Location of customer data
When a customer signs up for On Demand, they select the region in which to run their On Demand organization. All computation is performed and all data is stored in the selected region. The currently supported regions can be found here: https://regions.quest-on-demand.com/.
Windows Azure Storage, including the Blobs, Tables, and Queues storage structures, are replicated three times in the same datacenter for resiliency against hardware failure. The data is replicated across different fault domains to increase availability. All replication datacenters reside within the geographic boundaries of the selected region.
See this Microsoft reference for more details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-redundancy
Privacy and protection of customer data
The most sensitive customer data processed by On Demand Migration for SharePoint is the SharePoint content including documents and their associated metadata.
- While the migration task is running, SharePoint documents, list items, and associated metadata, are temporary stored in Azure Blob containers. When the migration task is complete, this data is deleted.
- All migration project data and logs are encrypted at rest.
To ensure that customer data is kept separate during processing, the following policies are strictly applied in On Demand Migration for SharePoint:
- All temporarily artifacts created for each customer during migration is stored in separate Azure storage containers and will be saved for a maximum of 30 days for troubleshooting use. Temporary artifacts such as migration logs may contain metadata of objects, but never their content.
- This information is protected through the Azure built-in data-at-rest server-side encryption mechanism. It uses the strongest FIPS 140-2 approved block cipher available, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm, with a 256-bit key.
- A separate Elasticsearch server instance is used for each customer.
More information about Azure queues, tables, and blobs:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-blobs-introduction
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/security-storage-overview
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-service-encryption
Separation of customer data
A common concern related to cloud-based services is the prevention of commingling of data that belongs to different customers. On Demand Migration for SharePoint has architected its solution to specifically prevent such data commingling by logically separating customer data stores.
Customer data are differentiated using a Customer Organization Identifier. The Customer Organization Identifier is a unique identifier obtained from the Quest On Demand Core that is created when the customer signs up with the application.
This identifier is used throughout the solution to ensure strict data separation of customers' data in Elasticsearch storage and during processing.
A separate Elasticsearch server instance is used for each customer.
Network communications
Internal network communication within Azure includes:
- Inter-service communication between On Demand Migration for SharePoint components, On Demand Core and the On Demand Platform
- Communication to customer Microsoft Entra ID tenants
The following scheme shows the communication configuration between key components of On Demand Migration for SharePoint.
Figure 2: Component Communication Architecture
The network communication is secured with HTTPS and is not visible to the external public internet.
Inter-service communication uses OAuth authentication using a Quest Microsoft Entra ID service account with the rights to access the services. No backend services of On Demand Migration for SharePoint can be used by end-users.
On Demand Services accepts the following network communication from outside Azure:
- Access to On Demand Migration web UI.
- PowerShell cmdlets to access the On Demand Migration for SharePoint backend. These PowerShell cmdlets are used internally by Quest Support in read-only mode to access customers' Quest On Demand organizations, migration projects, tasks, events, and object metadata for troubleshooting purposes only.
External network communication from outside Azure to On Demand Services include:
- On Demand Migration user interface access
All external communication is secured with HTTPS.
The On Demand Migration for SharePoint user interface uses OAuth authentication with JWT token issued to a logged in user.
PowerShell cmdlets used by Quest Support are using Microsoft Entra ID authentication to access the On Demand Migration for SharePoint service. The user of the PowerShell API should be a Quest Microsoft Entra ID member with the appropriate role assigned.
There are no unsecured HTTP calls within On Demand Migration for SharePoint.