Restrictions and limitations in Sovereign Controls by Partners

This topic describes the restrictions, limitations, and other configuration options when using Sovereign Controls by Partners.

Overview

Sovereign Controls by Partners provides data residency and data sovereignty features for in-scope Google Cloud services. To provide these features, some of these services' features are restricted or limited. Most of these changes are applied during the onboarding process when your organization becomes managed by a partner, however some of them can be changed later by modifying organization policies.

It's important to understand how these restrictions modify the behavior for a given Google Cloud service or affect data sovereignty or data residency. For example, some features or capabilities may be automatically disabled to ensure that data sovereignty and data residency are maintained. Additionally, if an organization policy setting is changed, it might have the unintended consequence of copying data from one region to another.

Supported products and services

See the Supported products page for a list of supported products and services.

Organization policies

This section describes how each service is affected by the default organization policy constraint values when folders or projects are created using Sovereign Controls by Partners. Other applicable constraints — even if not set by default — can provide additional "defense-in-depth" to further protect your organization's Google Cloud resources.

Cloud-wide organization policy constraints

The following organization policy constraints apply across any applicable Google Cloud service.

Organization Policy Constraint	Description
`gcp.resourceLocations`	Set to the partner-supported region, such as `in:europe-west9-locations` or `in:eu-locations` as the `allowedValues` list item. This value restricts creation of any new resources to the selected value group only. When set, no resources can be created in any other regions, multi-regions, or locations outside of the selection. See the Organization policy value groups documentation for more information.
`gcp.restrictNonCmekServices`	Set to a list of all in-scope API service names, including: `compute.googleapis.com` `container.googleapis.com` `logging.googleapis.com` `sqladmin.googleapis.com` `storage.googleapis.com` Some features may be impacted for each of the services listed above. See the Impacted Features section below. Each listed service requires Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK). CMEK allows that at-rest data is encrypted with a key managed by you, not Google's default encryption mechanisms. Changing this value by removing one or more in-scope services from the list may undermine data sovereignty, as new at-rest data will be automatically encrypted using Google's own keys instead of yours. Existing at-rest data will remain encrypted by the key you provided.
`gcp.restrictCmekCryptoKeyProjects`	Set to `under:organizations/your-organization-name`, which is your Sovereign Controls by Partners organization. You can further restrict this value by specifying a project or folder. Limits the scope of approved folders or projects that can provide KMS keys for encrypting at-rest data using CMEK. This constraint prevents unapproved folders or projects from providing encryption keys, thus helping to guarantee data sovereignty for in-scope services' at-rest data.

Compute Engine organization policy constraints

Organization Policy Constraint	Description
`compute.enableComplianceMemoryProtection`	Set to True. Disables some internal diagnostic features to provide additional protection of memory contents when an infrastructure fault occurs. Changing this value may affect your data residency or data sovereignty.
`compute.disableSerialPortLogging`	Set to True. Disables serial port logging to Stackdriver from Compute Engine VMs in the folder or project where the constraint is enforced. Changing this value may affect your data residency or data sovereignty.
`compute.disableInstanceDataAccessApis`	Set to True. Globally disables the `instances.getSerialPortOutput()` and `instances.getScreenshot()` APIs.
`compute.restrictNonConfidentialComputing`	(Optional) Value is not set. Set this value to provide additional defense-in-depth. See the Confidential VM documentation for more information.
`compute.trustedImageProjects`	(Optional) Value is not set. Set this value to provide additional defense-in-depth. Setting this value constrains image storage and disk instantiation to the specified list of projects. This value affects data sovereignty by preventing use of any unauthorized images or agents.

Cloud Storage organization policy constraints

Organization Policy Constraint Description

storage.uniformBucketLevelAccess Set to True.

Access to new buckets is managed using IAM policies instead of Cloud Storage Access control lists (ACLs). This constraint provides fine-grained permissions for buckets and their contents.

