General-Purpose Public Cloud Was Designed for a Different Problem
Five Differences That Matter to Utilities
Who Shares the Hardware
Public cloud tenants are not vetted. A critical grid application can share physical hardware with any workload from any customer. On ACS, every tenant is a critical infrastructure application operating under related regulatory and security requirements, and dedicated hardware tenancy is available when no sharing is acceptable.
What the Customer Can See
Public cloud data centers, hardware supply chains, and network topology are opaque by design. ACS documents the physical facilities, names its hardware manufacturers, and provides the full network path from workload to carrier handoff to customers under NDA.
When the Infrastructure Changes
Public cloud infrastructure changes continuously without tenant notification, and incident status is published at region level on a generic dashboard. ACS notifies tenants in advance of infrastructure changes that affect them and issues tenant-specific incident notices with OT-relevant impact context.
What the Bill Looks Like
Usage-based billing rewards workloads that scale down. A 24×7 OT application never does, and pays for egress, API calls, storage operations, and premium support on top. ACS bills fixed monthly capacity with network transit at published 95th-percentile rates.
What the Auditor Gets
Public cloud shared responsibility models are generic and do not reference NERC CIP. ACS provides a SOC 2 Type II report mapped to CIP Low Impact requirements, a clearly defined shared responsibility matrix, and physical security controls modeled on CIP-006.
Side by Side
| Consideration | General-Purpose Public Cloud | Accurant Cloud Services |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant population | Unvetted; any workload, any customer | Vetted critical infrastructure applications only; dedicated hardware available |
| NERC CIP alignment | Generic shared responsibility model | Shared responsibility matrix and SOC 2 controls mapped to CIP Low Impact requirements |
| Physical transparency | Facility and hosting design not disclosed | Facility design and controls available under NDA |
| Network visibility | Underlying topology not disclosed | Full path documented from workload to internet edge or carrier handoff |
| Hardware provenance | Not disclosed | Named US-allied manufacturers only |
| Change management | Changes occur without tenant notice | Advance notice of changes affecting the tenant |
| Incident communication | Region-level status dashboard | Tenant-specific notification with OT impact context |
| Private connectivity | Provider-defined interconnect products | Circuit termination in ACS-controlled meet-me rooms with physical demarcation |
| DR testing | Self-service within provider tooling | Scheduled cross-site tests with customer witness option |
| Billing | Usage-metered; egress, API, and operation fees | Fixed monthly capacity; transit at published 95th-percentile rates |
Compared with On-Premises Hosting
Many utilities still host OT systems in their own control center facilities. That keeps everything under direct control, but it also means the utility owns physical security, hardware refresh, disaster recovery, and 24×7 infrastructure staffing, often on a single site with a skeleton on-call team. ACS provides dual-site architecture, 120+ hours of on-site fuel, CIP-006-mapped physical controls, and audit evidence through its SOC 2 program, while the utility keeps operational control and its own CIP obligations.
For a vendor, offering an ACS-hosted option alongside on-premises deployment lets utilities choose without changing the product, and Renovo’s hosted offering is an example of that model in practice.
Evaluating Hosting Options for a Utility Product?
We’re glad to brief vendor engineering and security teams, and the utility teams they answer to.