Every SaaS integration moves data. A Jira issue becomes a ServiceNow incident, a Zendesk ticket turns into an Azure DevOps work item, and a comment written in Warsaw ends up on a server somewhere else. For most teams the question of where that data lands only comes up when a security review, an RFP, or a regulator asks for it.
This guide explains data residency in plain terms, how it differs from data sovereignty and data localization, which data residency laws matter most, and how to choose an integration platform that keeps your data where it needs to be. We'll also show exactly how Getint handles data residency, so you can see what a compliant setup looks like in practice.
Key takeaways
- Data residency is the physical or geographic location where your data is stored and processed.
- Data sovereignty is about which country's laws and legal framework apply to that data. Data localization is a legal mandate that certain data must stay inside a country.
- In integrations, residency risk sits in the data flows: logs, sync payloads, configuration, and credentials, not only in the systems you connect.
- Map data flows, classify sensitive data, and pick an integration deployment model (shared cloud, dedicated region, or on-premise) that meets your data residency requirements.
- Getint's default cloud runs on AWS in Germany (EU), dedicated tenants can run in any AWS-supported region, and the on-premise version keeps every byte behind your firewall.
What is data residency?
Data residency refers to the physical location where an organization's data is stored and processed. Put another way, data residency refers to the geographical location of the servers that hold your information. When someone asks "where does our data live?", they're asking a data residency question. The answer is usually a country or region, such as the European Union, the United States, or Australia, tied to specific data centers run by cloud service providers like AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
Companies choose a data location for three main reasons:
- Regulation. Data protection laws and sector rules may require that personal data, health data, or financial records stay in a particular geographic location, or may restrict how they are transferred.
- Contracts. Enterprise customers often write data residency obligations into their data processing agreements and security questionnaires.
- Risk and performance. Keeping data close to users reduces latency, simplifies incident response, and limits exposure to foreign government access requests.
In short, data residency means you can answer, with evidence, where your data is physically stored at any point in time, and prove that the data remain there across backups, logs, and cloud environments.
Data residency vs. data sovereignty vs. data localization
These three terms are often used interchangeably, but they mean different things. Getting them straight makes conversations with legal and security teams much easier.
Data sovereignty vs. data residency
Data sovereignty refers to the idea that data is subject to the laws and regulations of the country where it is collected or stored. Data sovereignty laws decide who can demand access, which applicable laws govern disputes, and how transferred data must be handled. Unlike data sovereignty, data residency is a business decision about location. You can choose to store data in the EU for latency or contractual reasons, but once it's there, EU data sovereignty applies whether you planned for it or not.
The two can also conflict. Data stored in an EU data center by a US-headquartered provider may still be reachable by US authorities under laws such as the CLOUD Act. This is why many organizations care about both where data resides and who operates the infrastructure. A strong data sovereignty posture combines residency with contractual and technical data access controls.
Data localization
Data localization is the strictest version of the idea. Data localization laws require that specific categories of data (often personal data, government data, or data held by critical information infrastructure operators) remain inside national borders, sometimes with a ban on cross border transfer altogether. Data localization laws are usually narrower in scope but harder to work around. Data localization requirements are a subset of data residency requirements: every localization rule is a residency rule, but not every residency rule forces localization.
Why data residency matters for SaaS integrations
Most data residency conversations focus on the core systems: where your Jira, ServiceNow, or Salesforce instance is hosted. Integrations are easy to overlook, yet they create new copies of data and new data flows between systems.
When you connect two tools, an integration platform typically handles:
- Sync payloads: issue fields, comments, attachments, and statuses that travel between systems (here's how data synchronization works).
- Configuration: field mappings, user mappings, and workflow rules.
- Credentials: API tokens and connection details for each system.
- Logs: technical records of each sync, which may include customer data.
- Metadata: IDs that link a record in one tool to its twin in another.
If your Jira Cloud instance is pinned to the EU but your integration vendor processes and logs everything in a US region, your data resides in two places, and the second one may break your data residency compliance. A single misconfigured connector can undo months of careful cloud architecture work.
Integrations also cross organizational boundaries. Service providers sync tickets with clients, enterprises sync with vendors, and global organizations sync across subsidiaries in different jurisdictions. Each of those links is a potential cross border transfer that needs a legal basis and appropriate safeguards. Data sovereignty questions multiply as well: the same synced ticket may fall under two or three legal regimes at once.
Data residency laws and regulations to know
There is no single global rulebook. Data residency laws vary by region, sector, and data type. Here is a short overview of the frameworks integration buyers run into most often. This is general information, not legal advice; always confirm requirements with your counsel.
European Union: GDPR and cross-border data transfers
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not force personal data to stay inside the European Economic Area. Instead, it regulates international data transfers. Personal data transferred outside the EEA must rely on one of these mechanisms:
- An adequacy decision for the destination country (for example, the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for certified US companies).
- Standard contractual clauses (SCCs) between the exporter and importer.
- Binding corporate rules (BCRs) for transfers inside a corporate group.
