Data protection company Acronis has announced four new data centers in Asia and Europe to complement existing facilities in the United States and France. The new data centers are located in Singapore, Japan, Russia and Germany, and aim to offer localized data privacy to Asian and European businesses.

Acronis' move is designed to capitalise on an increasing desire to keep data local - and the Singapore site is designed to support its own international headquarters.

IDC research says 76% of businesses prefer their data to be stored no more than 150 miles (241 km) from their physical location. Coupled with recent security breaches, Acronis says there is a need for data protection solutions offering cloud storage close to home.

“Today, businesses feel apprehensive about storing their data in regions far from their own,” said Stanislav Protasov, co-founder and senior VP of Engineering and R&D at Acronis in a statement. “Due to these demands, we have made the logical step to open an entire network of data centers in Asia and Europe, giving businesses in those areas exactly what they want--the ability to store their data in their own region.”

Speaking to Datacenter Dynamics, Rene Oldenbeuving, general manager of the Cloud Business at Acronis said the new data center in Singapore involves a partnership with SoftLayer Technologies which gave the company a “faster time to market”.

SoftLayer in Singapore is located at Digital Realty’s data center at the International Business Park.

Oldenbeuving explained that the company wanted a Singapore data center to support the Acronis office in Singapore, which will serve as its international headquarters. “Our most important office in the APAC region is in Singapore. Broadband connection here is fast, it is a hub to do international business,” said Oldenbeuving. “A lot of companies doing business with a Singapore based data center.”

What of data sovereignty considerations pertaining to the various countries in the region, such as in Government Regulation No. 82/2012 in Indonesia which prohibits financial data from being kept outside the country?

In his response, Oldenbeuving briefly enumerated the various models of cloud deployment offered by the company, which includes full cloud, hybrid, and on-premise options.

In that vein, organizations concerned about the location of their data at rest can opt for an on-premise deployment leveraging Acronis proprietary software and technical know-how, or opt for a hybrid cloud deployment.

Only metadata will be stored within Acronis’s facilities in a hybrid deployment, noted Oldenbeuving. “We make sure we keep no data that can relate to an individual person, or that can relate to passwords. There is no possibility for us to get to the customer data,” he said.