SurveyMonkey locates European data centre in Dublin

23 May 2019

Image: © vladimircaribb/Stock.adobe.com

New data centre will serve SurveyMonkey’s enterprise customers across the European region.

Global survey software company SurveyMonkey has physically located a new data centre for Europe in Dublin in collaboration with Amazon Web Services.

The company said that the public cloud infrastructure enables SurveyMonkey to host data locally for customers located or doing business in the region, an important priority for European organisations.

‘The launch of our European data centre is a key milestone in SurveyMonkey’s growth strategy’
– ZANDER LURIE

“The launch of our European data centre is a key milestone in SurveyMonkey’s growth strategy, one that supports the expansion of the company’s international footprint and the acceleration of our enterprise sales motion,” SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie explained.

“More than a third of SurveyMonkey’s revenue comes from customers outside of the United States, with a significant portion of that coming from Europe. Our cloud investments enable us to grow that business by delivering the data control, security and best-in-class user experience that global enterprises demand.”

Data residency matters

Lurie said the cloud investment is also part of a broader focus to help enterprise customers have better control over their data residency.

He said that security, compliance and privacy are top priorities for the company, with increasing operational rigour around protecting data throughout its portfolio of products, integrations and infrastructure.

“Migrations for existing enterprise customers are expected to take place later in 2019. A final migration for self-serve customers is planned for a later time,” the company said.

The news of the new data centre coincided with SurveyMonkey’s own research into GDPR one year on and found that since GDPR went into effect in May 2018, only 56pc of UK residents are confident that they know where their data is stored, but 74pc say it’s important that their data is stored in the European Union.

SurveyMonkey came to Dublin in 2014 to create 50 jobs. The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, is a member of the company’s board.

Updated, 12.24pm, 23 May 2019: This article was updated to clarify that SurveyMonkey announced the creation of 50 jobs in Dublin in 2014, not 2018.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com