How to buy GCC High and what’s involved

by Mustafa Mukhtar, MBA, ITIL
Consultant/Content Contributor, E-N Computers
20+ years of experience in IT management, project planning, enterprise systems and user support

If you’ve decided GCC High is the right Microsoft cloud for your business, the next question is how to actually buy it. The short answer: not the way you buy regular Microsoft 365. Microsoft restricts GCC High to organizations that meet specific government cloud eligibility requirements, so there’s a federal eligibility check, registrations you may not have completed yet, and a specific kind of partner you have to buy through. Here’s what each step involves.

Buying GCC High looks like a licensing purchase, but it’s mostly a compliance and modernization project. The licensing is the easy part.

E-N Computers handles the whole process, from working out whether you even need GCC High to validating eligibility, buying the licenses, setting up the tenant, and planning the migration. The licenses come through an authorized Microsoft government cloud partner, so your setup meets Microsoft’s requirements, and you work with one team start to finish.

QUICK ANSWER:

Quick answer: How do you buy GCC High?

Organizations cannot purchase GCC High directly like standard Microsoft 365 licenses. Businesses must first complete Microsoft’s government eligibility validation using federal registration information such as a CAGE Code and SAM.gov registration. Once approved, GCC High licenses are purchased through authorized Microsoft government partners, followed by tenant setup, migration, and compliance configuration.

Is GCC High the right fit?
GCC High is a separate, federally controlled Microsoft cloud
The federal registrations Microsoft checks first
Microsoft’s review is fast — the work after it isn’t
After approval, the real project begins
Where GCC High projects most often go sideways
GCC High does not automatically make you CMMC compliant
Next steps
Learn more about CMMC

Is GCC High the right fit?

Not every defense contractor needs GCC High. Before going further, make sure it’s the right fit for your organization — moving to the wrong cloud is costly to undo.

The decision usually comes down to three questions: Do you handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)? Do ITAR rules apply to your data? Has a prime contractor or government agency specifically required GCC High? If the answer is yes to one or more of these, GCC High is often the right path — though it’s worth confirming against your actual contract requirements before you commit.

Most organizations land in one of three places:

Commercial Microsoft 365 — for organizations handling only internal business data or basic Federal Contract Information (FCI).
Microsoft GCC — for government work that doesn’t involve ITAR or significant CUI.
GCC High — for organizations handling significant CUI, ITAR-controlled data, or stricter DFARS obligations.

Still working through the decision? Start with our article: Do I Need GCC High for CMMC?. The rest of this guide assumes GCC High is the path forward.

GCC High is a separate, federally controlled Microsoft cloud

GCC High is a Microsoft government cloud for organizations handling sensitive federal data like CUI and ITAR-regulated information. Unlike commercial Microsoft 365, it runs inside a segregated U.S. government cloud with stricter compliance and access controls, built to meet CMMC Level 2, DFARS 252.204-7012, FedRAMP, and ITAR requirements.

The federal registrations Microsoft checks first

Microsoft requires a fair amount of federal registration before it will approve GCC High access — and the amount of it surprises most organizations.

In most cases, you need an active CAGE Code, SAM.gov registration, a UEI (Unique Entity Identifier), and documentation showing a legitimate government data requirement.

During Microsoft’s eligibility validation, applicants are asked whether they handle government-controlled data and whether that data includes ITAR or CUI information. Microsoft also asks which type of cloud you’re requesting and why you need access to the government cloud.

One of the most common mistakes is overstating your compliance requirements. Some companies claim they handle CUI or ITAR-controlled data before they’ve confirmed their contracts require it. Others accidentally apply for the wrong Microsoft cloud, which can delay approval or force the application to restart.

Another common issue is registration mismatches. Business names, addresses, and registration details submitted to Microsoft must match SAM.gov and CAGE records exactly. Even small inconsistencies can slow things down.

