Description of the Service
Information Technology Services (ITS) provides Azure Subscriptions to members of the University community to support instructional, research, application hosting, and other University-related activities. This service enables authorized users to access Microsoft Azure through a dedicated subscription for deploying and managing cloud resources.
Requests may include any combination of Azure Subscriptions, Virtual Machines, and Storage Accounts. Requests for Virtual Machines or Storage require that a current Azure Subscription exists for the requesting department, or that a Subscription be created as part of the request for Virtual Machines or Storage.
Azure Subscriptions may be used to deploy Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) resources such as Virtual Machines, Storage Accounts for Azure Files or Azure Blob Storage, and customer-managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings including (but not limited to) Azure SQL Database, App Services, and other native Azure services.
Key Features
- Provisioning of dedicated Azure Subscriptions for University use
- Ability to request Virtual Machines and Storage Accounts within a subscription
- Support for customer-managed Azure PaaS services (e.g., Azure SQL, App Services)
- Centralized provisioning with baseline configuration by ITS
- Access to GMU DNS, Identity Management, and other core services*
- Cost transparency with departmental chargeback for all Azure usage
How Do I Get This Service?
To request this service, submit an Azure request through the ITS Service Catalog. Requests may include:
- A new Azure Subscription
- Virtual Machines
- Azure Files or Azure Blob Storage
- Any combination of the above
Requests are subject to review by Cybersecurity Operations to ensure alignment with University security requirements and must also receive approval from the requestor’s designated business approver prior to provisioning.
Policy
- All costs associated with Azure usage—including compute, storage, networking, and PaaS services—are charged back to the requesting department or project.
- Requestors are responsible for monitoring usage, managing consumption, and ensuring appropriate funding is available for ongoing services.
- Customers are responsible for workload design, data classification, security configuration, patching (where applicable), and ongoing operational management of resources deployed within their Azure Subscription.
- Azure resources must comply with University IT policies and information security standards.
Additional Information
Customers are encouraged to estimate expected costs prior to submitting a request or deploying resources using the Azure Pricing Calculator
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/
ITS provides subscription provisioning and baseline configuration but does not manage day-to-day application operations or customer-deployed services within Azure.
*ITS Core Services, such as DNS and identity management, depend on the data being stored and the use of the service. Research with compliance requirements, such as CMMC 1 or higher, will likely not have access to many of these central ITS services.