The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and digitally oriented. This is the case across industries and different aspects of our lives—healthcare, insurance, shopping, work. With such dependence on this connection from any location through digital means, there are lots of bases to cover in terms of data organization, security, and compliance in regulation standards. To encompass management and protection over these multifaceted and blending areas, Microsoft has just announced Microsoft Purview, a fusion offering for data governance and compliance.
Microsoft Purview
This new set of solutions is meant for governing, protecting, and managing a company’s entire data estate, and the comprehensive grouping together is Microsoft Purview. It combines the data governance capabilities from previously titled Azure Purview and the Microsoft 365 Compliance portfolio. This way data and compliance management are both taken care of in one integrated solution set.
The grouping allows for visibility and easy access to the whole data estate as well as the security solutions for it. Management of sensitive data should be easier to track across the wide variety of endpoints and apps that are now being used in organizations. And having compliance in the same bundle can streamline purchasing as well as management of data usage regarding regulatory codes. The solution set is enhanced by AI and includes the following security capabilities:
- Threat protection
- Identity and access management
- Cloud security
- Endpoint Management
- Privacy Management
More Name Changes
In case you were just thinking Microsoft hadn’t changed any of its product naming this week, here’s a big list for you. Like the name changes last fall, they reflect a shift away from the Azure branding to emphasize broader possibilities. New names also show how these tools are part of the Microsoft Purview set now.
- Microsoft 365 Advanced Audit ➡ Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium)
- Microsoft 365 Communication Compliance ➡ Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance
- Microsoft Compliance Manager ➡ Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager
- Office 365 Customer Lockbox ➡ Microsoft Purview Customer Lockbox
- Azure Purview Data Catalog ➡ Microsoft Purview Data Catalog
- Microsoft 365 Data Connectors ➡ Microsoft Purview Data Connectors
- Microsoft Information Governance ➡ Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management
- Office 365 Data Loss Prevention ➡ Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention
- Azure Purview Data Map ➡ Microsoft Purview Data Map
- Double Key Encryption for Microsoft 365 ➡ Microsoft Purview Double Key Encryption
- Records Management in Microsoft 365 ➡ Microsoft Purview Records Management
- Office 365 Advanced eDiscovery ➡ Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium)
- Microsoft 365 Information Barriers ➡ Microsoft Purview Information Barriers
- Microsoft Information Protection ➡ Microsoft Purview Information Protection
- Microsoft 365 Insider Risk Management ➡ Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management
- Azure Purview portal ➡ Microsoft Purview governance portal
- Microsoft 365 compliance center ➡ Microsoft Purview compliance portal
Capabilities Expanded for macOS Users & More
Since a lot of work is done on mac devices, Microsoft also announced the general availability of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for macOS endpoints. This is nice because DLP is an important data protection tool and it makes sense to have these devices included under that capability. (It is only compatible with mac operating systems Catalina or higher.)
There are other improvements included with Microsoft Purview as well. In order to better identify sensitive data, there are now over 50 new classifiers in the catalog of information types. These can be used in a variety of different actions, including auto-labeling, Data Lifecycle Management, and eDiscovery. A new co-authoring encryption ability between mobile devices (both iOS and Android) is in preview now, allowing users to autosave and collaborate in real-time with a high level of security.
And with massive amounts of data being generated, part of its organization is making retention and deletion decisions. A new preview brings multi-stage retention to Data Lifecycle Management, automatically applying a new label when an item reaches the end of its designated retention period. These labels can help administrators quickly identify older data that they may wish to delete. Identification of important data in Microsoft Teams is also made possible with eDiscovery (Premium).
On the compliance side, continuous compliance assessments in the Compliance Manager are now generally available. And new features help with communications compliance, finding conduct violations like harassment or adult content within employee communications.
Managing Data and Compliance Together
As always, if you have any questions about changes or features in Microsoft Purview, feel free to give us a call or send us a message. We can help you determine whether this new combined offering might be right for your organization and make sure you’re covered in these important areas.