Customers in many industries and geographic locations have specific data sovereignty and residency objectives. AWS Local Zones and AWS Outposts are fully managed infrastructure solutions for customers that need to keep data within specific geographic boundaries and also want the scalability and innovation of cloud services. The challenge lies not only in where data resides, but in how to architect, secure, and audit these deployments effectively.
Whether you’re architecting a new solution or migrating existing regulated workloads to AWS hybrid edge infrastructure, this post provides an overview of key technologies to help you build auditable and secure architectures that support your organization’s data residency objectives. Building a solution for data residency deployments on AWS hybrid infrastructure requires a thoughtful, layered approach. Rather than a prescriptive solution, this post presents a flexible framework that you can adapt to your specific operational requirements.
The AWS Shared Responsibility Model clearly delineates where the responsibilities of AWS end and yours begin. This model provides a critical separation: AWS controls the management infrastructure, while your data remains inaccessible to AWS operators, as enforced by the hardware-based isolation of the Nitro System. There is no operator access to the instances, applications, or data. This architectural separation provides the foundation for implementing stringent data residency controls.
To build upon this foundation, you can implement security best practices by following the guidance in the AWS Well-Architected security pillar , which helps you strengthen application-level protections and data security controls. For deeper guidance, see the Data Residency with Hybrid Cloud Services Lens , which covers considerations for operations, security, cost, performance, and reliability for regulated workloads. When implementing data residency controls, you might need auditable evidence of traffic patterns for your internal governance processes.