> [...]And because federal agencies were allowed to deploy the product during the review, GCC High spread across the government as well as the defense industry. By late 2024, FedRAMP reviewers concluded that they had little choice but to authorize the technology — not because their questions had been answered or their review was complete, but largely on the grounds that Microsoft’s product was already being used across Washington.

This sounds like the crux of the issue. The combination of: "tool can be used during analysis" and "analysis takes long" shifts the barrier of rejection from "is this tool safe?" to "is this tool so unsafe that we're willing to start a fight with a lot of other government agencies to remove it, find an alternative, etc?".

Not criticizing FedRAMP. Proper security review takes time. And probably more when dealing with vendors.

Recently tried using Entra ID. There are 12 ways to enforce MFA, 20 days ways to disable users, 4 ways to authenticate users, Add conditional access stuff with 50 variables and templates etc.

You can customize the way you want. After configuring it, my colleagues could not log in. Thats one way to secure your organization.

Microsoft has never been good at security, and that is why their centralization to cloud is absolutely terrifying.

I'm reminded of Storm-0558 [1] where a stolen signing key was able to forge authentication tokens for any MSA / Azure AD / Government AD user. They downplayed the severity. Just imagine if that level of access was used to pull a Stryker on a nation-wide scale. That is an economic disaster waiting to happen.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/07/14/ana...

The experts were correct. Azure is the biggest pile of shit I've ever had to work with. Everything feels evolutionary. In other words, a new product in azure is barely a product at all, but a small appendage which totally inherits a bunch of preexisting Azure "stuff." And all this preexisting stuff may not really make sense for the product, and it might inherit stuff that makes the product much worse. But, it doesn't matter. To even think about using the product, you need to learn way more about the larger Azure ecosystem than you ever bargained for, and of course deal with Microsoft products that do not really integrate well because the teams don't talk to each other. Log formats, conventions, everything will be different as you float around to different parts of Azure. Basic security concepts, such as a SIEM will be implemented in such strange ways that you wonder if Microsoft has any idea what a SIEM even is.

The Justice Department CIO who pressured FedRAMP to approve GCC High was hired by Microsoft the next year. I wonder if this shouldn't invalidate the authorization in the first place?

It's not very clear from the article, but I get the feeling from the context that the 'pile of shit' quote referenced the package of documentation about the service rather than the service itself.

(That seems to be the main complaint, that Microsoft never provided the clear information required to conduct the assessment properly).

I'm guessing the requirements were written in a way that only Microsoft's cloud could with the bid.

Thats why you have Windows in the Pentagon instead of something secure.

The sheer amount of conflict of interest with folk involved in this later getting employed by Microsoft is a bit crazy.

Frustrating that FedRAMP is both a pain to get compliant with and also apparently is not a strong signal of actual security.

Was this approval before or after evaluators discovered this?

> Microsoft on Friday revised its practices to ensure that engineers in China no longer provide technical support to U.S. defense clients using the company’s cloud services.

Ref: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/microsoft-china-digital-esco...

I don't have much experience with Azure but I was amazed at how many things in AWS GovCloud don't meet FedRAMP encryption requirements. For example, none of the lambda runtimes have FIPS certified encryption libraries available, and you have to bring you own, which is rather complicated to do.

This is my opinion only, I'm sure some have had different experiences - but:

Azure's success as a cloud provider is mostly a result of their sales team and having an existing relationship with non-technical leadership. "We already pay them for Office and Exchange, let's just buy this new 'cloud' thing from them too".

Azure is barely considered an option at all within tech companies, yet is surprisingly widely adopted by non-technical companies that don't know any better (ie, that don't have a technical / engineering voice or representation within leadership).

AWS = Likely technically the best, for now. Mostly unreasonable pricing, and less motivation to seriously negotiate given they are the 'default' cloud provider for most of the industry. Kind of feels like they have peaked though, and are slipping more recently. Inevitable, or bad leadership changes?

OCI = New-comer, attractive pricing and hungry for business. Might be able to avoid mistakes other providers have made? Reliability struggles though. Parent company has a bad reputation in some circles - but probably not with decision makers. Making huge (unwise?) investments - that will either come crashing down in 5 years, or seriously pay off. Layoffs, but going for massive growth...huh?

GCP = Notably different underlying technical choices than other providers. Folks are maybe a bit less pragmatic, and more academic. This helps them in unique services (Spanner?) but hurts in most other areas. They've matured, and are btwn AWS and OCI in reliability. They are probably not as hungry for business as they should be given how far behind they are.

+10000 that Azure is a steaming pile of shit. Like what's this -- `azcopy` broken at head, and the working one doesn't guarantee correctness after a copy (99.6% copied successfully! good luck figuring out what went wrong!) compare that to migrating data with GCS or S3 -- they provide first class tools that do it right quickly (aws-cli, gsutil).

