Feature × Boundary Matrix
Comparative positioning note
This document is written from the perspective of Microsoft Azure, Cloud Scale Analytics, and CSA Loom. Any description of third-party or competing products, services, pricing, or capabilities is derived from publicly available documentation and sources believed accurate at the time of writing, and is provided for general comparison only. We do not claim expertise in, or authority over, any non-Microsoft product or service; the respective vendor's official documentation is the authoritative source for their offerings, which may change over time. Nothing here is intended to disparage any vendor — where a competing product has genuine advantages, we aim to note them honestly. Verify all third-party details against the vendor's current official documentation before making decisions.
The canonical per-CSA-Loom-feature × per-Azure-boundary availability table. Drives the per-boundary .bicepparam files + customer audit documentation.
Legend: ✅ available · ⚠ available with workaround · ❌ not available
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Loom Console (Next.js + Fluent UI v9) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ AKS | ✅ AKS |
| Loom Setup Wizard | ✅ Foundry Agent Service | ✅ Foundry Agent Service | ✅ MAF + AOAI direct | ✅ MAF + AOAI direct |
| Loom Copilot runtime | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Self-hosted Azure MCP server | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Single-sub deployment mode | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multi-sub deployment mode | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
azd up deploy | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Deploy-to-Azure button | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Marketplace Managed App listing | ❌ deferred | ❌ deferred | ❌ deferred | ❌ deferred (LD-4) |
Compute + Storage
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Azure Databricks Premium workspace | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ classic only | ✅ classic only |
| Databricks Unity Catalog managed | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Hive metastore) | ❌ (Hive metastore) |
| Databricks SQL Warehouse | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Synapse Serverless instead) | ❌ |
| Databricks Photon (SQL Warehouse) | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Databricks Photon (classic cluster) | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠ verify per-cluster | ⚠ verify |
| Databricks Model Serving | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Azure ML or AKS-MLflow) | ❌ |
| Databricks Vector Search | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Azure AI Search) | ❌ |
| Synapse Serverless SQL | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Azure Data Explorer (ADX / Kusto) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| ADLS Gen2 (HNS) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ + HSM-CMK |
| Container Apps | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (AKS) | ❌ (AKS) |
| AKS | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Functions Premium EP1 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Functions Flex Consumption | ✅ | ✅ | ❓ verify | ❓ |
AI + Catalog
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Microsoft Purview Data Map + Catalog | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Atlas-on-AKS) |
| Purview DSPM (new experience) | ✅ May 2026 | ⚠ July 2026 | ⚠ July 2026 | ❌ |
| Apache Atlas on AKS (self-hosted) | ⚠ optional | ⚠ optional | ⚠ optional | ✅ required |
| Microsoft AI Foundry Hub (new) | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Azure ML Classic Hub) | ❌ |
| Azure ML Classic Hub | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Foundry Agent Service | ✅ Mar 2026 GA | ⚠ verify regions | ❌ Gov-GA unconfirmed | ❌ |
| Microsoft Agent Framework 1.0 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (library, deployable anywhere) | ✅ |
| Azure AI Search vector | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Azure OpenAI (gpt-4o / gpt-4.1) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ usgovvirginia/usgovarizona | ✅ same Gov regions |
| Azure OpenAI Batch API | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Azure OpenAI Content Safety | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ at IL4 (self-hosted Presidio) | ❌ |
| Azure OpenAI Assistants v1 | ✅ deprecating | ✅ | ❓ | ❓ |
BI + Power BI
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Power BI Premium F-SKU | ✅ | ❌ P-SKU only | ✅ | ✅ |
| Power BI Premium P-SKU | ✅ | ✅ | n/a | n/a |
| Microsoft Fabric (full SaaS) | ✅ | ❌ Forecasted | ❌ Forecasted | ❌ Forecasted |
| Direct Lake (native Fabric) | ✅ | ❌ Structural (no F-SKU in GCC) | ❌ Forecasted | ❌ Forecasted |
| Direct Lake parity (Loom shim) | ✅ | ❌ Structural (no F-SKU) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Power BI Azure Maps visual | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Power BI BYO ADLS Gen2 storage | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Power BI Autoscale | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
Parity services
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Loom Activator Engine | ✅ Container Apps | ✅ Container Apps | ✅ AKS | ✅ AKS |
| Loom Mirroring Engine (Debezium) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Loom Direct-Lake Shim | ✅ | ❌ no F-SKU | ✅ | ✅ |
| Loom Data Agents (extends apps/copilot) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Loom Operations Agent (v1.1) | ⚠ v1.1 | ⚠ v1.1 | ⚠ v1.1 | ⚠ v1.1 |
Security + Governance
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Defender for Cloud (per-workload plans) | ✅ all plans | ✅ all plans | ✅ except AI Threat Protection | ✅ except AI TP |
| Defender for Cloud — AI Threat Protection | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (Sentinel workaround) | ❌ (Sentinel workaround) |
| Microsoft Sentinel | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Microsoft Entra ID (incl. PIM) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cross-cloud B2B | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (with caveats) | ⚠ ITAR / IL5 policy review |
| Key Vault Premium HSM | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ required |
| HSM-backed CMK on storage | ⚠ optional | ⚠ optional | ⚠ recommended | ✅ required |
| Infrastructure encryption | ⚠ optional | ⚠ optional | ⚠ recommended | ✅ required |
Networking
| Feature | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| Hub-spoke VNet topology | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Private Endpoints on all PaaS | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Azure Firewall Premium | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Application Gateway WAF v2 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Azure Front Door Premium | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠ partial |
| ExpressRoute / VPN | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Compliance authorizations
| Authorization | Commercial | GCC | GCC-H / IL4 | IL5 (v1.1) |
| FedRAMP High | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| DoD IL2 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| DoD IL4 | (n/a) | (n/a) | ✅ | ✅ |
| DoD IL5 | (n/a) | (n/a) | (n/a) | ✅ |
| HIPAA BAA | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| CJIS | ✅ + state addendum | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| IRS 1075 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| ITAR | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| CMMC L2 (via FedRAMP H baseline) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| CMMC L3 (via FedRAMP H baseline) | ⚠ | ⚠ | ✅ | ✅ |
| StateRAMP | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| CNSSI 1253 | (n/a) | (n/a) | (n/a) | ✅ |
