SDSC Sherlock Cloud services (web)
Citation
San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), Sherlock Cloud Services. “Secure Cloud Services.” Service page, date not stated. https://sherlock.sdsc.edu/cloud-services. Read 2026-11-05.
Bottom line
- Sherlock is SDSC’s managed secure hosting service for regulated data (HIPAA, FISMA, NIST 800-53, CMMC, SOC 2). It runs on the three major public clouds and adds the controls the clouds do not give.
- Customers inherit Sherlock’s security plans and policies, and get FinOps cost tracking. SDSC uses “our academic identity to negotiate favorable licensing costs”.
Background
The page is the service description for Sherlock, “Part of the SDSC Community, A UC San Diego Organization”. It lists the compliance drivers, the services (system, security, compliance, personnel), the shared responsibility model on public clouds, and cost management.
Key claims
- “Sherlock Cloud Services excels in secure hosting and compliant data management for academic, government, and industry partners.” (Secure Cloud Services)
- “With the goal of achieving end-to-end compliance, our strategy leverages the NIST 800-53 (Mod) Framework, a recognized standard in cybersecurity and risk management.” (The Sherlock Approach)
- “Sherlock has leveraged public Cloud platforms to extend our HIPAA and NIST 800-53 certified services, ensuring secure processing, storage, and transmission of PHI for our clients. While public Cloud offerings are not fully compliant, Sherlock fills this gap by providing the necessary services on top of public Cloud resources, offering our customers end-to-end compliance.” (Compliance in the Cloud)
- “As Sherlock has secured the trifecta of major public Cloud platforms included within the Sherlock offered solutions, customers can choose the public Cloud platform that best aligns with their organizational, regulatory and research needs.” (Multi-Cloud Approach)
- “We leverage our academic identity to negotiate favorable licensing costs, which helps reduce the cost of operations.” (Best of Class Enterprise Products)
- “Our solutions are staffed with and supported with vetted U.S. persons compliant with regulatory requirements” including “Proposal partnership (Co-PI)” and “Annual background checks”. (Personnel Services)
- “Sherlock customers inherit these lifecycle documents and can share them with their sponsors as required.” The documents include a System Security Plan, Contingency Plan, Incident Response Plan and “Policies & Procedures (19)”. (System Lifecycle Plans & Policies)
Evidence and method
A service page. It names frameworks and services; it gives no prices, customer counts or audit reports.
Limits
No pricing and no list of the three cloud vendors on this page (the vendors section names AWS and GCP accounts under Strategic Blue). It does not say what GPU or AI capacity Sherlock offers.