BigPicture users from the European Union or America often need to store their data in a home country or region (think GDPR, regulated industries, etc.). With Jira Server it’s not an issue – it’s you who decides where is your server located. Things look different on Jira Cloud – here, Atlassian merely ‘attempts’ to store your data as close to your users as possible. The users of BigPicture Enterprise for Jira Cloud will soon be able to manually select where their data is stored – available regions are the United States, E.U. (Germany, Ireland), Singapore, and Australia.
Have a look at the below screenshot. In this instance of BigPicture, data is currently stored in Frankfurt, Germany.
With BigPicture Enterprise for Jira Cloud, you will soon be able to select where your data is hosted, geographically.
Things to consider when selecting the location for BigPicture data, server, and hosting
With Jira Server and Data Center, it’s not an issue – you use your own server, so you are in charge of the server’s physical location. This article pertains to Jira Cloud – the location of data may be an issue here, as you have to use Atlassian’s hosting; and Atlassian uses Amazon Web Services as Cloud hosting provider, and AWS data warehouses are scattered around the world – in the United States, E.U. (Germany, Ireland), Singapore, and Australia.
Things to consider:
- the closer (geographically) your data, server, and hosting are to your users, the faster your Jira Cloud should work
- Atlassian will try to store your Jira Cloud data close to where it’s accessed from, but nothing is guaranteed.
- BigPicture, on the other hand, has been hosted in the United States, so all your BigPicture-related data is stored in the U.S., even if you are based in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, or Australia. This is why the new ‘Data location’ feature might be of great importance for some clients.
Step by step – how to set the geographic location
Expect the feature to be released soon. As of May 2020, the ‘Data location’ feature is still under development.
BigPicture requirements:
- you need core BigPicture, as well as BigPicture Enterprise extension
- also, check the list of features the Enterprise plugin adds on top of BigPicture
For instance, it’s November 2020, the feature has been released already, and you are on Jira Cloud and in a country regulated by GDPR. Once you install the BigPicture app and BigPicture Enterprise extension, you’ll be able to elect that your data is stored within the European Union. To do that:
- Go to Jira administration > Region > Data location
- Select a new location for your data, migration date, and time
- Once the migration commences, the downtime could last 1 to 15 minutes
Selecting the location of a data server in BigPicture for Jira Cloud. Specify the date and time of migration. The downtime could be 1-15 minutes.
