Xiaomi to move servers in light of recent privacy issues

Hey Xiaomi fans and users! Hugo Barra, VP of International for Xiaomi, posted a status on Facebook regarding an important security issue and update. Read on to find out.

Here is Hugo Barra’s status update last October 22, 2014.

>> We’re moving your data! < <

User experience is hugely important to us. As a global Internet company, we really care about speed and we’re also fully committed to storing our users’ data securely at all times.

In early 2014, we kicked off a massive internal effort to expand our server infrastructure globally in order to better serve Mi fans everywhere.

Our primary goal in moving to a multi-site server architecture was to improve the performance of our services for Mi fans around the world, cut down latency and reduce failure rates. At the same time, it also better equips us to maintain high privacy standards and comply with local data protection regulations. This is a very high priority for Xiaomi as we expand into new markets over the next few years.

This server and data migration process is taking place in three phases.

>> PHASE 1: E-commerce migration

Earlier this year, our e-commerce engineering teams started migrating our global e-commerce platforms and user data for all international users from our Beijing data centers to Amazon AWS data centers in California (USA) and Singapore. We also began using Akamai’s global CDN infrastructure to speed up static page loads.

This migration process will be completed by the end of October and will benefit users in all of our international markets — Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan. Users are already experiencing website speed boosts of at least 30% in markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and as much as 200% in India.

>> PHASE 2: MIUI services migration

We have also recently started migrating our MIUI services and corresponding data for all international users from our Beijing data centers to Amazon AWS data centers in Oregon (USA) and Singapore. This migration includes Mi Account, Cloud Messaging and Mi Cloud services. We are expecting to complete this migration by the end of 2014, with some parts being completed even sooner (e.g. Mi Account servers by the end of October).

With this migration, we are expecting to cut network request latency for users in India by up to 350ms, and users in Malaysia to experience 2-3x faster Mi Cloud photosync.

>> PHASE 3: Going local

In 2015, we are planning to take on a new challenge to further improve the performance of our services for users in large and fast-growing markets such as India and Brazil.

In these markets, where Amazon AWS services aren’t yet available, we will be working with local data center providers to set up our service infrastructure. Once that has been completed, users in these markets will be much closer to their data and enjoy even faster speeds by connecting to local servers.

We will continue to keep everyone posted!

Hugo
(on behalf of the Xiaomi infrastructure teams)

Seems like Xiaomi is taking the security of users seriously and is preparing for more data as they expand further out of China to neighbouring Asian nations. You may read about the recent issue concerning the privacy of Xiaomi phones here.

Source: Hugo Barra