Check Point launches Perth data residency SASE site

Check Point has launched a data residency instance for its Workplace Security SASE service in Western Australia, adding Perth to its existing locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.

The new site is aimed at enterprise and government customers in Western Australia that want data stored and processed locally. It is intended to help organisations meet data privacy, sovereignty and compliance requirements under rules including the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, the Privacy Act, the My Health Records Act, APRA CPS 234 and the ASD Essential Eight.

Western Australia has become a more important market for technology suppliers as state agencies, miners, healthcare providers and other large employers face tighter scrutiny over where data is stored and how it moves across networks. Local hosting has also become a procurement issue for some public sector bodies and regulated industries.

The Perth site extends Check Point's regional network for secure access services. It is also intended to support local performance requirements, with users in the state connecting through infrastructure closer to where they work.

Local presence

According to Check Point, the Perth service includes redundancy and autoscaling designed to keep services running during periods of higher demand or component failure. The site uses high-availability clusters, hybrid mesh architecture and secure tunnels to create alternate paths for traffic and reduce the risk of a single point of failure.

The service is also set up to detect and block threats including malware, phishing and unusual behaviour. It provides monitoring and policy controls across enterprise environments, data centres and cloud systems through a single management interface.

Each point of presence applies Zero Trust Network Access policies so that only authorised users and devices can reach applications and other resources, whether those resources are on premises or in the cloud. Traffic is then directed through the nearest location, with routing adjusted according to network conditions across the company's backbone.

The launch comes as cyber security providers seek to reassure Australian customers over data handling, resilience and local compliance. For multinational vendors, building or expanding Australian infrastructure has become one way to address concerns from government agencies and large organisations about offshore processing and latency.

Compliance focus

Check Point linked the Perth rollout to broader regulatory and operational demands in Australia. Those demands have increased as businesses adopt more cloud services, connect more users remotely and face a more complex set of security obligations.

Western Australia presents a distinct case because of its distance from the eastern states and the concentration of large resource, energy and public sector organisations operating there. For some customers, a local point of presence can reduce the need to send traffic through East Coast infrastructure before it reaches applications or inspection tools.

The Perth instance is also backed by more than 80 interconnected points of presence globally. That wider network is intended to support customers that need to connect users, applications and data across multiple regions while keeping a local processing option in Western Australia.

Earlier this year, Check Point completed an Australian Government Information Security Registered Assessors Program assessment report for its Cloud Infinity products at the PROTECTED classification level. The assessment relates to its security posture across administrative, production and cloud environments.

David Caspari outlined the company's view of the expansion in Australia.

"We are deeply committed to helping all organisations to secure, simplify and transform their operations while providing the resilient infrastructure organisations need to strengthen their cyber security posture and maximise the benefits of their AI transformation," said David Caspari, Managing Director ANZ, Check Point Software Technologies.

"The local Workplace Security SASE PoP here in Perth reinforces our prevention-first approach and helps Western Australian enterprises leverage trusted AI-powered security built to Australian standards, eliminating the need for backhauling traffic to distant data centres and ensuring faster access to critical applications and services. With the ability to dynamically monitor and optimise network performance, we look forward to partnering with enterprises in the west through our new instance to further reinforce consistent, high-quality connectivity," Caspari said.