UK FCA-regulated firms (asset managers, brokers, fund administrators, family offices, wealth managers, private banks, fintechs) face shared IT architecture decisions: DORA + Operational Resilience compliance, trading-floor latency, cyber posture for SII + Lloyd's, and Microsoft + Bloomberg + Refinitiv integration. This is the 2026 reference stack.
Layer 1 — Identity + endpoint
Microsoft Entra ID Premium P2 + Conditional Access.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 or CrowdStrike Falcon Enterprise.
Microsoft Intune for device management.
CyberArk or BeyondTrust for PAM on privileged + service accounts.
Layer 2 — Network + perimeter
Fortinet FortiGate or Palo Alto NGFW for office + DC perimeter.
Zscaler ZPA / ZIA for hybrid workforce + SASE.
SD-WAN for multi-office connectivity.
Dedicated low-latency peering for trading-floor connectivity to LSE + LMAX + ICE.
Layer 3 — Data protection
Veeam Data Platform Advanced or Rubrik Security Cloud for backup.
Immutable target — hardened Linux repository, AWS S3 Object Lock, or Rubrik air-gapped vault.
Immutable architecture is now DORA-evidenced minimum.
Layer 4 — Compute + storage
Nutanix HCI or VMware vSAN (or Azure Stack HCI for Microsoft shops).
Hardware: Dell PowerEdge or HPE ProLiant or Lenovo ThinkSystem.
Storage: PowerStore / Pure FlashArray / NetApp AFF for SAN where required.
Trading floors: low-latency NICs + KVM-over-IP (Raritan KX IV or Vertiv HMX).
Layer 5 — Productivity + comms
Microsoft 365 E5 + Teams Phone (or third-party telephony).
Bloomberg Terminal + Refinitiv Eikon integrations.
OMS / EMS (Charles River, Aladdin, BlackRock) — keep on dedicated infrastructure with isolated networks.
Compliance overlay
DORA Article 30 ICT contracts.
FCA Operational Resilience (PS21/3).
What Servnet does
Servnet runs the full FS IT stack — see our Financial Services practice. Specialist focus on asset managers, brokers, fund administrators, family offices.