Cloud – Network of Remote Servers
Cloud refers to on‑demand computing resources for data storage, applications, analytics platforms, and computational power delivered through secure, scalable internet-based services. For utilities, cloud serves as the foundation for enabling real-time operations, integrated enterprise data platforms, automation, and enhanced customer experience.
Core Functions
- Data Storage for Utility Asset Management and Operations: Sensitive control data remains on-premises but can be sanitized and replicated to the cloud, alongside operational and enterprise data, to improve situational awareness and support activities such as demand forecasting.
- Commonly Hosted Data for Utilities: Cloud-hosted utility data can include the following.
- SCADA historian data
- Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) data
- Asset records from maintenance, inspections, and IoT sensors
- Customer experience data from billing, CRM, and contact center logs
- GIS mapping and connected networks
- Market forecasting datasets
- DER and renewable integration data
- Commonly Hosted Data for Utilities: Cloud-hosted utility data can include the following.
- Data and Infrastructure Security: Public clouds are super capable and exceed most organizations’ security needs. Straightforward to deploy, multifactor authentication, threat detection, and anomaly detection are prebaked (at a cost) and mirror or surpass that of many on-prem solutions.
Key Benefits
- Cost Advantages: For utilities, the cloud offers CAPEX availability and coverage within the organization’s rate base, enabling costs to be recovered.
- Eliminates Common Bottlenecks: Cloud offers organizations near-unlimited capacity and elasticity by providing on-demand compute, storage, and distribution resources.
- Increased Customer Satisfaction: Cloud is becoming pivotal to enabling real-time data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning (ML) automation, leading tobetter customer support through the following:
- Enabling more meaningful and proactive insights
- More accurate planning
- Faster service response
- Better customer engagement
- Improves Operational Efficiency: Cloud users generally experience less management and overhead for cloud, hardware, infrastructure, maintenance, and licensing.
Integration with Other Systems
Modern but proven integration patterns directly impact cloud architecture. The best integration patterns are those that ensure seamless data flow between organizational systems, including the following:
- Legacy vs. Modern
- OT vs. IT
- Cloud vs. on-prem (encompassing a hybrid cloud)
- Mobile vs. Office
Utilities can realize the full potential of the cloud when their architectures leverage APIs for inter-application connectivity, microservices for scalability, event-driven automation that triggers key workflows, and secure data pipelines between OT and IT systems.
Considerations
Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid cloud in utility environments:
- Public cloud environments consist of shared infrastructure on platforms like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Utilities typically leverage public cloud for systems of engagement, analytics, customer service, enterprise apps, and AMI data platforms. It’s important to note that the term ‘public cloud’ can be misleading; it does not mean a utility’s cloud systems are open and accessible to the public. In fact, utilities will always use an isolated cloud account/tenant that is securely segregated by a private network.
- Private cloud environments comprise dedicated infrastructure that is owned/leased, and operated by an organization. These environments exist within a customer’s data center or a third-party data center (sometimes delivered as a managed private cloud service), providing greater control over the infrastructure. Utilities generally use private cloud for sensitive data and systems of record, such as SCADA and other operational workloads.
- Hybrid cloud environments include a mix of both public and private cloud infrastructure. With hybrid clouds, most utilities tend to keep operational technology systems on-premisesand deploy information technology systems on secure public cloud infrastructure.
Outlook
Cloud platforms have made it possible to securely access systems from anywhere, collaborate in real time via cloud-based productivity tools, coordinate a multi-region response to an event, and tap into niche expertise through shared environments and interoperability. This is especially true after 2020.
Cloud provides the compute and storage capabilities for AI and big data, supporting predictive maintenance, load forecasting, damage assessment, mapping and visualization, DER optimization, and personalized customer experience at scale.
Over time, AI and ML will become more embedded with cloud-based utilities to help automate asset inspections and repairs, predict equipment failures earlier, enable autonomous outage detection, and improve customer experience.
Most utilities in the cloud today use a hybrid cloud rather than a “full cloud” (public cloud), and will do so for the foreseeable future, mainly to insulate control systems from the outside world while leveraging public cloud platforms for analytics, customer interaction, forecasting, and IT. Over time, as regulations and technology evolve, and as understanding of cloud security controls widens, the balance may shift, but hybrid will dominate for at least the next decade.
Summation
The cloud is foundational to the digital transformation of utilities, enabling scalable data platforms, enhanced customer engagement, operational efficiency, and supporting advanced analytics and AI. Utilities increasingly operate in hybrid environments that protect critical infrastructure while leveraging the benefits of modern cloud services.
