Data residency
Where in the world your data is physically stored and processed, which can be set by law, by customer contracts or by plain trust.
Updated October 2026 · with examples from our own builds
What does data residency mean in practice?
Every cloud service runs in specific regions. Data residency means choosing those regions on purpose: an India region for Indian business records, for example, or leaving customer files in the customer's own storage rather than copying them into yours.
Enterprise sales and regulated sectors bring it up first, when buyers ask where data sits and who can reach it. 'In our provider's default region' rarely satisfies a procurement team.
Residency is easiest to set at the start, when the hosting region is chosen. Moving a live product's data later is a migration with downtime risk.
Data residency at a glance
- Decided by
- Hosting and storage region choices
- Asked about by
- Enterprise buyers and regulated sectors
- Cheapest to set
- Before launch
Where has data residency come up in our builds?
The recommended stack includes storage in an India region, alongside company and branch on every row. It is a recommendation from discovery, not a decision.
The production build in the proposal is Next.js and Node.js hosted in India; that part has not started.
Files never move into Storafleet: teams connect buckets they already own, and Storafleet keeps only encrypted credentials or an IAM role reference, plus a search index of object keys and metadata, so the data stays with whichever provider and region the customer chose.
Common questions about data residency
Does my Indian business data have to be stored in India?
It depends on your sector and the contracts you sign, since some regulators and many enterprise buyers ask for it. Choosing an India region at the start is usually simple, so decide before launch rather than after a customer asks.
Can a SaaS product avoid holding customer files at all?
Sometimes. Storafleet is built on bring-your-own-storage: it reads and writes the customer's own buckets directly, so the files stay with the customer's chosen provider and region.
Related terms
Planning a product and not sure where data residency fits? Ask us, or browse all 116 terms in the glossary.