Want a VM? You'll also need this network security group, network interface, network manager, ip, virtual network... and maybe it'll be connected to the internet so you can SSH in? Compare to GCP or EC2 -- you just pick an instance and start it. You can SSH in directly, or even do it in the browser.

Billing also a nightmare: if you're running a startup, AWS and Google make it relatively easy to see how many credits you have left. The Azure dashboard makes you navigate a maze, and the button to click that says "Azure Credits" is _invisible_ for 30s until ostensibly some backend system finds your credits, then it magically shows up. Most people don't wait around and just assume there's no button.

And if you click it, maybe you will happen to be in the correct billing profile, maybe not! Don't get confused: billing profile and billing scope are different concepts too! And in your invoice, costs just magically get deducted, until they don't. No mention of any credits. Credits inaccessible through API (claude tried everything).

VMs, bucket storage, and copying data are the _simplest_ parts of the stack. Why would anyone bother trying to use other services if they can't get these right?

They literally give startups 2x the credits as GCP, 20x the credits of AWS and nobody wants to use them.

    “GCC High reviewers saw problems everywhere, both in what they were able to evaluate and what they weren’t. To them, most of the package remained a vast wilderness of untold risk.  Nevertheless, FedRAMP and Microsoft reached an agreement, and the day after Christmas 2024, GCC High received its FedRAMP authorization.”

How big was the ballroom donation?

EVERYTHING about the federal government contracts program sucks ass! In the beginning, it was good as you didn't want people forcing through their brother, mother, 2nd cousin, next door neighbor, Satya Nadella and their "company" as a contractor without oversight cough Kristi Noem cough. However, it has devolved into a mess. The entire thing needs to be scrapped and re-engineered.

Entropy is real. Microsoft has lessened the friction of purchasing vs their competitors. Public Sector this may be their only choice because they set the groundwork decades ago to do business with most organizations. It may not be the best solution, but it offers the least resistance to getting something up and running.

Little has changed since Bill Gates tried to install Movie Maker.

> Potential Conflict of Interest: The government relies, in part, on third-party firms to vet cloud technology, but those firms are hired and paid by the company being assessed.

Hah. First time looking at FedRAMP?

The real reason for this, of course, is accounting, it moves it off of the government's books.

> These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

It's unfortunate that people have to claim the authenticity, rather than the users of AI having to disclose use of AI/LLM. I wish it was the other way around.

Basically exactly what my org did. The momentum of being a Microsoft shop is hard to fight against.

The vendor lock-in angle is the real story. Once you have AD, Exchange, Teams, and Azure all tangled together, the exit cost is enormous. I've watched orgs get approval for a full cloud migration based on cost savings projections that completely ignored the engineering cost of the decade-long migration that follows. The security issues are real but the procurement inertia is what keeps them renewing.

Wow, Microsoft is really pushing the wrong boundaries in every direction, isn't it? Executives must be thinking, like many before them, that Microsoft is too big to fail.

Given the scale and scope of the Federal Government. what are the alternatives to Microsoft?

Building in house.

Outsourcing to consultants.

This fits perfectly with traditional Microsoft strategies of getting a foot in the door and then having the users’ internal pressure on the organization to help get the Microsoft product established.

Decades ago, Lotus 1-2-3 on top of MSDOS was the lever; today it’s GCC High.

Azure is easily the most expensive, least reliable and worst cloud available. It's borderline scam. An example today, I provisioned high IOPS SSDs (supposedly) and what is actually connected to the instance? A spinning hard drive! I didn't even know they were still made, but I guess Azure uses them and scams their users into thinking you're getting an SSD for $700/mo when its really an old hard drive.

I would warn anyone far and wide to avoid Azure at all costs, especially if you are a startup. And especially if you are doing any kind of AI because the only GPUs they have available are ancient and also crazy over-priced.

If I cared more, I'd try to migrate away from Azure. But I don't, and that's probably Azure's business model at this point.

The original title is:

> Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “a Pile of Shit.” They Approved It Anyway.

So, Microsoft products still are a garbage fire in March 2026. Fully aligned with the expectations

> By late 2024, FedRAMP reviewers concluded that they had little choice but to authorize the technology — not because their questions had been answered or their review was complete, but largely on the grounds that Microsoft’s product was already being used across Washington.

The article talks a lot about conflicts of interest, but this is the line I went looking for. A bureaucracy fighting itself over goal prioritization, and what's a necessary roadblock vs red tape is the less sexy but more meaningful problem at the core of this.

Once the government decided they wanted the product, they were going to find a patsy.

Microsoft has been selling piles of shit since the beginning of time. The fact that they keep selling is the biggest triumph of sales/marketing over decent engineering.

