Atlassian is steadily implementing changes to its platform in the cloud to better scope product data and help enterprises with their transformation process; alongside this process, project management solutions from the Marketplace are tagging along. In this blog post, you will learn more about this feature that allows you to locate, store, and manage data by choosing where to place it geographically with Jira Cloud Data Residency, Atlassian Marketplace solutions, and that way, being compliant with industry standards.
Atlassian Data Residency is a feature that allows global administrators of Atlassian Cloud tools to specify where to host certain pieces of information from their tools, known in IT as regions or "realms," distributed among different locations worldwide. It's currently possible to choose between Global (All regions), Australia (Sydney), Canada (Central area), EU (Frankfurt & Dublin), Germany (Frankfurt), India (Mumbai), Japan (Tokyo), Singapore (Singapore), South Korea (Seoul), Switzerland (Zurich), United Kingdom (London), and the USA (East: North Virginia and West: North California). This way allows admins to enrich their architecture of the Atlassian hosting.
This feature is useful for organizations that operate in regulated industries, and in some cases, which in some situations it takes them whether or not to migrate from a Data Center instance to Cloud. This feature is currently available for the Atlassian Cloud Enterprise plan, which, according to the latest Atlassian Team 25 announcement, is an option that it's getting stronger, by offering a tailored solution based on industry needs. It's also available for new Standard and Premium plan subscriptions without extra cost.
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At the Atlassian Team 25, the same Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian's CEO and co-founder, announced the launch of two different Atlassian Cloud options: Atlassian Cloud Government, Atlassian Cloud Isolated (it will be released in 2026), and the one we already know now, is called Atlassian Cloud Commercial.
Atlassian Data Residency allows you to control where the data is hosted in Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Confluence, and allows you to choose to distribute the data globally or to a defined geographic location, such as Europe or the USA, and others mentioned above.
This feature is often attractive to organizations that operate in regulated industries such as finance, government, or healthcare, and may be necessary for them to operate in a cloud environment. In other cases, it generally helps meet enterprise data management requirements.
Initially, this feature was exclusively available in the Cloud for Enterprise plan, following the Atlassian Cloud First strategy, and as of June 30, 2021, Standard and Premium plans also have it available for new subscriptions. Throughout October 2021, existing cloud subscriptions will also have this feature. It's important to remember that this functionality does not incur an additional cost, as it implements a native feature.
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Once operating, the Atlassian Cloud Data Residency allows you to see where the data included in the scope of your tools is hosted by your organization's administration (admin.atlassian.com). To do so, you must have administrator permissions. From there, access the Data Residency option in the security section.
This page will list the products in your organization, the location of each product, and the AWS regions to which the location corresponds. If a product is pinned to a location, your data, including in its scope, remains in place. You'll also be able to request to pin your data to a new location in case it is available for the X tool and X location.
It's very important to establish the differences between locations and AWS regions. The location of a product is the geographic boundary where the data included in that scope is housed, and each location corresponds to one or more AWS regions, which are physical locations around the world where AWS pools its data centers, as illustrated below:
| Locations | AWS Regions |
| Global |
|
| Australia |
|
| Brazil |
|
| Canada |
|
| EU |
|
| Germany |
|
| India |
|
| Japan |
|
| Singapore |
|
| South Korea |
|
| Switzerland |
|
| United Kingdom |
|
| United States of America |
|
It's important to note that there are limitations for some locations, such as Switzerland, where the Atlassian Data Lake is unavailable. The same applies to some functions regarding Atlassian Analytics, Opsgenie reports, and Assets reports. You can learn more about it here.
By default, all tools are hosted in the global location, including all AWS regions, as shown in the table above. For these tools, Atlassian determines where the data included in the scope is located, and to optimize the performance of the tools, they do not limit the movement of data from these tools and move the data between AWS regions as needed.
If you need the in-scope tool data to remain in a specific location and the data residence is available to your tool, you can request that the in-scope data be moved to a specific location and pinned there.
