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Canadian Data Residency

Canadian Data Residency

Kristine Marhilevica avatar
Written by Kristine Marhilevica
Updated this week

1. Which AWS region do we use in Canada, and where is it?

We host Canadian tenants in the AWS Canada (Central) region, code ca-central-1.

This region is physically located near Montreal, Québec.Portworx+1

For backup and disaster recovery, we also use AWS Canada West (Calgary), region code ca-west-1, which is located near Calgary, Alberta. Amazon Web Services, Inc.+1

So your primary environment is in Montreal, with backups stored in Calgary. All of this stays inside Canada.

2. Is customer data stored and processed only in Canada?

Yes, when you choose Canadian data residency, your primary application data is stored and processed inside Canada.

We host your tenant in the Canada Central region and replicate backups to Canada West. AWS states that your content stays inside the Region or Regions that you select, unless you ask them to move it or it is required to provide a specific service or comply with the law. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

We design our setup so that:

  • Production data lives in ca-central-1 (Montreal)

  • Backups and disaster recovery copies live in ca-west-1 (Calgary)

  • Both regions are in Canada.
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3. What types of data are guaranteed to stay in Canada?

The goal of the Canada setup is that the core service data stays in Canada, including:

  • Tenant data that you load into Ardoq

  • Configuration and metadata needed to run your tenant

  • Backups and disaster recovery copies

  • Logs that are stored in our Canadian AWS accounts
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Exact details can be tuned by Ardoq, but the intent is that anything that can clearly be scoped to a Canadian tenant lives in Canadian regions.

4. What data might still be processed outside Canada?

Some supporting services may still use infrastructure outside Canada. Typical examples (for many SaaS products) are:

  • Global tools for email notifications and customer support

  • Some monitoring, telemetry, or analytics tools

  • External services that we integrate with on your behalf

These tools do not hold your full tenant dataset but may see smaller pieces of information, for example an email address or log entry. Where this matters for a specific customer or contract, we can review it case by case.

5. What is the scope of residency for AI features?

For AI features that run directly on your tenant data in AWS, we aim to run them inside the same Canadian regions as your environment.

If a specific AI service from AWS or another provider runs only in certain regions, we will clearly document this and explain whether any derived data might leave Canada.

6. Is the Canada region GA, beta, or controlled rollout?

The Canadian data residency option is GA today.

We are onboarding customers in a controlled way, but it is a supported and production-ready option rather than a lab or beta feature.

7. Are there any known limitations at launch?

There are no planned functional limits for Canadian tenants versus our other regions.

However, there may be:

  • A limited set of AI or add-on features that roll out later in Canada

  • Slightly different latency depending on where your users sit in the world

  • Extra setup steps if you move an existing tenant into Canada
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Any such limits will be documented for sales and customers.

8. How many Availability Zones do these AWS regions have?

Both Canadian AWS regions are built for high availability:

An Availability Zone is a separate data center site with its own power and network. AWS recommends using multiple zones for resilient applications, and each region has at least three zones. docs.aws.amazon.com

We follow this guidance in our setup.

9. How is my data encrypted in the Canadian regions?

AWS encrypts data in several ways:

  • At rest using AWS Key Management Service (KMS)

  • In transit using TLS when data moves between services or regions. docs.aws.amazon.com+1

In Canada we add an extra layer of security by using AWS KMS customer managed keys. These are encryption keys that Ardoq controls in our AWS account. With customer managed keys, we can control key policies, enable and disable keys, rotate them, and audit their use. docs.aws.amazon.com

For customers this means:

  • All tenant data is encrypted at rest

  • Data is encrypted in transit over the network

  • Keys are managed with strict access controls.
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10. What is the backup and disaster recovery setup in Canada?

Our default pattern for Canada is:

  • Primary region: Canada (Central) ca-central-1

  • Backup and DR region: Canada West (Calgary) ca-west-1

We use cross-region replication so that if there is a serious issue in the primary region, we can recover from data stored in the second Canadian region. AWS supports using multiple regions for backup while keeping all copies inside the Regions that you choose. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

This gives us both:

  • Data residency in Canada

  • Resilience against regional failures.
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11. Does using the Canada region change features or performance?

Most features are the same as in our EU, US, and AU setups. The main differences are:

  • Latency: users in Canada usually see lower latency when their tenant is also in Canada, while users far away may see slightly higher latency.

  • Feature rollout timing: a small number of features that depend on third-party regional support may arrive slightly later in Canada.
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We will highlight any feature that is not yet available for Canadian-hosted tenants.

12. Where can I find the official AWS documentation for these regions?

Helpful AWS links for Canada:

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