I think plenty of software is a pile of shit and still derive value from it.

undefined

the product got deployed across the government while the security review was still in progress. then fedramp approved it because it was already everywhere. seem like i saw a lobbyist or two with a broom sweeping something under a rug...

The title says for me 'Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “a Pile of Shit.” They Approved It Anyway.'

No editorializing guys! :)

A pile of shit you have leverage over is better than a pile of diamonds you don’t.

Azure is bad. But to be fair, every security summary of IT services I’ve ever read — or written! — for over 25 years has also been a “pile of shit”. It seems to be inherent to the cybersecurity game that everything is judged based on meaningless check boxes and nonsensical explanations. Meanwhile the actual security posture is obscured and ignored.

Just like everyone else tasked with buying Microsoft

So which is the most consistent cloud offering, that doesn't seem like a bunch of disparate services loosely wired together? GCP? AWS?

Microsoft is great at greasing palms

A rigged RFP, and some very happy lobbyists, chortling into their single malt all the way to the bank.

Is this just a case of MS needing to merge a lot of platforms, and there are gaps and overlaps.?

Maybe the critical question, are they making continuing improvements? Especially to merge conflicting functions.

Like when they bought Minecraft, or Skype. Each already had user management. Xbox was a mess. Merging them all took a lot of years.

Maybe the gaps are a frature or benefit at the same time.

when someone says they work at meta, they get weird looks, but no one assumes they're incompetent

when someone says they work at microsoft, they get weird looks, and people assume they're incompetent

Exactly, and that is the moat- a pile of shit that everyone can smell from afar.

all clouds are.

okay what the hell is a "cyber expert"?

its as funny as the IA research reports from DORA dev which all seem to be sponsored AI provider ads instead....

I mean, they also bought the F-35.

Yeah, but this is how things work at that level.

Microsoft can be abhorrent. They will always get the contracts. Why? Corporate welfare.

Microsoft will drive the rules. Why? Too big to fail.

Microsoft will push their slop. Why? Cause they have contractors after contractors in the federal government pushing MS solutions. Doesnt matter if they're bad.

And, who'd pay for a 3PAO audit of a Linux distro? Ubuntu and Redhat have. Its a $120k moat.

It sucks so bad to be a software dev today. We simultaneously have to worry about:

- Market monopolies reducing options/leverage

- Outsourcing

- AI automation

- Complexity explosion

These days, every company which has money is using some horrible clunky platform/infra and we spend 99% of our time just working around limitations of those platforms; Problems which were created artificially and don't need to exist... And at the same time we're expected to meet deadlines while almost all of the challenges we face involve certain critical aspects that are totally outside of our control and require us to wait for someone else to fix stuff while we work around it with some crappy solution and we can't just switch platforms or write it from scatch (which would be easier for a lot of us) because the organization forces us to use a particular platform because of the pretext that they are SOC2 compliant. It's total BS!

Not only we have to worry about threats to our jobs, when you look at who is being rewarded in this industry; it's essentially people who create bloat/unnecessary complexity and build these horrible products.

The industry is full of horrible products that everyone uses. There is no incentive for software engineers to be competent because look at what the market rewards!

This in turn affects organization politics; everyone who has some leverage over the platforms is (at least subconsciously) looking for ways to sabotage the tech to maximize billable hours to fix it later... Fixing the platform is their bread and butter so of course they never want to fix it completely. Anyone who tries to do the right thing runs into issues with managers for missing deadlines which they have ZERO control over due to underlying constraints of the platforms they are forced to use. The people 'maintaining' the platforms don't have deadlines do they? They can keep making money from the shit they produce by ensuring they stay shitty and ensuring that the people who actually have deadlines and actually try to get stuff done can't meet them!

Is there a big cloud platform that isn't a pile of shit?

[dead]

[dead]

[dead]

[dead]

[dead]

[dead]

[dead]

[flagged]

[flagged]

[flagged]

[flagged]

The government does most things poorly and with little regard to budget or quality. They can't solve problems that are much simpler than cloud computing, so why should I expect them to perform better at a more complex problem?

Suddenly everyone on HN is an expert on Azure infrastructure.

it isn't the best but it's really great at a lot of things feature-wise. top-notch documentation as well (despite what these "experts" said).

Most companies literally run on Azure these days. Persistent hackers will get into any network, that's a guarantee, that's APT 101. It's law of averages. If it truly is "a pile of shit" given how it is probably the most used cloud platform by the most customers, including governments, and endless plethora of features and services it offers, shouldn't there be more compromises? 2-3 in a decade is hardly above what you expect for law of averages right?

Screw ups happen, but if it is systemic, you can't use one instance as evidence, you must establish a pattern of mishaps.