- Narrow derogations, such as explicit consent.
Any cross border transfer without one of these mechanisms is a GDPR violation, regardless of how strong your data security is.
In practice, many European companies simplify their data protection posture by keeping EU data in the EU. It removes the need for transfer impact assessments and makes audits easier.
United States: sector and state rules
The US has no single federal data residency law and no comprehensive federal privacy law. Instead, requirements come from sector rules and state laws:
- HIPAA governs health data but does not mandate US-only storage; it requires safeguards and business associate agreements.
- Federal contracts (FedRAMP, CJIS, ITAR, and DoD rules) often require US-based data centers and, in some cases, US-person access restrictions.
- State privacy laws (California, Colorado, Virginia, and a growing list of others) focus on consumer rights rather than physical location.
Other jurisdictions with residency or localization rules
- China: the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and Cybersecurity Law require critical information infrastructure operators and large processors to store personal data locally and pass a security assessment before export.
- Russia: Federal Law 242-FZ requires personal data of Russian citizens to be initially stored and processed in Russia.
- India: the Digital Personal Data Protection Act allows transfers except to countries the government restricts, while sector regulators (such as the RBI for payment data) impose localization.
- Australia and Canada: generally permit transfers, but sector rules (health records, government data, APRA-regulated financial institutions) and some provinces add residency expectations.
- Middle East: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have introduced data protection laws with transfer restrictions, especially for government and financial data.
Industry rules
Financial institutions, healthcare providers, the public sector, and defense contractors frequently face stricter data residency rules than the law requires, through regulator guidance, procurement policies, or customer contracts. If you handle regulated data such as financial data, health data, or government records, expect residency to be a hard requirement in vendor reviews.
Data residency requirements: what auditors and customers actually ask about data privacy
Whatever the legal framework, data residency requirements tend to boil down to the same questions. If you're evaluating a SaaS integration platform, make sure you can answer each one:
- Where is data stored? Which country, which cloud provider, which region?
- Where is data processed? Processing in another region is still a transfer.
- What data is stored at all? Not all data needs to be persisted. Less stored data means less risk.
- How long is it retained? Logs and backups often outlive the data itself.
- Who can access data? Which employees, subprocessors, and support teams, and from where?
- How is it protected? Encryption at rest and in transit, key management, and access controls.
- What happens at the end of the contract? Deletion timelines and proof of deletion.
- Can we choose a different region, or host it ourselves?
A vendor that answers these clearly and in writing makes it far simpler to meet data residency requirements and keep your data management documentation audit-ready.
How to map data flows in your integrations
You cannot control data residency if you don't know where data goes. Data mapping is the first practical step.
1. Inventory every integration
List each connected pair of tools, the direction of sync, and the business owner. Include "temporary" scripts and webhooks; they are often the worst offenders.
2. Classify the data
For each integration, note which fields move: personal data (names, emails), customer data, financial records, health data, or security incident details. Sensitive data deserves stricter handling and, often, a narrower sync scope.
3. Draw data flow diagrams
Data flow diagrams should show the source system, the integration layer, the destination system, and where each one is hosted. Mark every point where data crosses a border. These cross border data flows are where your legal team will focus.
4. Check the integration layer itself
Ask your vendor where sync payloads, logs, configuration, and credentials are stored, and for how long. The integration layer is often the only component nobody documented.
5. Minimize what you sync
Only map the fields you need. If a partner doesn't need customer names, don't sync them. Field-level filtering is one of the simplest data residency controls you have.
6. Review contracts and subprocessors
Confirm that data processing agreements, SCCs, and subprocessor lists match the architecture you just mapped.
Cloud providers and deployment models that fit your data residency requirements
Integration platforms usually offer some combination of three deployment models. Each fits a different level of data residency concern.
Cloud providers and cloud service providers make regional data storage easier than it used to be, but the integration vendor must actually support region choice. Ask for it explicitly, and confirm that data is stored in the same geographical location as the systems you connect.
How Getint handles data residency
Getint is an integration platform for Jira, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, Zendesk, Salesforce, Monday.com, and other work management tools. Data residency is built into how the platform is deployed and how it stores data. Here is what Getint's data residency policy covers.
Default cloud: hosted in Germany (EU)
Getint's standard SaaS environment runs on AWS in Germany. All hosts and data storage for the default cloud are in the EU, which keeps EU data inside the European Union and aligns with GDPR. The default environment includes encryption at rest and in transit, updates every two weeks, and monitoring and support from the Getint team.
Dedicated tenant: any AWS-supported region
When your data residency requirements point to a specific country, such as the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, or the Middle East, Getint offers a dedicated tenant. It's a fully isolated environment hosted in any AWS-supported location you choose. Dedicated tenants also support custom update intervals, multiple sync workflows, custom logging, and faster rollout of custom features. Pricing starts at USD 1,500 per year.
