Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC): Run Vela in Your Cloud for Control and Compliance

Oct 21, 2025 • Vela Team • 10 min read • BYOCPostgreSQLPostgres BaaSAI BackendVela

Many organizations are uncomfortable moving databases to hosted services. Compliance requirements demand data residency. Security policies require vendor access controls. BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) lets you run Vela inside your AWS, GCP, or Azure account. Your data never leaves your VPC. Your IAM controls access. Your audit logs capture every action.

Cloud infrastructure and security — BYOC keeps your data in your VPC with complete control over access and compliance.

Why BYOC Matters for Enterprise

Hosted databases introduce risk. Your cloud provider controls infrastructure. A breach, misconfiguration, or compliance failure lands on you. BYOC shifts control to you. Your VPC, your networking, your access policies. Vela runs inside your boundary, leaving no data or control in vendor hands.

This matters for regulated industries. Healthcare, finance, and government have strict residency and access requirements. BYOC makes compliance achievable without forgoing modern database features.

How BYOC Works

You provision infrastructure in your cloud account. Vela's control plane connects to your infrastructure and orchestrates databases, branches, and storage. Compute and storage run on your instances. The control plane itself can run in your account or remain hosted—you choose.

All data stays in your VPC. Networking is private. IAM policies restrict who can access infrastructure. Audit logs record database operations. Your cloud provider never has unfiltered access to your data.

Zero Vendor Access by Default

Vela support cannot access your databases without explicit permission. Support sessions require your approval for each action. Session logs record all access. This is the opposite of hosted services where vendors may have back-door access for operational reasons.

This zero-access-by-default model simplifies compliance. Security audits confirm Vela has no standing access. Your team maintains sole control.

Data Residency and Sovereignty

Some regulations require data to stay in specific jurisdictions. GDPR demands EU residency for EU customers. Some governments forbid foreign vendor access. BYOC solves this. Run Vela in EU infrastructure for GDPR. Run in your own on-premises data center if needed. No data movement. No cross-border transfers.

This flexibility makes Vela suitable for global teams and regulated data.

Compliance and Audit Trails

BYOC deployments generate audit trails in your own CloudTrail or similar service. You control log retention and analysis. Security teams can integrate logs with their SIEM. No external audit logs, no third-party dependencies for compliance proof.

This level of transparency simplifies SOC2, ISO 27001, and other compliance certifications.

Performance and Networking

BYOC eliminates cross-cloud networking. Your applications and databases run in the same cloud and region. Latency drops. Throughput increases. Data transfer costs vanish. You get the performance benefits of co-location without the operational overhead.

For AI backends and real-time applications, this is critical. Embedding models, RAG pipelines, and vector searches all benefit from low-latency database access.

Cost Transparency

With BYOC, your cloud bill is your database bill. No hidden vendor markups. No opaque pricing. You see exactly what compute and storage cost in your cloud account. Cost becomes predictable and optimizable.

This transparency helps finance teams budget accurately and capacity teams plan growth.

The Result: Database Control Without the Operational Burden

BYOC lets teams enjoy Vela's features—database branching, scale-to-zero, realtime channels—while maintaining full control. Compliance is achievable. Security is in your hands. Data never leaves your boundary.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does BYOC mean?

BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) means you deploy and run Vela inside your own cloud account (AWS, GCP, Azure, or on-premises). Your data stays in your VPC, your IAM controls access, and your audit logs capture all activity. Vela orchestrates the infrastructure, but you maintain complete control over the environment.

Is my data safer with BYOC?

BYOC gives you full visibility and control over your data. Your VPC boundaries contain all data. Your IAM policies restrict access. Vela vendor cannot access databases without explicit permission. This is generally safer than hosted services where vendors may have standing access for operational needs.

Does BYOC work with existing compliance standards?

Yes. BYOC aligns with compliance frameworks like GDPR (data residency), HIPAA (PHI protection), FedRAMP (government requirements), and PCI-DSS (payment card data). You control where data lives, who accesses it, and how audit trails work. This makes compliance certifications like SOC2 and ISO 27001 achievable.

What are the performance benefits of BYOC?

Because databases run in your cloud account alongside your applications, latency is minimized and throughput is maximized. Data transfer costs vanish (no cross-cloud data movement). For AI backends and real-time applications that need low-latency database access, BYOC is ideal.

Can Vela support help me debug issues in a BYOC deployment?

Yes, but with your control. Vela support cannot access your databases without explicit permission for each session. You approve support access, define scope and duration, and see audit logs of all support activity. This zero-access-by-default model satisfies strict compliance requirements.