Short for Cloud Workload Protection Platform: guarding live workloads, including servers, containers, storage and databases, against attack. Defender for Cloud delivers this with its individual Defender plans, Defender for Servers and Defender for Containers being two examples.
Also called Cloud Workload Protection Platform.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains CWPP in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - Defender plans
Microsoft Defender for Cloud protection is bought per kind of resource, for example servers, storage, containers, key vaults or Resource Manager, and each of these plans is switched on subscription by subscription.
- Microsoft Defender for Servers
Covers Arc-enabled servers and Azure VMs in Defender for Cloud. Plan 1 brings integration with Defender for Endpoint; Plan 2 goes further with agentless scanning, file integrity monitoring and alerts from Defender for DNS.
- Microsoft Defender for Containers
Secures container images and Kubernetes clusters wherever they run, whether AKS with ACR, EKS with ECR or GKE with Artifact Registry, and includes vulnerability scanning of registry images. Offered as a Defender for Cloud plan.
Related terms
- CNAPP
Short for Cloud Native Application Protection Platform, a type of security product bringing DevOps security, workload protection (CWPP) and posture management (CSPM) together. Microsoft's offering here is Microsoft Defender for Cloud.