Our data is getting more and more attention and more and more countries are changing their legislation when it comes to data protection.
Data residency is one of the newest topics, and it refers to the physical storage and processing of data from individuals in certain countries.
The scope is broad and covers not only the storage of data but ways of transfer, types of selection of allowed transfers, security measures, identification of source of data, etc.
Since any software organization deals with data from their customers, the requirements to align with data residency legislation have to be implemented in their products. This is disruptive for their processes, resources and finances, to say the least.
- They need to refactor their products at their core as to implement these requirements.
- They need to upgrade their software to allow for all these requirements.
Basically, the organizations are forced to fill the gap described by Scott Brinker in Martec’s Law – the gap between the logarithmic growth of organizations and exponential growth of technology.
The product has to evolve as to keep it competitive on the market and at the same time, refactoring and reengineering to comply with data residency laws will happen on the same product code.
To keep a product competitive means:
- new functionalities will be added,
- old functionalities will be enhanced,
- current functionality keeps stable for the customers,
- bugs are fixed and released.
But it also means the product and its lifecycle will suffer more changes to keep aligned with the company standards and values.
Aligning to the data residency laws in different countries where the product operates could comprise of:
- new hardware and new software according to the country’s restrictions,
- new or updated security measures,
- new storing software and requirements,
- localizations of data’s origin, etc.
All these have to be compatible with the current conditions of functionality the product.
So while the product’s perceived progress is similar to what the customers were used to, in the organization, the product goes through major changes which should not disrupt the customers in any way.
This is a process most products are going though currently and the bigger the product the more disruptive the process.
But even if organizations wouldn’t prioritize filling the gap between the fast evolution of technology and slower change of organizations, there are factors like data residency which force them to align.
