Architectural Reference: Multi-Region Implementation
This document outlines the cloud-native network architecture designed to support data storage and computational workflows across multiple geographic boundaries. This framework fulfills compliance mandates for regional data sovereignty and technical segregation under ISO 27001:2023 (A.08.22 - Segregation in Networks, A.05.34- Privacy and Protection of PII) and NIS 2 (Supply Chain Security & Infrastructure Resilience).
1. Architectural Design & Subscription Isolation
To meet evolving institutional regulations, cross-border collaboration mandates, and region-specific service requirements, anDREa provides multi-region topology support across the Microsoft Azure backbone.
The Single-Region Binding Principle
Data boundary isolation is enforced directly at the Azure resource hierarchy level rather than through software-defined routing policies:
- Strict Geographic Anchoring: When a new cloud subscription is onboarded and mapped to the centralized anDREa Entra ID, a permanent, immutable target Azure Region is assigned to that specific subscription.
- Blast Radius & Resource Containment: Every compute, storage, or network resource provisioned within that subscription is programmatically restricted to, and deployed inside, that single designated region.
- Simplified Compliance Auditing: Auditors and DPOs can easily verify that all research Workspaces bound to a given subscription strictly store and process data within the target jurisdiction.
- Isolated Telemetry Aggregation: For each enabled region, anDREa deploys a standalone, isolated audit database to capture localized system events and access logs.
2. Resource Availability & Regional Planning
Tenants must evaluate regional hardware limitations prior to onboarding a subscription to a non-default zone.
- Hardware Capability Matrix: Specialized computing resources—such as Azure NC-series GPU-accelerated Virtual Machines—are not universally available across all data centers.
- Pre-deployment Verification: Before designating a subscription boundary, Tenants must cross-reference their research compute requirements against the current Supported Microsoft Azure Regions Directory to ensure local availability.
3. Data Transit Boundaries & Compliance Exceptions
Current Routing Posture
While data at rest and active compute processing are structurally locked to the subscription's designated regional data center, data currently in transit during ingress (data upload) and egress (data download) phases routes through a centralized gateway located in the West Europe region (Amsterdam data hubs).
Risk Acceptance & Security Mitigations
anDREa maintains that this data transit footprint does not compromise tenant compliance postures due to three core technical and organizational controls:
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ DATA TRANSIT LIFE CYCLE │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Ingress Stream (External Source) │ │ │ │ │ ▼ │ │ [ Central West Europe Transit Hub ] ──► (Fully Encrypted In-Transit) │ │ │ │ │ ▼ │ │ Isolated Target Region Subscription ──► (Fully Encrypted At-Rest) │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
- EEA Jurisdictional Alignment: The centralized West Europe gateway resides entirely within the European Economic Area (EEA), ensuring compliance with standard EU data sovereignty laws.
- Cryptographic Enforcements: All ingress and egress traffic streams, alongside any temporary staging caches, are strictly encrypted both in-transit and at-rest using enterprise-grade cryptographic controls.
- Future Roadmap: If legal boundaries or tenant research mandates require localized ingestion, anDREa will deploy independent, region-specific ingress and egress endpoint pairs to eliminate centralized routing dependencies.