Liquid Web A practical guide for leaders in regulated financial institutions.
This conversation usually starts earlier than people realize. Most infrastructure decisions don’t start as infrastructure decisions. They start as:
- “We need to launch this.”
- “This system’s getting more visible.”
- “We’re adding another vendor.”
- “This isn’t performing the way it used to.”
At some point, someone says, “We need hosting.” And suddenly the conversation jumps straight to providers, pricing, and platforms—often before anyone has slowed down long enough to agree on what the system actually needs to support.
That’s where decisions tend to get boxed in too early.
This guide is meant to help you pause the conversation, reframe it, and make choices that hold up—technically, operationally, and under scrutiny.
Be honest about what kind of system this really is
Before evaluating vendors, it helps to ground the conversation in reality, not labels.
A system doesn’t need to be core to be critical.
Ask yourself:
- Does this system touch customers or members directly?
- If it went down, would it create noise outside IT?
- Does it handle data an examiner would reasonably care about?
- Does it integrate with core platforms, processors, or regulated vendors?
- Would a failure turn into a board-level explanation?
If the answer to even one of those is yes, the system is mission-critical—whether or not it lives inside the core.
A simple gut check: If an outage would require an executive update, this system needs more than good-enough infrastructure.
This is where many teams realize they’ve been under-scoping the decision.
Clarify where the system doesn’t belong
Once you’ve acknowledged the system’s importance, clarity often comes from elimination.
Two common defaults tend to create problems later:
Forcing the system into the core. This often feels safe—until it slows delivery, adds friction, or stretches platforms beyond what they were designed to do. Core systems are built to protect stability. That’s a strength. But not everything benefits from living inside that boundary.
Dropping the system onto generic or shared infrastructure. This usually looks fast and cost-effective—until performance becomes inconsistent, responsibility gets blurry, audit questions get uncomfortable, and incident reviews get messy.
If you’re already anticipating how you’d explain this placement to an examiner, that’s a signal.
Regulators don’t expect zero risk. They expect intentional decisions and documented accountability.
Reframe the evaluation around outcomes, not platforms
This is the moment where many evaluations go sideways.
Instead of asking, “Which cloud is best?” try asking: “What must this infrastructure make possible—and what must it never put at risk?”
For regulated environments, the answers tend to cluster around a few outcomes:
Predictability
You want to know how this system behaves—not just on good days, but during traffic surges, incidents, and edge cases. If you can’t describe that confidently, the infrastructure isn’t doing its job.
Isolation
Not everything needs to be isolated—but mission-critical systems shouldn’t be collateral damage. Ask yourself: if something breaks elsewhere, does this system stay intact?
Accountability
When something goes wrong, there should be no debate about who owns the system, who’s responsible for operations, and who responds. If that answer depends on escalation paths or contract interpretation, it’s worth revisiting.
Auditability
The question isn’t “Are we compliant?” It’s “Can we show it without scrambling?” Documentation, logs, and responsibility models should already exist—not be assembled under pressure.
Explainability
At some point, you’ll explain this architecture to someone who isn’t technical. If it takes ten minutes and three caveats, the design may be too fragile. The best architectures aren’t the most complex—they’re the easiest to explain.
Evaluate providers
Once outcomes are clear, vendor conversations get easier and more productive.
Instead of listening for feature lists, pay attention to how providers answer questions like:
- How do you document shared responsibility?
- What do you provide during audits or exams?
- How do you separate workloads like ours from other tenants?
- What happens when something goes wrong at 2 a.m.?
- How do you support investigations, reporting, and recovery?
The clarity of these answers matters more than the breadth of services.
Providers comfortable in regulated environments tend to speak plainly about responsibility and boundaries. Providers that aren’t, often rely on abstraction.
Pressure-test the decision
Before finalizing anything, run a simple mental exercise:
Imagine an examiner asks why this system lives where it does.
Could you explain:
- The rationale for placement?
- How risk is managed?
- How performance and availability are ensured?
- How third-party exposure is controlled?
If the explanation feels defensive or overly technical, that’s useful feedback. It means the decision needs more clarity, not more justification.
Where Specialty Cloud fits into this picture
This is the space Specialty Cloud is designed for—not as a replacement for core platforms, but as an environment for non-core systems that still carry real weight.
It exists to give institutions a place where:
- Important systems can live outside the core
- Controls remain strong and documented
- Innovation doesn’t quietly increase risk
- Decisions can be explained to examiners with confidence
This is less about technology and more about governance with confidence.
How Liquid Web supports this approach
Liquid Web supports institutions that need infrastructure for non-core, mission-critical systems—without compromising clarity, accountability, or examiner confidence.
Our focus:
- Dedicated, separated environments designed to contain risk
- Reliable performance that doesn’t fluctuate based on other tenants’ activity
- Transparent responsibility models with documented ownership at every layer
- Complete documentation and visibility for audit and regulatory review
- Teams who understand regulated scrutiny and compliance realities
We’re often brought in where teams say: “This doesn’t belong in the core—but it still needs to be done right.”
The takeaway
The hardest infrastructure decisions aren’t technical. They’re the ones where speed matters, risk matters, and the consequences of getting it wrong show up later.
The goal isn’t to avoid change. It’s to make decisions you’ll still feel comfortable explaining—months or years from now—when someone asks why.