Introduction to data residency

The data residency setting allows Atlassian users to choose where their product data for Jira, Jira Service Management, Jira Product Discovery, and Confluence is stored. If the data residency has not been explicitly pinned to a location, the data is stored at various global locations in the Atlassian AWS regions by default.

Importance of data residency for regulated industries

For regulated industries such as companies in the financial sector, government or healthcare, it is crucial that their data is tied to a specific region, usually the same location where the head office is located. This gives companies control over where their data is stored and internal regulations and regulations can be complied with.

Availability and costs

The option to set the data residency is available for all paid plans and has no effect on pricing.

In addition, the data location can also be set for selected apps for a specific region. For more information, see Understand data residency | Atlassian Support.

Production data within and outside the scope

The following overview lists which dates can and cannot be defined (as of the date of publication of this article):

Jira

✅ Can be set

• All attachments
• Board and sprint data
• comments
• In-product notification data
• Jira issues and field content (including system and custom fields)
• Jira search data
• Project configuration data (including workflows, custom field configuration, and board configuration)

❌ Can't be set

• Related DevOps data (including commits, branches, pull requests, builds, deployments, feature flags, remote links)
• Product analytics

Jira Service Management

✅ Can be set

• All attachments
• comments
• In-product notification data
• Knowledgebase category data (when integrated with Confluence)
• Asset object data and schema configuration data
• Jira issues, requirement types, and field content (including system and custom fields)
• Jira search data
• Project configuration data (including workflows and custom field configuration)
• Queue data
• Configuration management databases (CMDB) that are used for the external asset platform.
• SLA configuration data
• All Opsgenie Incident Management Options Find out more: Opsgenie data residency | Opsgenie | Atlassian Support

❌ Can't be set

• customer accounts
• Product analytics
• Data from Halp

Confluence

✅ Can be set

• All attachments
• comments
• Confluence page and blog data
• In-product notification data
• Page and comment likes
• Page metadata
• Source data for notifications in emails
• whiteboards
• databases

❌ Can't be set

• Permission and restriction configuration data
• Product analytics (search data and space keys)

Atlassian Guard Standard

❌ Can't be set

• User account information data: Atlassian stores user account information in a central identity service and some replication services worldwide so that performance is not affected. User data is not stored in the products; instead, representative IDs are used to access it from identity services. Data residency does not currently apply to user data. We're ready to help you find a suitable solution for your data residency needs. For more information, see Atlassian Trust Center.
• Audit log events

Atlassian Analytics and Atlassian Data Lake

❌ Can't be set

If you bind your data to this location, the following restrictions apply

• Atlassian Analytics charts and dashboards for Jira, Jira Service Management, and Confluence Enterprise plans aren't available for data that's moved to that location.
• Opsgenie reports embedded in Jira Service Management aren't available for data that's moved to that location. This restriction remains in place even if you move your data back.
• Assets Report, which is embedded in Jira Service Management for all Enterprise and Premium plans, doesn't work for data moved to that location
• The Atlassian Data Lake is Not available for Switzerland.

What makes sense for your company?

Atlassian prioritizes data protection and has developed a comprehensive global data protection program to comply with GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, and other regulations worldwide. The data protection program is adapted to effectively meet legal requirements and individual customer requirements.

The main difference between data residency in Switzerland and Europe lies in the storage location of the data and the restrictions set for the Atlassian Data Lake (see overview above).

Data Residency Switzerland vs. Germany vs. EU

• EU - The data is stored in the EU zones of Frankfurt and Dublin
• Germany - The data is stored in Frankfurt
• Switzerland - The data is stored in Zurich
• n/a - The data is stored across various global locations in the Atlassian AWS regions

Depending on the product and/or app, it is possible that not all regions are available.

Benefit from our expertise

At Swarmit, we are professionals in data protection and Swiss law. Our team has extensive knowledge and experience to help you find and implement the best settings for your Atlassian products. If you work in a regulated national environment or work with sensitive and/or personal data in the Atlassian Cloud, it certainly makes sense to review Data Residency Switzerland in detail and implement it for your cloud instance.

We would be happy to help you evaluate the appropriate settings for your Atlassian products.

Contact us to learn more about our services and how we can help you make the most of data residency settings or start your cloud migration. Rely on Swarmit for appropriate solutions and support for all your data protection needs.