|
In this article, you'll learn about the following: |
Overview of VWO's data centers
Until January 2022, all VWO data (both VWO customer data and visitor data on the customer’s website) was stored and processed in the US East data center of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This setup complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and similar regulations. Currently, it serves over 3,000 customers globally, with more than 1,000 in the EU and India.
To meet global regulatory requirements and customer preferences, VWO offers regional data centers:
- US data center - Situated in Northern Virginia (us-east 4 of GCP), this data center caters to those who prefer to store and manage their visitor data within the United States of America.
- EU data center - Situated in Belgium (europe-west1 of GCP), this data center caters to those who prefer to store and manage their visitor data within the EU.
- India data center - Situated in Mumbai (asia-south1 of GCP), this data center caters to those who prefer to store and manage their visitor data within India.
VWO collects visitor data in accordance with the Data Protection Agreement (DPA) for entities that choose to configure their accounts with these data centers. But VWO’s actual customer account data, such as VWO account information and VWO campaign metadata, is stored only in the US data center.
We recommend you review our Data Protection Addendum, which outlines the terms and conditions governing data protection.
Data Center Assignment and Change Requests
VWO automatically assigns a default data center during account signup based on your location.
The available data center locations are:
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – USA (Northern Virginia)
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – EU (Belgium)
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – APAC (India)
You cannot change the assigned data center directly from the VWO application. After completing the account signup, you can find your Data Center under Settings > Account > General > Data Region. This field is disabled and serves as a point of reference only. You can also view your assigned data region in the application footer.
Request a Data Center Change
VWO supports data center changes through a formal request process. This service is available as a managed add-on and is handled by the VWO Sales team.
To change your assigned data center, raise a request to your Account Manager (AM) or Customer Success Manager (CSM).
VWO processes each request through the following steps:
- Review and approval by VWO’s Legal and Compliance teams
- Execution of a contractual amendment or updated Order Form, where applicable
- Migration and implementation by VWO’s Engineering team
All contracts and order forms explicitly specify the applicable data center location. VWO permits a post-signup data center change only after the above process is successfully completed.
Once the migration is complete, the AM or CSM formally confirms the data center change. This process typically takes 2–4 business days and does not impact your ongoing campaigns.
Eligibility for Non-US Data Centers
Irrespective of your plan or location, you can request data residency in any of the available data centers. However, we recommend selecting a data center located in the same region as your primary end users.
VWO assigns a default data center to your account during signup based on your location. To request a different data center, contact your Account Manager (AM) or Customer Success Manager (CSM).
Data relevant to VWO
VWO classifies the entirety of the data gathered into the following two categories:
- Customer account data: This is VWO customer-specific data through which VWO offers its services and includes campaign configurations, account configurations, billing configurations, and other similar data necessary to run the application.
- Visitor data: This is the data of the visitors (who arrive at the customer’s website) that VWO collects as part of the campaigns executed via VWO
Data Flow Between Data Centers
If your account is configured with the US data center, VWO stores and processes your campaign, account, and visitor data within the US. But in a non-US data center, the entire visitor data is stored, while only the campaign and account information reside in the US.
VWO designs information processing so that visitor data never leaves the respective regions. The application servers for the non-US data centers fetch campaign and account information from the US and process them in their respective regions, along with the visitor data stored there.
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 a non-US data center:
| Type | Information | US Data Center | Non-US 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 |
NOTE:
-
As of now, VWO Engage does not support the EU and India data centers. The data collected through VWO Engage will be stored in the US data center.
- The visitor data collected by the servers is maintained in their respective server locations only and cannot be transferred or accessed by one another. To know more, refer to this article.
Technical Differences in Non-US Data Center Accounts
The VWO application's functionality remains server-agnostic.
If your account is configured with a non-US data center, you can observe the following changes:
- Any API call from the application that handles visitor data uses an ‘eu01’ URL path prefix for the EU data center (app.vwo.com/eu01) and ‘as01’ for the India data center (app.vwo.com/as01).
- All data collection calls from websites, FME SDKs, and mobile app SDKs have an ‘eu01’ URL path prefix for the EU data center and ‘as01’ for India.
- Any API request (that handles visitor data) in the wrong location redirects to the correct location. For example, if an account configured with the EU data center attempts to access app.vwo.com, the system identifies the location and redirects the link to app.vwo.com/eu01. For India, it redirects to app.vwo.com/as01.
FAQs
-
Is it possible to migrate the data of the existing clients from the US data center to a non-US data center?
Yes. But VWO needs to schedule data migration, as it may involve some downtime. Contact your account manager for details.
-
What are the key things users need to take care of for a non-US data center?
Primarily, the following guidelines apply to accounts configured with a non-US data center:
-
In the case of using VWO REST APIs, it is recommended to add the respective 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:
-
For the EU data center:
https://app.vwo.com/eu01/api/v2/accounts/{account_id}/campaigns -
For the India data center:
https://app.vwo.com/as01/api/v2/accounts/{account_id}/campaigns
-
For the EU data center:
- For offline conversions, proceeding without the path prefix in the URL will result in the conversion calls getting rejected. This is because the visitor information actually resides in the respective non-US data center for an account configured accordingly. Using a URL without the path prefix will route the call to the US data center, where it will get rejected.
Glossary
|
Customer / VWO customer / VWO user |
One who uses VWO to create/execute/manage campaigns |
| End-user / Visitor | One who uses the website of the VWO’s customer and becomes part of the VWO campaign created by the VWO customer |
| Campaign information | The configuration information pertaining to the VWO campaign as created by the VWO customer |
| Account information | The information pertaining to the VWO account from which the campaigns are created/executed/managed |