If a bucket is created while this constraint is enabled, access to it can never be managed by using ACLs. In other words, the access control method for a bucket is permanently set to using IAM policies instead of Cloud Storage ACLs.

Organization Policy Constraint	Description
`storage.uniformBucketLevelAccess`	Set to True. Access to new buckets is managed using IAM policies instead of Cloud Storage Access control lists (ACLs). This constraint provides fine-grained permissions for buckets and their contents. If a bucket is created while this constraint is enabled, access to it can never be managed by using ACLs. In other words, the access control method for a bucket is permanently set to using IAM policies instead of Cloud Storage ACLs.
`storage.restrictAuthTypes`	Set to prevent authentication using hash-based message authentication code (HMAC). The following two HMAC types are specified in this constraint value: `USER_ACCOUNT_HMAC_SIGNED_REQUESTS` `SERVICE_ACCOUNT_HMAC_SIGNED_REQUESTS` By default, HMAC keys are prevented from authenticating to Cloud Storage resources for workloads in Sovereign Controls by Partners. HMAC keys affect data sovereignty because they can be used to access customer data without customer knowledge. See the HMAC keys in the Cloud Storage docs. Changing this value may affect data sovereignty in your workload; we highly recommend keeping the set value.

storage.restrictAuthTypes

Set to prevent authentication using hash-based message authentication code (HMAC). The following two HMAC types are specified in this constraint value:

USER_ACCOUNT_HMAC_SIGNED_REQUESTS
SERVICE_ACCOUNT_HMAC_SIGNED_REQUESTS

By default, HMAC keys are prevented from authenticating to Cloud Storage resources for workloads in Sovereign Controls by Partners. HMAC keys affect data sovereignty because they can be used to access customer data without customer knowledge. See the HMAC keys in the Cloud Storage docs.

Changing this value may affect data sovereignty in your workload; we highly recommend keeping the set value.

Google Kubernetes Engine organization policy constraints

Organization Policy Constraint	Description
`container.restrictNoncompliantDiagnosticDataAccess`	Set to True. Used to disable aggregate analysis of kernel issues, which is required to maintain sovereign control of a workload. Changing this value may affect data sovereignty in your workload; we highly recommend keeping the set value.

Cloud Key Management Service organization policy constraints

Organization Policy Constraint	Description
`cloudkms.allowedProtectionLevels`	Set to `EXTERNAL` and `EXTERNAL_VPC`. Restricts the Cloud Key Management Service CryptoKey types that may be created, and is set to allow only `EXTERNAL` and `EXTERNAL_VPC` key types.

Impacted features

This section lists how each service's features or capabilities are impacted by Sovereign Controls by Partners.

