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SPO Tidbit - Multi-Geo is here

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Hello All,

Just had this note hit my inbox and thought I would share it with you.

Multi-geo is a new Office 365 feature that helps multinational organizations address their global data residency requirements.  Multi-geo addresses these concerns by enabling a single Office 365 tenant to span across multiple Office 365 datacenter geographies (geos) giving customers the ability to store their Office 365 data at-rest, on a per-user basis, in their chosen geos. Microsoft will not move the data-at-rest outside of the customer chosen geos unless directed by a customer administrator. It is important to note that this is not a latency or performance solution.

In the upcoming weeks, multi-geo will be available for Exchange Online and OneDrive for Business. With multi-geo in Exchange Online, choose in which geo each user’s mailbox contents (e-mail body, calendar entries, and the content of e-mail attachments) are stored at-rest. For OneDrive, choose in which geo each user’s OneDrive uploaded files are stored at-rest. Microsoft is also working on making multi-geo available for SharePoint Online and Office 365 Groups and is exploring multi-geo for additional Office 365 applications.

This email only focuses on multi-geo for ODB and SPO (collectively known as ODSP).

Multi-geo is a premium feature and is available as an add-on to the following Office 365 subscription plans for customers with a minimum of 5,000 Office 365 subscribed users.

  • Microsoft 365 F1, E1, E3 or E5
  • Office 365 F1, E1, E3 or E5
  • Exchange Online Plan 1 or Plan 2
  • OneDrive for Business Plan 1 or Plan 2
  • SharePoint Online Plan 1 or Plan 2

See plan details here https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans

Getting started with Multi-Geo

1. Configure the Office 365 tenant for multi-geo: Before a customer can start using multi-geo, Microsoft needs to enable the customer’s Office 365 tenant for multi-geo. The timing for enablement depends on factors such as the size of the customer Office 365 directory and availability of move resources. The Office 365 admin center will notify when OneDrive (and Exchange) are multi-geo enabled.

2. Add Satellite geos to tenant: For OneDrive multi-geo, use Azure AD PowerShell cmdlet AllowedDataLocation to extend the Office 365 tenant to set up store user data in specific Satellite geos. Note: This step is not required for enabling multi-geo in Exchange as your Office 365 tenant will be automatically extended to all the available geos.

3. Choose where each user’s data is stored: With Azure AD PowerShell cmdlet PreferredDataLocation, set the geo for each user’s OneDrive files (and Exchange Online Mailbox). Alternatively, one can also use AAD-Connect.

Documentation

/en-us/office365/enterprise/multi-geo-capabilities-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-online-in-office-365. 

https://technet.microsoft.com/library/094e86f2-9ff0-40ac-af31-28fcaba00c1d

Pax

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2018
    The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      December 17, 2018
      Hello Chartdotcom,Agreed it could help with latency and performance, but it was not designed for that. This feature was designed to address laws that are designed to maintain data residency within certain boundaries.Chris