish guardrails to ensure solutions are well-governed from day one?” “How do I gain visibility and insights into what’s happening?” “How do I understand costs and drive greater ROI?” These questions highlight the need for effective governance frameworks.
For those in Operations Director roles, the emphasis is on operational excellence. “What does it mean to run tier-one applications at enterprise scale?” “How do I know when things aren’t working well?” “How do I ensure effective change management over these applications?” These operational concerns require a robust set of tools and practices to address them effectively.
Introducing Managed Governance, Security, and Operations
To address these diverse needs, we are proud to announce the evolution of managed environments into three distinct pillars: Managed Governance, Managed Security, and Managed Operations. Each pillar is designed to provide the capabilities you need to manage your digital assets effectively.
Managed Governance focuses on providing IT teams with the tools to oversee and manage their digital environments. This includes features like management at scale, which allows you to group environments based on organizational structure, application classification, or data sensitivity. The environment feature provides full visibility into your environments and resources, enabling you to manage innovation and productivity while mitigating risks. Reactive governance capabilities allow IT teams to respond swiftly to issues, ensuring consistent enforcement of governance policies.
Managed Security brings together all the capabilities needed to secure your low-code apps, agents, and automations. This includes security posture management, which provides intelligent guidance for scalable and efficient enterprise-grade security. Enhanced identity and access management tools ensure that only authorized users can access specific resources, with features like IP firewall, IP cookie binding, and conditional access for individual Canvas Apps. Data protection and privacy are at the core of managed security, with robust controls to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of personal information. AI-powered threat protection capabilities, integrated with Microsoft Sentinel, enable unified detection and response to suspicious activities.
Managed Operations focuses on ensuring seamless and reliable performance of your digital assets. This includes application lifecycle management (ALM) systems with approval-based production changes, service principal-based deployment, and deployment pipelines. Enhanced observability capabilities allow you to leverage Azure App Insights for instant alerts, out-of-the-box health metrics, and real-time guidance for better runtime health. Data resilience provides flexible backup and retention options to ensure quick and efficient data recovery in the event of a disaster.
The Power Platform Admin Center
All these capabilities are integrated into the Power Platform Admin Center, which has a new look and experience as of today. The Admin Center provides a unified interface for managing governance, security, and operations, making it easier for IT teams to oversee their environments.
The enhancements announced at Microsoft Ignite 2024 marked a significant step forward in the realms of managed governance, managed security, and managed operations. These new capabilities provide organizations with the tools they need to ensure robust governance, seamless operations, and top-notch security, empowering them to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape with confidence.
Whether you are an IT professional, a security administrator, or a business leader, these new capabilities offer valuable insights and practical solutions to enhance your organization’s digital strategy. Stay tuned for more updates and best practices as we continue to explore the future of managed governance, operations, and security within the Microsoft Power Platform.
