Update Overview
Microsoft recently announced that they will be making some updates to the cloud recordings regional storage control. If you’re not familiar with Microsoft Stream, all meeting recordings within Microsoft Teams are stored in Microsoft Stream. However, tenant admins do have the option of turning ON/OFF the ability to “Allow Cloud Recording”. Currently, the meeting recording feature is turned off for customers whose Teams data is stored in-country if Microsoft Stream isn’t available in the in-country data residency region where the data is stored. However, with this latest update from Microsoft, they’ll be adding an additional setting that will allow you as a customer to use cloud recordings if Microsoft Stream data residency isn’t yet available in your country.
When does this update drop?
As far as when you can expect this update, Microsoft has indicated that this will begin rolling out at the end of June and expects this to be completed by July.
How does this affect you?
First off, if you’re a customer whose Microsoft Stream data is already in the in-country data residency region where your data is stored then this won’t affect you. If you’re unsure where your Stream data is stored, just navigate to web.microsoftstream.com and find the question mark ‘?’ in the upper right-hand corner and then select About Microsoft Stream.
Once there, you’ll see a line saying “Your data is stored in…“.
Here is the complete list of regions and countries where Stream data is stored:
- United States
- Europe
- Asia Pacific
- Australia
- India
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- US Government Community Cloud (GCC)
If you don’t see your country or region above, there’s still hope! Microsoft is planning on supporting Stream for these additional locations by the end of 2020:
- China
- Germany
- Norway
- France
- Singapore
- South Africa
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- GCC-High / GCC-DOD
After this update, if your tenant admin turns on AllowRecordingStorageOutsideRegion then the recordings will be stored in the nearest regional data center for Microsoft Stream. Provided this is enabled, this will be the default behavior once this fully rolls out in June/July. However, if you prefer to only store your recordings in-country, it is recommended that you disable the meeting recording feature in the Teams admin center and re-enable it once Microsoft Stream is deployed in that country.
How will meeting recordings function after this update?
There are two different routes this can take:
- If your admin turns AllowRecordingStorageOutsideRegion ON BEFORE the Stream service is available in-country, all recordings will be stored in the in-region storage.
- If Stream is made available in-country later, any existing and new recordings will continue to be stored in the nearest regional data center.
- If your admin turns AllowRecordingStorageOutsideRegion ON AFTER the Stream service is available in-country, all recordings will be stored in-country.
Note: New tenants and existing tenants that have not yet enabled meeting recordings will save new recordings in the in-country storage after Stream is available in-country. However, for any tenant that enables meeting recordings BEFORE Stream is available in-country, they will continue to use the in-region storage even after Stream is available in-country.
Can Microsoft migrate my meetings from in-region to in-country after Stream becomes available in-country?
The short answer is no, sorry. Your recordings won’t be migrated. If your admin has turned ON recording before the Stream service is available in-country, then all past meetings recordings, as well as new recordings, will continue to be stored in-region even after Stream becomes available in-country.
What about live events?
Microsoft plans on implementing similar changes for Live Events soon. No ETA just yet though.
How should you prepare for this change?
Depending on how your organization allows/disallows recording will dictate how you proceed. Once this change takes place you’ll need to ensure “Allow Cloud Recording” is set accordingly, depending on the experience you want your end-users to have.
