Question
Are we allowed to operate here?
Determine whether anticipated workloads and their data can operate in the region. Consider data residency and sovereignty, regulatory and industry requirements, company policy, customer commitments, support access, encryption requirements, and restrictions on data movement or operational control.
Decision
Exclude a region when it cannot satisfy a mandatory data, compliance, or policy requirement.
How the first two checks filter the portfolio#
The first two checks act as filters. Business value decides whether a region merits deeper assessment; mandatory data, compliance, and policy requirements decide whether it can be used at all. Only regions that pass both proceed to workload and capability analysis.
Reference links#
- Data residency in Azure — Explains customer-data location, geographic boundaries, and service-specific exceptions.
- Azure compliance documentation — References for regional, industry-specific, and global compliance requirements.
- Reliability and sovereignty in Azure — Connects sovereignty requirements to regional selection, backup and replication destinations, encryption, and operational control.