Azure Confidential Computing and Zero Trust

Chapter 3. Azure Confidential Computing Portfolio

Azure confidential computing (ACC) consists of a portfolio of products and supporting services that enable customers to protect sensitive data while in use in accordance with the definitions and principles outlined in Chapter 1. This portfolio includes VMs, container-based platform as a service (PaaS), and other PaaS and software as a service (SaaS). The portfolio as of November 2023 is summarized in Figure 3-1.

This chapter is organized by grouping the ACC portfolio as follows:

• VMs, with both VM-level and code-level isolation

• Container-based PaaS, with VM-level, code-level, and container group-level isolation

• Supporting services and features such as attestation, trusted launch, and OS disk encryption with customer-managed keys

• Other ACC-enabled SaaS and PaaS

Figure 3-1. Azure confidential computing portfolio

ACC VMs

ACC VMs are building blocks for customers who want to migrate their existing VM workloads to Azure. They include confidential VMs, VMs with application enclaves, and confidential VMs with confidential GPUs.

Confidential VMs

Confidential VMs offer strong security and confidentiality, as well as hardware-enforced boundaries, to meet the most stringent security requirements. Confidential VMs are particularly useful in scenarios where customers are migrating existing workloads and seeking to lift and shift ...