On-premise: data never leaves your network
For the strictest data localization and data sovereignty needs, Getint's On-Premise version runs entirely behind your firewall. You control the infrastructure, data storage, and data access, and the Getint team helps with deployment. Jira Data Center data is not stored in Getint's cloud.
What Getint stores, and for how long
Getint follows the principle of data minimization, retaining only what the app needs to function:
- Connection details: site URL, user email, and personal access tokens, stored encrypted.
- Configuration: field mappings, which may include user email mappings and specific field values.
- Ticket metadata: always retained, even when logs are disabled.
- Sync data: stored only while the integration remains active.
- Logs: kept for 14 days by default. In SaaS you can set retention from 1 to 14 days or disable logs entirely. On-Premise and Data Center deployments can request extended retention, and since version 1.79 logs can be kept for more than 100 days (note that this can significantly increase storage use).
- After you leave: configuration data is deleted 30 days after you stop using Getint. If retention is needed for business purposes, you’ll be notified by email.
Data security, data governance, and data protection controls
Data residency is only useful if the data is also protected. Strong data security and clear data governance let you manage data with confidence. Getint secures customer data with:
- AES-256 encryption for data at rest and TLS 1.2 for data in transit, with optional encryption for logs and sensitive configuration data.
- SOC 2 Type II attestation, plus continuous control monitoring through Vanta and a public Trust Center.
- Atlassian Cloud Fortified status and an active bug bounty program.
- A published list of subprocessors, so your data governance team can review every party that may process data.
For more on how Getint approaches integration security, read our guide to integration security, or see the full data residency documentation.
Data residency in practice: a Jira–ServiceNow example
Imagine a managed service provider based in Germany that syncs its Jira Cloud (hosted in the EU) with a client's ServiceNow instance (also in the EU). The client is a bank, so its security team asks where integration logs live and whether any data leaves the EU.
With Getint's default cloud, the answer is simple: the integration runs on AWS in Germany, logs can be shortened or disabled, sync data exists only while the integration is active, and everything is encrypted. No cross border data transfers happen in the integration layer.
Now imagine the same provider signs a client in Australia whose regulator expects data to stay onshore. The provider can spin up a dedicated Getint tenant in an Australian AWS region for that client, while EU clients stay in Germany. If a government client requires full isolation, the on-premise version runs on the client's own servers. One platform, three data residency options, and no need to rebuild the Jira–ServiceNow integration for each region.
Best practices for data residency compliance in integrations
- Start with a policy. Define which data categories must remain in which regions, and who approves exceptions.
- Make residency part of vendor selection. Ask every integration vendor the eight questions above before signing.
- Prefer minimization over migration. Syncing fewer fields is cheaper than moving infrastructure.
- Shorten log retention. Logs are copies of data. Keep them only as long as troubleshooting needs.
- Use dedicated regions for regulated clients. Separate tenants simplify audits and contracts.
- Keep documentation current. Data flow diagrams, subprocessor lists, and DPAs should be reviewed whenever you add an integration.
- Monitor legal changes. Data privacy laws and data sovereignty laws evolve fast. New state laws in the US and new transfer rules elsewhere can change your obligations within a year.
- Test your exit plan. Confirm how and when the vendor deletes your data after offboarding.
FAQ
What does data residency mean?
Data residency means the physical or geographic location where data is stored and processed. It usually refers to a country or region and the data centers within it.
What is the difference between data residency and data sovereignty?
Data residency is about where data is physically stored. Data sovereignty is about which country's laws apply to that data, regardless of its geographical location. Data stored in Germany is resident in Germany and subject to EU and German law.
What does data localization mean?
Data localization is a legal requirement that certain data be stored, and sometimes processed, only within a specific country's borders. Data localization requirements are common for government, financial, and health data, and any cross border transfer of that data is restricted or banned.
Does GDPR require data to stay in the EU?
No. GDPR allows personal data to be transferred outside the EEA if appropriate safeguards are in place, such as an adequacy decision, standard contractual clauses, or binding corporate rules. Many companies still keep EU data in the EU to reduce compliance effort.
Does the US have data residency laws?
There is no general federal data residency law. Requirements come from federal contracts (such as FedRAMP and ITAR), sector rules, and customer contracts.
What is SaaS integration?
A SaaS integration connects two or more cloud applications so data, such as tickets, issues, or customer records, can sync automatically between them. Because integrations copy and move data, they're a key part of any data residency assessment.
Where does Getint store data?
By default, Getint stores data on AWS in Germany (EU). Dedicated tenants can be hosted in any AWS-supported region, and the on-premise version runs on your own infrastructure.
Keep your integrations where your data belongs
Data residency is no longer a niche concern for banks and governments. Any company that syncs data between SaaS tools needs to know where that data is stored, how long it stays there, and who can reach it. Good data management in integrations means treating the sync layer like any other system that holds data. The integration layer is part of that answer.
Getint gives you a choice: an EU-hosted cloud by default, a dedicated tenant in the region you need, or a fully on-premise deployment. Book a demo to talk through your data residency requirements with our team, or start a free trial on the Atlassian Marketplace.