In our experience, the eligibility questions around CUI and ITAR create the most confusion. Most businesses already understand requirements like SAM.gov registration and CAGE Codes because they’ve encountered them through government contracts. The bigger challenge is determining exactly what type of data they handle. We regularly work with businesses that know they support federal customers but are unsure whether they are handling Federal Contract Information (FCI), Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), or ITAR-controlled data, said Kevin Griffith, technical account manager at E-N Computers.

That distinction decides which Microsoft cloud you apply for, and which compliance requirements follow. Companies that sort out their contractual requirements before submitting the eligibility forms move through the process much more smoothly than those still figuring it out during enrollment.

Microsoft’s review is fast — the work after it isn’t

Once your documentation is ready, you submit Microsoft’s government cloud eligibility request for validation. The review itself is fast, typically two to five business days when everything is submitted correctly. After approval, Microsoft issues a validation confirmation and approval code, which the authorized partner uses to provision the GCC High tenant.

That approval is the shortest part of the project. Plan for a lot more work once the tenant is set up. In our experience, tenant creation typically takes five to seven business days after Microsoft approval, Griffith said.

For many clients, configuring the new tenant, putting compliance controls in place, rolling out identity and device management policies, and getting ready to migrate takes about 60 days after the tenant is created.

“That’s kind of its own little project because that’s setting up a whole new Microsoft tenant,” Griffith said.

Email usually goes first because people need it for daily work, but it can also be one of the hardest parts, depending on where the business is starting from and what the migration involves.

After approval, the real project begins

Approval doesn’t complete the project — it only lets the partner provision the tenant. Most organizations still need to:

Migrate email into GCC High
Reconfigure identity and authentication
Deploy compliance policies
Set up conditional access controls
Configure Intune and endpoint management
Separate CUI data workflows
Review third-party application compatibility

For many businesses, this turns into a multi-phase migration tied closely to their broader CMMC readiness work. Organizations often underestimate how different GCC High is from commercial Microsoft 365, especially when it comes to integrations, application compatibility, and administrative processes.

Where GCC High projects most often go sideways

The bigger problems show up during planning and migration, not approval.

The most common challenge involves third-party applications and integrations. Adobe products frequently become a sticking point, because many organizations have built their document workflows around Adobe’s commercial licensing and cloud services. During planning, those services have to be checked against your GCC High and FedRAMP requirements. Microsoft 365 offers alternatives for some document and collaboration tasks, but many organizations keep Adobe because of established workflows and user familiarity. So, Adobe licensing and workflow decisions often become part of the migration project rather than a simple software swap.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) platforms present a similar challenge. Relatively few MDM solutions offer FedRAMP-authorized deployments, which often points organizations toward Microsoft Intune for device management within GCC High. If you’re using a commercial remote management platform, you may need to check whether it meets your compliance requirements or whether you need a different tool. Sometimes the decision comes down to balancing functionality, compliance, and long-term cost.

Griffith noted that some organizations depend on commercial applications that aren’t FedRAMP compliant, which can mean finding FedRAMP-authorized alternatives or redesigning parts of their setup to meet security requirements. Those decisions add complexity, cost, and time, which makes application compatibility part of migration planning rather than an afterthought.

In many projects, the technical migration itself turns out easier than the planning and compliance alignment around it.

GCC High does not automatically make you CMMC compliant

Another important misconception is that GCC High alone guarantees compliance. GCC High puts you in a compliant-ready cloud, but you still need:

Policies and procedures
Technical safeguards
Security monitoring
Documentation
Employee training
Incident response planning
Ongoing governance

The platform supports compliance, but certification depends on your overall cybersecurity program.

Next Steps

If you’ve read this far, you’re doing your due diligence. GCC High is a significant investment, and the wrong decision costs money either way: overspending on infrastructure you don’t need or scrambling to fix compliance gaps when a contract’s on the line.

Whether GCC High is right for you or not, we’ll give you a straight answer.

Schedule a free consultation →