Cloud vendor repatriates data to Australia to avoid "prying eyes"

Accounting vendor Saasu has moved its data infrastructure from the US back to Australia, citing “geo-political risks" and claiming data is safer in Australia.

In an email, chief operating officer Sofia Silva Eastmond said Saasu was moving its entire data infrastructure to Australia "to mitigate data privacy, latency and geopolitical risks for its customers".

"Data-related concerns are often raised in the online accounting space. The infrastructure overhaul is in response to these concerns, and the common practise of hosting data mainly in the USA by most major competitors.

"These concerns are a combination of geo-political risks the US is bringing on itself, but also internally with NSA and other government agencies’ disregard for people’s privacy."

Speaking to CRN, chief executive Marc Lehmann added that privacy was “way down the list” compared with latency advantages and improved performance from new equipment.

With 80 percent of Saasu’s customers in Australia, moving the data to Australia should mean performance benefits, said Lehmann.

“With the way apps are designed these days, you’ve sometimes got to do lots of trips back and forth, so you get this compounding effect with latency that can build up,” he said.

Nevertheless, Lehmann also said the move would also remove some of the risk of “prying eyes” he perceived comes with having data hosted in the US. “It’s a low risk, but we just don’t like increasing activity in this space."

The Australian company completed a major part of the migration last weekend, moving data to new Rackspace servers in Sydney.

In a blog post on the Saasu website, Lehmann stated: “We’re going against our major competitors’ common practice to mostly host data in the USA. We’re addressing the big elephant in the room; the privacy, latency and geopolitical risks this can represent to our clients. In Australia, we think you’re safer.”

NEXT: How Xero, MYOB and Reckon compare

While some cloud accounting vendors do store data for Australian users offshore, it’s not always the case. Xero stores data in the US, but MYOB uses offshore and local data centres, MYOB chief technical officer Simon Raik-Allen told CRN.

Raik-Allen said that data for just over 50 percent of MYOB's cloud business users is stored in data centres offshore. MYOB uses a data centre in Singapore while offshore backups are stored in the US.

In Australia, he said MYOB makes use of several data centres. The company is an Azure user and in the coming months will be using Microsoft's Australian Azure service, which was officially launched this week.

“We have multiple data centres. I think it’s good for reliability, it’s good for disaster recovery and it’s good for backup," he said.

“I will go where I get a reputable company managing my customers' data. That’s what is most important to me. That’s my number one motivation. It’s simply: who can provide you with the best security,” Raik-Allen said.

Xero hosts its data in the US with Rackspace. The company has spent “many millions” establishing multiple geo-redundant data centres.

When asked in August about whether Xero would move Australian data to Australia, CEO Rod Drury said: “These [multiple data centres] will remain, but as Xero grows, the marginal cost of moving data to Australia will reduce and it could become a point of difference for Xero.”

A Reckon spokesperson said it has always hosted data for both Reckon Accounts Hosted and Reckon One in Australia, partnering with AWS.

Saasu has had 100,000 unique trial users since launch, with Lehmann estimating about 25,000 active users and approximately 10,000 companies actively using Saasu. Users include BigCommerce, Shoes of Prey, The Good Guys and Pollenizer.