Together with the announcement that Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager is now generally available, Microsoft also announced that Windows Azure has been validated for compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS) by an independent Quality Security Assessor (QSA).
In order to accept payment cards and to store, process and/or transmit cardholder data a PCI DDS certification, which is a global standard is needed. In order to help customers validate their applications running on top of Windows Azure for PCI DDS, Microsoft has made available two papers for download:
Besides gaining the PCI DDS certification, Microsoft also announced that Windows Azure completed its annual ISO audit successfully. The scope for the ISO audit was expanded this time to include SQL Database, Active Directory, Traffic Manager, Web Sites, BizTalk Services, Media Services, Mobile Services, Service Bus, Multi-Factor Authentication, and HDInsight among others and already included Cloud Services, Storage, Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks.
More information can be found in the Windows Azure Trust Center.