Microsoft Multi-Geo Teams : An Overview
Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo allows tenants Microsoft 365 to access a primary central location and one or more specific satellite locations for their data. This can be useful for meeting data residency requirements for international organizations. For example, the need to store Swiss users’ data in Switzerland or EU users’ data within the EU.
Multi-Geo was initially launched with support forExchange Online and OneDrive in 2018, but support for Microsoft Teams has now been added.
The tenant's central location is based on where the subscription Microsoft 365 was initially provisioned, and the satellite locations are selected by tenant administrators. This is configured by setting each user’s Preferred Data Location (PDL) —an administrator-defined user property that specifies the geographic location where the user’s data should be delivered, such as their mailbox or OneDrive, their sites SharePoint and now their Teams.
Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is a paid license and is available as an add-on for customers with a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. It is not currently available to customers with a Microsoft CSP.
How does Multi-Geo work with Microsoft Teams ?
Teams Multi-Geo is transparent to the end user. They won't really know where the data is stored.
Private chat: One-to-one, one-to-many and private meeting messages will all be stored in the Geo of the user's PDL. The storage location for one-to-one or one-to-many chat is based on the PDL of the person who created the chat.
Meeting chat the meeting organiser is the 'owner' of the data and the organiser's LDP will determine where the meeting chat data is located
For private and meeting chat, if the PDL for that user is changed, the chat will automatically be migrated to the new geolocation. If the PDL or licence is deleted, the data will be migrated to the main location of the tenant.
Teams, channel messages, and the associated site SharePoint will be stored in the group's PDL Office 365 for that team. Each group Microsoft 365 has a preferred data location (PDL).
When a user creates a new team, that user's PDL determines which PDL is assigned to the group Microsoft 365. This occurs when the group is created and does not change even if the creator’s PDL changes later.
Private channels created in a team will respect the team's PDL, regardless of the PDL of the user creating the private channel.
For existing teams, an administrator can add or modify the PDL for the group Microsoft 365 that supports a team, the messaging data from that team’s channel (including any private channels) is added to a queue migration to be moved to the specified location. However, this does not automatically migrate the site SharePoint or the files associated with the group. You must move the site separately by following the procedures described in“Moving a site SharePoint to another geolocation.”
Calls and Meetings– Please note that Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is not designed to optimize performance; it is designed to meet data-at-rest residency requirements. In fact, it will not affect where your online meetings are hosted or where calls are routed.
What are the available Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo locations available?
The following geolocations are available:
| Geolocation | Code | Data Location eDiscovery |
|---|---|---|
| Asia-Pacific | APC | South East or East Asian data centres |
| Australia | AUS | South East or East Asian data centres |
| Brazil | BRA | (Data location eDiscovery , coming soon) |
| Canada | CAN | US data centres |
| Europe / Middle East / Africa | EUR | European data centres |
| France | FRA | European data centres |
| Germany | DEU | European data centres |
| India | IND | South East or East Asian data centres |
| Japan | JPN | South East or East Asian data centres |
| Korea | KOR | South East or East Asian data centres |
| North America | NAM | US data centres |
| Norway | NOR | (Data location eDiscovery , coming soon) |
| South Africa | ZAF | South East or East Asian data centres |
| Switzerland | CHE | European data centres |
| United Arab Emirates | AER | South East or East Asian data centres |
| United Kingdom | GBR | European data centres |
Reference
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