VWO's EU Data Center

About VWO's EU data center

Until January 2022, all VWO data (both the customers’ and visitors’) was stored and processed in the US East data center of Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This setup has been completely compliant with GDPR and other similar regulations/laws. Presently, it serves over 3000 satisfied customers globally, with more than a thousand in the EU.

Witnessing the interest and requests from some customers, VWO has implemented a data center in the EU, so as to ensure that the visitors' data doesn’t leave the international EU borders. Hosted in Belgium (europe-west1 of GCP), this data center caters to those who prefer to store and manage their end users’/visitors’ data within the EU.

The data of the visitors, as collected by VWO is in accordance with the Data Protection Agreement (DPA), for the entities that choose to configure their accounts with this data center. But, other data such as the account information and campaign metadata will be stored in the US data center only.

Who can opt for it?

Any customer, irrespective of their plan, or location can opt for their data residency in the EU. However, we recommend this option for those, who are either based in the EU or handling end-users, who are majorly from the EU.

You can avail this option by speaking to your account manager or by reaching out to support@vwo.com.

Data relevant to VWO

The entirety of the data gathered by VWO is classified into the following two categories:

• VWO Customers’ data - This is customer-specific data through which VWO offers its services. It includes campaign configurations, account configurations, billing configurations and other similar data necessary to run the application.
  
  
• Visitors' data - This is the data of the visitors (who arrive at the customers’ website), collected as part of the campaigns executed via VWO.
  
  

How does data flow from VWO?

If you choose to use the US data center, your campaign information, account information, and visitor data are stored and processed within the US. But, the case is not similar when you opt for the EU, since it stores only the visitor data, while the rest of the information resides in the US.

All the same, VWO has designed the processing of information such that the visitor data never gets out of the EU. The application server for the EU data center fetches the campaign information from the US and uses the visitor data from the EU.

The following diagram depicts how the data flow occurs within the data centers:

The following table explains the information residency for the accounts configured with the EU data center.

Type	Information	US Data Center	EU Data Center
Account Information & Campaign Metadata	Account settings and user login details
	Campaign definitions
	Hypotheses and observations
Visitor Data	Session recordings
	Survey data
	Heatmap data
	Test campaign data
	Forms
	Goals and funnels

What changes does an account configured with the EU data center experience?

The functionality of the VWO application remains server-agnostic.

If your account is configured with the EU data center, you can observe the following occurrences:

• All API calls from the application will have an ‘eu01’ URL path prefix (app.vwo.com/eu01).
  
  
• All data collection calls from websites, server-side SDKs and mobile applications will have an ‘eu01’ URL path prefix.
  
  
• Any API request on the wrong location will be redirected to the correct location. For example, if an account configured with the EU data center attempts to access app.vwo.com, the system will identify the location and redirect the link to app.vwo.com/eu01.
  
  

FAQs

1. Is it possible to migrate the data of the existing clients from the US data center to the EU?
   Yes. But, migrating the data needs to be scheduled, as it may involve some downtime. Reach out to your account manager for details on the same.
   
   
2. What are the key things users need to take care of if they opt for the EU data center?
   Primarily, the following things should be adhered to for the accounts that have opted for the EU data center:
   
   
   • In case of using VWO REST APIs, it is recommended to add an ‘eu01’ path prefix to the URLs. For example, the REST API call to get all the campaigns in an account/sub-account will be in the following format: https://app.vwo.com/eu01/api/v2/accounts/{account_id}/campaigns.
     
     
   • For offline conversions, proceeding without the ‘eu01’ path prefix in the URL will result in the conversion calls getting rejected. This is because the visitor information actually resides in the EU data center for an account configured accordingly. Using a URL without the ‘eu01’ path prefix will route the call to the US data center, where it will get rejected.