BigQuery features

Feature	Description
Enabling BigQuery on a new folder	BigQuery is supported, but it isn't automatically enabled when you create a new Assured Workloads folder due to an internal configuration process. This process normally finishes in ten minutes, but can take much longer in some circumstances. To check whether the process is finished and to enable BigQuery, complete following steps: In the Google Cloud console, go to the Assured Workloads page. Go to Assured Workloads Select your new Assured Workloads folder from the list. On the Folder Details page in the Allowed services section, click Review Available Updates. In the Allowed services pane, review the services to be added to the Resource Usage Restriction organization policy for the folder. If BigQuery services are listed, click Allow Services to add them. If BigQuery services are not listed, wait for the internal process to complete. If the services are not listed within 12 hours of folder creation, contact Cloud Customer Care. After the enablement process is completed, you can use BigQuery in your Assured Workloads folder.
Unsupported features	The following BigQuery features are not supported and should not be used in the BigQuery CLI. It is the your responsibility not to use them in BigQuery for Sovereign Controls by Partners. Interaction with remote data sources Externally-trained BQML models are not supported. Internally-trained BQML models are supported. Scheduled and federated queries Dynamic data masking GDrive export Remote functions Saved queries Workflow scheduling For BigQuery Studio, notebooks are unsupported.
Unsupported integrations	The following BigQuery integrations are not supported. It is your responsibility not to use them with BigQuery for Sovereign Controls by Partners. The `CreateTag`, `SearchCatalog`, `Bulk tagging`, and `Business Glossary` API methods of the Data Catalog API can process and store technical data in a way that is not supported. It is your responsibility not to use those methods for Sovereign Controls by Partners.
Supported BigQuery APIs	The following BigQuery APIs are supported: Datasets Jobs Models Projects Reservations Routines Row Access Policies Storage Read Storage Write Tables Table Data The Reservations API is not enabled by default. You can enable the API using the instructions on this page.
Regions	BigQuery is supported for all BigQuery EU regions except the EU multi-region. Compliance cannot be guaranteed if a dataset is created in an EU multi-region, non-EU region, or non-EU multi-region. It is your responsibility to specify a compliant region when creating BigQuery datasets. If a table data list request is sent using one EU region but the dataset was created in another EU region, BigQuery cannot infer which region you intended and the operation will fail with a "dataset not found" error message.
Google Cloud console	The BigQuery user interface in the Google Cloud console is supported.
BigQuery CLI	The BigQuery CLI is supported.
Google Cloud SDK	You must use Google Cloud SDK version 403.0.0 or newer to maintain data regionalization guarantees for technical data. To verify your current Google Cloud SDK version, run `gcloud --version`, and then `gcloud components update` to update to the newest version.
Administrator controls	BigQuery will disable unsupported APIs but administrators with sufficient permissions to create an Assured Workloads folder can enable an unsupported API. If this occurs, you will be notified of potential non-compliance through the Assured Workloads monitoring dashboard.
Loading data	BigQuery Data Transfer Service connectors for Google Software as a Service (SaaS) apps, external cloud storage providers, and data warehouses are not supported. It is your responsibility not to use BigQuery Data Transfer Service connectors for Sovereign Controls by Partners workloads.
Third-party transfers	BigQuery does not verify support for third-party transfers for the BigQuery Data Transfer Service. It is your responsibility to verify support when using any third-party transfer for the BigQuery Data Transfer Service.
Non-compliant BQML models	Externally-trained BQML models are not supported.
Query jobs	Query jobs with should only be created within Sovereign Controls by Partners folders.
Queries on datasets in other projects	BigQuery does not prevent Sovereign Controls by Partners datasets from being queried from non-Sovereign Controls by Partners projects. You should ensure that any query that has a read or a join on Sovereign Controls by Partners data be placed in a Sovereign Controls by Partners folder. You can specify a fully-qualified table name for their query result using `projectname.dataset.table` in the BigQuery CLI.
Cloud Logging	BigQuery utilizes Cloud Logging for some of your log data. You should disable your `_default` logging buckets or restrict `_default` buckets to EU regions to maintain compliance using the following command: `gcloud alpha logging settings update --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID --disable-default-sink` See this page for more information.

Bigtable features

Feature	Description
Split boundaries	Bigtable uses a small subset of row keys to define split boundaries, which may include customer data and metadata. A split boundary in Bigtable denotes the location where contiguous ranges of rows in a table are split into tablets. These split boundaries are accessible by Google personnel for technical support and debugging purposes, and are not subject to administrative access data controls in Sovereign Controls by Partners.

Feature

Description

Split boundaries

Bigtable uses a small subset of row keys to define split boundaries, which may include customer data and metadata. A split boundary in Bigtable denotes the location where contiguous ranges of rows in a table are split into tablets.

These split boundaries are accessible by Google personnel for technical support and debugging purposes, and are not subject to administrative access data controls in Sovereign Controls by Partners.

Spanner features

Feature	Description
Split boundaries	Spanner uses a small subset of primary keys and indexed columns to define split boundaries, which may include customer data and metadata. A split boundary in Spanner denotes the location where contiguous ranges of rows are split into smaller pieces. These split boundaries are accessible by Google personnel for technical support and debugging purposes, and are not subject to administrative access data controls in Sovereign Controls by Partners.

