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Fides Cloud vs Self Hosted

Data Flows: Fides Cloud vs. Self Hosted

Personal and sensitive data must be handled with the utmost care and Fides is designed to ensure this in any configuration. This page outlines the various Fides configurations and how personal data flows and where it is stored to help you select the optimum configuration for your needs. We'll briefly review the available Fides configurations and then a chart of data flow for each major feature.

Comparing Fides Cloud and Self Hosted

Fides is available in two options:

  • Fides Cloud: hosted by Ethyca in our secure, SOC2-II certified infrastructure.
  • Fides Self Hosted: deployed in your cloud, supported by Ethyca.

Fides Cloud

Fides Cloud is hosted by Ethyca in our cloud infrastructure. By default, hosting is in the USA, with options available for organizations that require geographic data residency in Europe or other regions.

Fides Cloud is recommended for most organizations requiring a high degree of security and minimizing the developer resources needed for configuration and maintenance. Please contact Ethyca's solutions team for more information (opens in a new tab).

In the example below, you can see the typical configuration of Fides Cloud which provides options to suit your preferred connectivity solutions:

Fides Cloud Example

Fides Self Hosted

Fides Self Hosted is a deployed instance of Fides, installed in your cloud and secured by your organization's firewall. Ethyca has no access to this instance and no data is stored on Ethyca infrastructure. All data processing occurs in your cloud.

Self hosted is recommended for organizations requiring additional security controls or where you do not wish to have data stored in a third party vendor system. Please contact Ethyca's solutions team for more information (opens in a new tab).

In the example below, you can see the typical configuration of Fides Self Hosted, where all Fides tools are installed and configured within your cloud provider.

Fides Self Hosted Example

Data Flow by Feature

With this understanding of Fides' various configurations, the following table outlines the personal data flows for each major feature.

DescriptionFides CloudFides Self Hosted
Consent
Complying with consent requires storing a record of the privacy notice presented to the visitor, along with a record of the preference they selected including a timestamp.
Stores pseudonymous data for auditing.

To comply with consent regulations, Cloud stores:

  • a psuedonymous identifier,
  • the privacy notice presented,
  • visitor's geographic region,
  • the consent status,
  • timestamp.
Stores pseudonymous data for auditing.

To comply with consent regulations, Self Hosted stores:

  • a psuedonymous identifier,
  • the privacy notice presented,
  • visitor's geographic region,
  • the consent status,
  • timestamp.
Privacy Requests
Complying with privacy requests requires either retrieving, updating or deleting user data across all systems that process personal data and recording the action is completed.
Processes personal data and can be configured to temporarily store personal data in Ethyca or customer cloud.

To comply with privacy regulations, Cloud may store personal data processed by your organization, examples may include:

  • name
  • email
  • phone number
  • address
  • behavior data
Processes personal data and can be configured to temporarily store personal data in customer cloud.

To comply with privacy regulations, Self Hosted may store personal data processed by your organization, examples may include:

  • name
  • email
  • phone number
  • address
  • behavior data
Data Mapping and RoPA
Complying with data mapping and reporting such as RoPA reporting requires creating an inventory of systems, the categories of data they processes and purposes of use.
Does not store personal data.

To comply with privacy regulations, Cloud stores:

  • systems
  • categories of personal data
  • categories of data use
  • subject or user types
  • lawful basis
Does not store personal data.

To comply with privacy regulations, Self Hosted stores:

  • systems
  • categories of personal data
  • categories of data use
  • subject or user types
  • lawful basis
ML Data Classification
To speed up the task of data mapping and configuration of privacy request, Fides provides optional tools to automatically categorize personal data using Machine Learning.
May process personal data depending on configuration

Depending on your requirements and configuration, Cloud can temporarily read samples of content from databases to automatically recommend personal data labels.
For enhanced privacy, we recommend using Self Hosted for machine learning classification.

Depending on your requirements and configuration, Self Hosted can temporarily read samples of content from databases to automatically recommend personal data labels.
Generic Erasure EmailsRole-based access control