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Data regions: Choose a geographic location for your data

As an administrator, you can store your covered data in a specific geographic location by using a data region policy. Your geographic location options are the United States or Europe. Users who don't have a supported edition aren't covered by data region policies—even if you apply a data region policy to their organizational unit.

For more information about the types of data covered, go to What data is covered by a data region policy?

The AppSheet account requirements and steps to enable AppSheet data regions are different from those described in this section. For more information, see Manage AppSheet data residency.

Before you begin: Consider tradeoffs

Selecting a specific region doesn't provide performance improvements or fine-tuning for your network or data access. Consider the following factors before making your decision:

  • Users outside the region where their data is located might experience higher latency in some cases. Latency could happen while:

    • Editing shared objects in real time across regions
    • Sharing files, such as documents, with someone outside the user's region
    • Traveling internationally
  • In rare cases, when a data region has been selected, users outside that region might lose access to the data due to events beyond Google’s control (for example, natural disasters).

Data region conflicts

When users send direct messages from different data regions, their data is stored in both regions. For example:

User A’s region User B’s region Direct messages data region
USA EU USA/EU
Any region EU Any region/EU

Data regions and Google Workspace editions

Google Workspace offers 2 options for managing data region policies: Fundamental data regions and Enterprise data regions. 

  • Enterprise data regions is included with Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Enterprise Essentials Plus.
  • Fundamental data regions is included with Frontline Starter, Frontline Standard, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Essentials. You can purchase Enterprise data regions as a paid add-on with any of these editions. Get the add-on.
  Fundamental
data regions
Enterprise
data regions
Set a data region policy for everyone in your domain ✔ 
Set data region policies for specific organizational units and groups  
View data regions move progress  


For administrators managing Google Workspace Enterprise Plus edition:

  • Individual organizational units can have users at multiple subscription levels. If you use Enterprise data regions and set a data region policy for specific organizational units, that policy will apply only to users within organizational units that have an Enterprise Plus license.
  • In mixed license domains, Enterprise data regions settings will override Fundamental data regions settings temporarily for the short term. We will be fixing this behavior in the long term so that Fundamental data regions users' settings are preserved from the root organizational unit.

Set a data region policy

Step 1: Set the organizational structure

Skip this step if you want to choose only one data region for all of your users.

You can choose one data region for some of your users, or different data regions for specific departments or teams. Put their user accounts in an organizational unit (to set by department) or put them in a configuration group (to set for users across or within departments).

Note: To set a data region policy for specific organizational units and groups, you need Enterprise data regions, which is included in an Enterprise Plus subscription. For instructions on upgrading your service, see Switch to Enterprise Plus.

Step 2: Set a data region policy
  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

    Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. In the Admin console, go to Menu and then  Accountand thenAccount settingsand thenData regions.
    This option appears only if your license includes Data regions.
  3. To apply the data region to everyone, leave the top organizational unit selected. Otherwise, select an organizational unit or a configuration group.
  4. Select a data region. For more information, discover our data center locations:
    • No preference
    • United States
    • Europe
  5. Click Save. If you set up an organizational unit or group, you might be able to Inherit/Override an organization or Unset a group.
Step 3: View data regions move progress

You may have to wait 24–48 hours after you set the data region policy before you can view the progress of the data move.

Note: To view move progress, you need Enterprise data regions, which is included in an Enterprise Plus subscription. For instructions on upgrading your service, see Switch to Enterprise Plus.

Follow these steps to view the progress of the data move by region or at a domain-wide level:

  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

    Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. In the Admin console, go to Menu and then Reportingand thenReportsand thenApps Reportsand thenData regions.

In the Summary card, you can view the overall progress of the data move at a domain-wide level and also by region. You can view the progress of data moves for individual services by region in the United States and Europe cards. For more information on move progress reporting, go to View data regions move progress.

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