GitHub is allowing its Enterprise Cloud customers cloud customers to keep their data within an EU from now on. With this, the platform aims to better meet wishes and requirements of both customers and regulators.
Starting Oct. 29 this year, it will become possible for GitHub’s Enterprise Cloud customers to store their all their code in specific regions. To do so, the platform will start housing data within the European Union. In which specific regions Enterprise Cloud customers can house their data is not yet known. These are expected to be similar (or even the exact same, possibly) to the twelve Azure regions that GitHub parent company Microsoft has in the EU.
GitHub Data Residency
This move by GitHub is part of the new GitHub Data Residency. Through this program, companies are able to store their GitHub code and repository data in their geographic region of preference. GitHub Enterprise Cloud with data residency offers enhanced user control over the data and unique namespaces on ghe.com for this purpose, among other things. These environments are isolated from the open-source cloud environment at github.com.
Under the hood, the Data Residency program is built on Microsoft Azure’s existing capabilities in this area. This, GitHub says, allows it to develop a reliable and secure product with built-in data residency without having to build new data centers of its own.
Benefits for developers
Developers are going to notice little difference between the old Enterprise Cloud on the open source GitHub.com and Enterprise Cloud with data residency, according to GitHub. The architecture for both environments is very similar. This helps reduce complexity, risk and development costs.
Everything is done from GitHub Actions and changes to github.com and Enterprise Cloud with data identity are deployed minutes apart as part of a common pipeline.
In addition, because data is stored closer to the enterprises, users should also benefit from lower latency and faster data transfers. This could benefit AI development projects, for example, knowing that this tends to address huge mountains of data.
In the EU region, the first tests of Enterprise Cloud with data residency have already been carried out. Early adopters of the new capabilities include lens manufacturer Zeiss and Caraid, the software division of car manufacturer Volkswagen.
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