As organizations expand globally, secrets management must scale with them. Applications running in multiple regions need fast, local access to Vault for encryption, authentication, token issuance, and secrets retrieval. Performance replication in HCP Vault Dedicated delivers this global scalability without requiring teams to build or operate multi-region Vault clusters themselves.
HCP Vault Dedicated pairs Vault Enterprise’s most advanced replication features with the simplicity and reliability of a fully managed service, empowering organizations to do more with fewer operational resources.
Learn why this SaaS approach to secrets management improves affordability and helps scale quickly, and see our best practices for setting it up with our performance replication architecture checklist.
»What is HCP Vault Dedicated?
HCP Vault Dedicated is a single-tenant, fully managed deployment of Vault Enterprise operated by HashiCorp. It includes enterprise-grade features such as performance replication, multi-region support, high availability, and sophisticated policies — while HashiCorp SREs handle upgrades, patching, scaling, monitoring, and resilience.
In short: you get the power of Vault Enterprise without managing the infrastructure.
»Why performance replication matters
Performance replication is designed for modern distributed architectures where workloads run across multiple regions. It solves challenges such as:
- High latency when workloads must reach a distant Vault cluster
- Throughput limitations during encryption/decryption bursts
- Data-locality requirements driven by regional compliance or network design
- Read-heavy workloads that benefit from distributed replicas
- Operational complexity of managing multi-region Vault deployments manually
Performance replication enables regional read scalability and high performance while keeping a single, authoritative primary region for writes.
»Performance replication in HCP Vault Dedicated
Performance replication in HCP Vault Dedicated provides:
»Region-local read access
Secondary clusters serve local reads, token operations, and cryptographic functions close to the application, reducing latency and boosting performance.
»Asynchronous state replication
Secrets, policies, and mounts are synchronized to secondary clusters while local leases and tokens remain region-specific.
»Support for multiple secondaries
HCP supports multiple performance secondaries for the same primary, allowing truly global distribution without complex self-managed infrastructure.
»Transparent write routing
Write operations automatically go to the primary region, simplifying client logic.
»Simplified configuration
Performance replication is enabled directly from the HCP interface or API. No manual replication pipelines, no specialized networking setup.
»The managed service advantage
HCP Vault Dedicated delivers enterprise-grade features as a managed service, which brings enormous value.
»1. No multi-region Vault infrastructure to build or maintain
Without HCP, performance replication requires:
- Deploying multiple Vault clusters and self-managing complex automation
- Managing TLS, storage backends, and integrated storage
- Setting up network routing and firewall rules
- Configuring replication roles and tokens
- Monitoring synchronization lag
- Upgrading clusters without breaking replication
HCP offloads all of this.
When using an HCP service, HashiCorp engineers deploy, operate, and monitor the multi-region topology for you. You simply enable the secondary region(s) and use them.
»2. Seamless scaling without added headcount
Expanding to new markets? Adding another cloud region? Instead of adding SRE/DevOps staff, you:
- Click “Add secondary region”
- Point workloads to the new endpoint
- Let HashiCorp handle operations behind the scenes
»3. Automated upgrades and health management
HashiCorp performs coordinated upgrades on primary and secondary clusters, preserving replication integrity and availability. Your teams don’t spend cycles validating version compatibility or execution steps.
»4. Reduced risk from misconfiguration or downtime
Because HashiCorp manages the control plane, the risk of replication breakage, node drift, or storage inconsistencies is dramatically lower than in self-managed environments.
»5. Lower total cost of ownership (TCO)
Instead of maintaining multiple regional clusters, infrastructure, monitoring systems, and on-call staffing, organizations pay for a managed service that already includes:
- Monitoring
- Replication management
- Patching and upgrades
- Multi-region orchestration
- Security hardening
This shifts cost from infrastructure + headcount → to predictable service tiers.
»Performance replication architecture checklist
Multi-region planning in HCP Vault Dedicated is a lot easier than self-managed Vault. This performance replication architecture checklist will help your team get started (and it’s about one-tenth as long as the checklist would be for Vault Enterprise):
»Tier selection
- Use the Essentials or Standard tier — both include performance replication
»Multi-region design
- Identify primary and secondary regions based on workload locations
- Ensure applications can reach the nearest regional cluster endpoint
- Validate networking connectivity (HVN peering, TGW, PrivateLink, etc.)
»Configuration and replication setup
- Enable performance replication on the primary cluster
- Link secondary clusters through the HCP interface or API
- Configure optional path filters to limit or tailor replicated content
»Operational practices
- Monitor replication health (HCP provides built-in insights)
- Validate read throughput improvements in all regions
- Test failover scenarios if using performance replication alongside DR replication
»Governance and cost optimization
- Use path filters to meet compliance residency requirements
- Review which namespaces/secrets engines need replication
- Ensure operational practices align with compliance controls
»The outcomes of SaaS for secrets management performance
Performance replication in HCP Vault Dedicated delivers globally distributed secrets management that is:
- Fast — region-local reads and crypto operations
- Scalable — multiple secondaries for global workloads
- Consistent — one primary source of truth
- Low-latency — no cross-region round-trips for read workloads
- Managed — no multi-region infrastructure to build or maintain
Most importantly, HCP Vault Dedicated enables organizations to operate global-scale Vault deployments with fewer resources, less risk, and lower operational complexity.
If you’re interested in testing HCP Vault Dedicated yourself, visit our HCP portal and sign up for the service, which can take advantage of the $500 HCP trial credit.
