The City of Chicago and Vernon Hills Police Department are among 16 new government and education customers for Microsoft’s cloud computing program, the company announced at its Public Sector CIO Summit Wednesday.

“Public sector organizations are looking for enterprise-grade cloud solutions, and that means providing high levels of security, functionality and support,” Curt Kolcun, vice president of U.S. Public Sector at the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant said in a statement. “We’re seeing government and education organizations of every size and dimension using Microsoft cloud solutions to help reduce costs and increase productivity in support of their missions.”

To that end,  Chicago reached out to Microsoft to help Taste of Chicago visitors plan their day online.  West Monroe Partners will develop the map, which uses Windows Azure platform and Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in technology.

The Vernon Hills police are now using a Criminal Investigation System  developed in Microsoft Windows Azure by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office.

Other new customers include Vanderbilt University;  Michigan Senate; Sound Transit, Washington; Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment; and the cities of Carlsbad, Calif.; Alexandria and Virgina Beach, Va.; and Winston-Salem, N.C.