GitHub launches Enterprise Cloud with data residency in Oz

GitHub has announced the availability of its Enterprise Cloud with data residency in Australia, providing organisations in regulated industries with the capability to store code locally while utilising cloud services.

This move addresses a significant challenge faced by Australian organisations in sectors such as finance, government, and telecommunications, where the need for control over data location has restricted the adoption of cloud-based DevOps solutions.

Many of these organisations have, until now, resorted to costly self-hosted infrastructures due to data flexibility and control requirements.

"Data residency is a vital strand to the DNA of digital transformation – creating a localised pathway for organisations in highly regulated industries to store their code in region and move to the cloud. Starting now, GitHub offers the ability for all organisations to store their code in Australia," said GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. "From the public sector to manufacturing, healthcare, finance, telecommunications and beyond, with data residency we will ignite a new wave of digital transformation at scale in the great nation of Australia."

GitHub's data residency feature, supported by Microsoft Azure's infrastructure, offers a cloud-based development platform that simplifies infrastructure management while granting firms greater autonomy over their code, potentially leading to more effective business implementations. This initiative is designed to meet the increasing demands for secure, scalable cloud solutions.

According to IDC Program Vice President of Software Development DevOps and DevSecOps, Jim Mercer, "Enterprises with a global presence often face challenges in managing and storing their code and data to meet regional standards and their own governance and compliance requirements. With data residency on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, organisations control where their code is stored, addressing regional and business compliance challenges while providing access to the familiar GitHub Enterprise functionality, including add-on capabilities, such as GitHub Copilot and GitHub Advanced Security."

Australia becomes the first market in the Asia-Pacific region and the second globally to offer this deployment option, with the European Union also having access to the data residency feature.

Directions on Microsoft's Rob Sanfilippo remarked, "Data sovereignty is a critical issue facing enterprises around the world as meeting compliance requirements becomes increasingly challenging. Giving customers geographical options for repository storage, leveraging parent company Microsoft's worldwide Azure data centres, will ensure enterprises can tackle those requirements effectively."

Data residency on GitHub Enterprise Cloud aims to provide organisations with the flexibility to store repositories in a location that aligns with their governance and compliance standards, tapping into the infrastructure and security benefits provided by Microsoft Azure.