Netskope, a leader in modern security and networking for the cloud and AI era, officially introduced to all organizations its management plane in India, located in Mumbai. This strategic deployment extends Netskope’s existing NewEdge Network infrastructure of eight data centers across India, to further support India-based organizations using the Netskope One platform to meet the data sovereignty and compliance requirements mandated by India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), including provisions applying to Significant Data Fiduciaries, and sector-specific frameworks such as the RBI’s IT and security requirements, and SEBI’s Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework (CSCRF).
The DPDPA introduces stricter data protection rules and penalties, and together with other sector-specific frameworks, maintains the need for some organizations, especially in government and critical infrastructure, to host and process certain categories of data strictly within India. As Indian organizations strengthen their security and data protection capabilities to comply with such regulatory requirements, they increasingly require vendors to enable local data residency and data and digital sovereignty. The availability of a Netskope management plane in India helps local Netskope customers meet these requirements moving forward.
Netskope’s global NewEdge infrastructure is a private network of more than 120 data centers, ranked 12th in the world in terms of Internet Exchange participation. As part of that infrastructure, Netskope’s full compute data planes across India—offering all Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) services— help to ensure that users’ traffic is optimized and secure, while the management plane governs the administration of Netskope services. The management plane hosts customers’ policies and users’ configurations, as well as sensitive metadata and logs. In equipping its local infrastructure with this orchestration layer, Netskope enables local data residency for Indian organizations with a fully sovereign SASE platform that keeps all underlying security operations and data within India. Organizations can also apply hybrid policies tailored to different categories of data, enforcing residency or allowing cross-border data transfers based on the organization’s needs.
The deployment of this management plane also delivers added value for Netskope’s channel ecosystem. Partners, MSPs, and MSSPs offering Netskope security and networking capabilities are now in a position to support a range of Netskope services for Indian organizations requiring full control and high levels of granularity in defining policies that govern data location and transfers.
Nageshwaran C, CISO at TVS Motors said, “It is great to see our collaboration with Netskope continues to deliver value as they expand their local infrastructure. The availability of a management plane in India is crucial for us, as it gives us flexibility to define exactly how and where our data is handled. Data residency and sovereignty are increasingly important topics, especially in the context of rapid AI adoption and data sprawl. Having Netskope handle the compliance heavy lifting gives us peace of mind regarding the DPDPA, letting us focus on other aspects of our security program while other organizations are stuck adjusting or even rearchitecting their security and data protection frameworks.”
Ajay Gupta, Vice President and Country Manager SAARC at Netskope said, “Netskope One is a modern platform fit for cloud and AI requirements. We help organizations safely modernize for the cloud and AI while providing huge advantages for customers needing to navigate significant regulatory transformations such as the DPDPA. In this context, the addition of a management plane in India was essential for us to meet the increased data residency and sovereignty requirements sought by the fast-growing volume of Indian organizations using the Netskope platform, not only in the context of DPDPA compliance, but also amidst increased geopolitical turmoil and cybersecurity risk.”