Feature

Description

Split boundaries

Spanner uses a small subset of primary keys and indexed columns to define split boundaries, which may include customer data and metadata. A split boundary in Spanner denotes the location where contiguous ranges of rows are split into smaller pieces.

These split boundaries are accessible by Google personnel for technical support and debugging purposes, and are not subject to administrative access data controls in Sovereign Controls by Partners.

Cloud SQL features

Feature	Description
Query insights	When deploying a Cloud SQL instance, Query insights can only be used if application tags are not enabled. If application tags are enabled, you will receive an error message when attempting to use Query insights.

Compute Engine features

Feature	Description
Suspending and resuming a VM instance	This feature is disabled. Suspending and resuming a VM instance requires persistent disk storage, and persistent disk storage used for storing the suspended VM state cannot currently be encrypted by using CMEK. See the `gcp.restrictNonCmekServices` org policy constraint in the section above to understand the data sovereignty and data residency implications of enabling this feature.
Local SSDs	This feature is disabled. You will be unable to create an instance with Local SSDs because they currently cannot be encrypted by using CMEK. See the `gcp.restrictNonCmekServices` org policy constraint in the section above to understand the data sovereignty and data residency implications of enabling this feature.
Viewing serial port output	This feature is disabled; you will be unable to view the output either programmatically or via Cloud Logging. Change the `compute.disableSerialPortLogging` organization policy constraint value to False to enable serial port output.
Guest environment	It is possible for scripts, daemons, and binaries that are included with the guest environment to access unencrypted at-rest and in-use data. Depending on your VM configuration, updates to this software may be installed by default. See Guest environment for specific information about each package's contents, source code, and more. These components help you meet data sovereignty through internal security controls and processes. However, for customers who want additional control, you can also curate your own images or agents and optionally use the `compute.trustedImageProjects` organization policy constraint. See the Building a custom image topic for more information.
`instances.getSerialPortOutput()`	This API is disabled; you will be unable to get serial port output from the specified instance using this API. Change the `compute.disableInstanceDataAccessApis` organization policy constraint value to False to enable this API. You can also enable and use the interactive serial port by following the instructions in this topic.
`instances.getScreenshot()`	This API is disabled; you will be unable to get a screenshot from the specified instance using this API. Change the `compute.disableInstanceDataAccessApis` organization policy constraint value to False to enable this API. You can also enable and use the interactive serial port by following the instructions in this topic.

Dataproc features

Feature	Description
Google Cloud console	Dataproc does not currently support the Jurisdictional Google Cloud console. To enforce data residency, ensure that you use either the Google Cloud CLI or the API when using Dataproc.

GKE features

Feature	Description
Cluster resource restrictions	Ensure that your cluster configuration does not use resources for services that are unsupported in Sovereign Controls by Partners. For example, the following configuration is invalid because it requires enabling or using an unsupported service: set `binaryAuthorization.evaluationMode` to `enabled`

Cloud Logging features

Required additional Cloud Logging configuration for CMEK

To use Cloud Logging with Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK), you must complete the steps in the Enable CMEK for an organization topic in the Cloud Logging documentation.

Impacted Cloud Logging features

Feature	Description
Log sinks	Filters shouldn't contain Customer Data. Log sinks include filters which are stored as configuration. Don't create filters that contain Customer Data.
Live tailing log entries	Filters shouldn't contain Customer Data. A live tailing session includes a filter which is stored as configuration. Tailing logs doesn't store any log entry data itself, but can query and transmit data across regions. Don't create filters that contain Customer Data.
Log-based alerts	This feature is disabled. You cannot create log-based alerts in the Google Cloud console.
Shortened URLs for Logs Explorer queries	This feature is disabled. You cannot create shortened URLs of queries in the Google Cloud console.
Saving queries in Logs Explorer	This feature is disabled. You cannot save any queries in the Google Cloud console.
Log Analytics using BigQuery	This feature is disabled. You cannot use the Log Analytics feature.