To migrate data to a specific Atlassian Cloud Data Residency location, follow these main steps: Access Admin Settings:
Once the process begins, the product will be offline for some time (up to 24 hours). You'll receive email updates when the move starts and finishes. Some apps may migrate automatically, while others may require separate action. Get more information here.
Atlassian is committed to guaranteeing security in the Cloud, complying with standard security certificates and other measures, and carrying out a global privacy program complying with GDPR requirements, CCPA, LGPD, and more, requirements that have led them to treat all user data in the same way, using technical and organizational measures to protect the information they store (and what they don't). Atlassian's privacy program is designed to meet both legal requirements and the needs of each cloud product's customer.
Please find below what information Atlassian doesn't commit to storing for data residency in cloud tools:
Atlassian stores user account information in a central identity service and a small controlled set of replication services; however, they don't lock these services or user account information into them because they host them around the world to meet the performance needs of our customers.
Atlassian processes information this way to limit its footprint within organizations' systems, i.e., that information is not stored at all. Instead, they store representative IDs that they use to retrieve information from their identity services. Because of this, data residency cannot be applied to user data. If this is a challenge for you, we invite you to read more about it at the Atlassian Trust Center we've shared before.
Remember that the Atlassian Marketplace is a place created for Atlassian partners who provide solutions for different customization needs. Therefore, Marketplace app data isn't covered by the Atlassian Cloud Data Residency. This service will depend on each partner that chooses to include this possibility
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Atlassian is taking specific actions to enhance Atlassian Cloud services. One of them is allowing Atlassian Marketplace Partners to build more robust services offering the option to allocate data according to their needs, which means that it's possible to request Marketplace Partners to move and store your data within the same location where your Jira Cloud is hosted.
Learn why Atlassian is calling apps to their products >>
One of the apps that offers this service is Projectrak for Jira, a solution focused on offering value to the project management office in a simple way. And the process to move your data (now available within the EU and the USA) it's quite simple, and it goes in the same path that you go through with Atlassian apps (Jira, Jira Service Management, Confluence, etc). Let's go through them so you can see it for yourself:
1. Right from the "User Management" option in the Jira settings, you will find the "Data Residency" option to the left, and right there, you'll be able to see:
2. If we keep going with the process (which is very straightforward), we can visualize what the next steps are. We first chose the Atlassian apps location, and then we kept going with the Marketplace apps, which in this case is Projectrak:
3. After selecting the Atlassian app, and the location (in this case are the USA), we keep moving with the flow:
4. We will be able to see which of the installed apps offers the possibility to move the data, which, again, in this case, is Projectrak. You just need to choose it, review all your options, and then it will be a matter of waiting for that estimated time to end (it's directly proportional to the amount of data you have stored), and voilá, you'll be able to work with your data in your preferred location.
If you want to be updated about the cloud roadmap, to check what's in store for the future of Atlassian Cloud Data Center, and other updates on the progress of these initiatives. This Atlassian guide to data residency explains this option as it applies to Atlassian Marketplace apps.
There is a myth claiming that not enabling this Data Residency Atlassian will make Jira or Confluence perform faster, but that isn't entirely true. Atlassian and its partners use their global infrastructure to host data as close to customers as possible to deliver maximum performance and productivity.
While Jira Data Residency provides an additional level of certainty that the data will not leave the indicated geographic area, Atlassian's Cloud infrastructure is designed to host and provide customers worldwide with the best possible experience. On the other hand, enabling the Data Residency for Jira, or any other app you're interested in moving, may result in slower overall performance for users outside the specified geographic area.
As you have read, Atlassian Cloud Data Residency is a complex topic that needs to be evaluated in detail, as Atlassian's journey is every day consolidating as a platform in the Cloud, and these steps are the best evidence we can provide. Be sure to check the public roadmap of this Atlassian hosting deployment, month by month. You can also check your possibilities by receiving help from experts by checking the Atlassian Cloud Migration hub, or below by learning more about Projectrak.
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