Small clinic-adjacent business, not storing health records but the client is nervous about data leaving the country and I'd rather not argue the point. I need a VPS or managed plan with a Canadian location, roughly 2 vCPU, and I'd like to stay under CAD 40 a month. I've already ruled out the big three clouds on cost for something this small.
Two obvious non-hyperscaler options with real Canadian regions: DigitalOcean's Toronto region, and OVHcloud, whose Canadian capacity is mostly in Beauharnois, Quebec, with a newer Ontario site as well. Both put you comfortably under CAD 40 for 2 vCPU.
OVH's Quebec footprint is much bigger than I realised. That's two credible options straight off.
Don't forget the backups land somewhere too. I've seen a carefully chosen Canadian VPS backing up nightly into a bucket in Virginia because that was the default region in the config.
There are decent independent Canadian hosts who've been around for years and will tell you exactly which building your data is in, which is a conversation you cannot have with a hyperscaler at any price. Costs a couple of dollars more and it buys you the client conversation.
If it genuinely isn't regulated data, the honest answer to the client might be that the residency requirement costs them money for no measurable reduction in risk. Sometimes they still want it and that's fine, but say it once, in writing.
@vettech_marla · 4d ago · 3 replies
Pin down what "data staying in Canada" means with the client before you shop. Does it cover the disk, the backups, the log aggregation, the email, and the support staff who can view any of it? Providers vary enormously on the last two and that's usually where the promise quietly breaks.
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@row_level_sam · 5d ago
Fair. I suspect they're worried about a headline rather than a threat model, but the questions are still worth asking out loud.
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@harlan_voss · 6d ago
This is the answer. Half of these requirements dissolve the moment you ask what specifically they're worried about.
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