SOC 2 Consultants for On-Prem and Hybrid Infrastructure

Most SOC 2 consultants know AWS. Some know Azure and GCP. Very few know what to do when your stack includes a colocation facility, a bare-metal fleet, Palo Alto or Check Point firewalls, F5 load balancers, VMware or Proxmox hypervisors, or a hybrid deployment where the control plane is in AWS and the workload runs in a cage in Ashburn or Toronto.

That is the gap we fill. The same evaluation criteria for choosing a SOC 2 consultant apply here, but with an additional filter: infrastructure experience matters. Our team has spent decades building and securing traditional data center environments, from Cisco switching fabrics and Palo Alto perimeters to F5 application delivery and Dynatrace observability. We have run SOC 2 readiness engagements across enterprise-grade infrastructure and open-source stacks alike. We understand what an auditor will ask for when your evidence does not come from a cloud API.

Why on-prem SOC 2 is different

The SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria do not change when you run on-prem. What changes is the evidence and the control design.

Physical security becomes real. In AWS, CC6.4 is answered by the SOC report of your cloud provider. In a colocation facility, you have to document badge access, cage locks, camera coverage, visitor logs, and the physical security policy of the colo itself. Most SOC 2 consultants have never written these controls.

Network security is not a VPC with security groups. It is a Palo Alto, Check Point, or Cisco firewall, a set of VLANs, network segmentation rules, and an IDS/IPS deployment you actually have to operate. Auditors want to see the firewall rule change process, not a Terraform plan.

Backup and recovery require evidence of the physical restore. You cannot point at an S3 lifecycle policy. You have to show backup jobs running, restore tests completing, and offsite copies arriving at a second location.

Logging and monitoring is a pipeline you built. Wazuh, Security Onion, Loki, Elastic, Splunk, or some combination. You own the ingestion, the retention, the alerting, and the runbook. Auditors want to see the end-to-end story.

Patch management is a process, not an API call. You are patching hypervisors, network gear, storage, and operating systems on your own schedule. The control has to be documented and evidenced.

Who we work with

Our on-prem specialty: not a marketing claim

Our team has built and secured infrastructure at organizations processing hundreds of billions in daily transactions, using Cisco, Palo Alto, Check Point, F5, and enterprise monitoring platforms like Dynatrace and Splunk. We also run a working lab with Proxmox, firewall appliances, Wazuh, and Security Onion to test and validate every control pattern before recommending it to clients. We work across the full spectrum, from enterprise-grade commercial stacks to cost-effective open-source alternatives.

How we work

We offer four engagement types so on-prem operators can pick the right entry point.

Pricing

We do not publish fixed prices because every infrastructure footprint scopes differently. For a complete breakdown of all four cost components, see the SOC 2 cost and timeline guide. Typical ranges from competent consultants in this market:

We give every prospect a fixed-price quote on the scoping call.

What the Build covers for on-prem environments

What we do (and do not do)

• We implement GRC platforms for on-prem and hybrid environments. Vanta, Drata, Scrut, Secureframe, Sprinto. We are certified implementers and can resell licenses or work with one you already own. We will recommend the platform that fits your stack.
• We do not tell clients to move to AWS to make SOC 2 easier. If on-prem is the right choice for your product, economics, or data residency, we make it work.
• We do not write control language that reads like it was cut from an AWS template and pasted onto your colo deployment.
• We do not skip physical walkthroughs. If your facility is within reach, we will visit. If it is not, we will do a remote walkthrough with your team on video.
• We work with reputable auditors who understand on-prem. Most of our engagements come back from audit with no findings. We cannot guarantee that outcome because the program is ultimately yours to run, but we can guide you to a place where a clean report is the most likely result.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we get SOC 2 on bare metal or colocation?

Yes. The SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria are infrastructure-agnostic. What changes is the evidence and the control design. We have done this for multiple clients and published the reference architecture publicly.

Is SOC 2 harder for on-prem than for AWS?

Harder is the wrong word. It is different. You have more control over the stack, which means you can design better controls, but you are responsible for more evidence. Teams that understand their infrastructure deeply often find on-prem SOC 2 easier because the evidence is already in their operational runbooks.

Do you work with hybrid deployments?

Yes. Hybrid is where most SOC 2 consultants get lost because they have to split the control narrative between cloud and on-prem components. We design the control matrix so each control clearly states which environment it applies to and how the evidence flows.

What infrastructure platforms do you have experience with?

Enterprise and open-source. Cisco, Palo Alto, Check Point firewalls. F5 load balancers. VMware and Proxmox hypervisors. Dynatrace, Splunk, Elastic, Wazuh, Security Onion for monitoring. We run an open-source lab for testing and have decades of experience with enterprise-grade commercial platforms.

What about HIPAA, ISO 27001, or CPCSC alongside SOC 2 on-prem?

We run combined engagements when the overlap is material. HIPAA overlaps heavily with SOC 2 and we often bundle them. ISO 27001 is a natural companion and is typically 30 percent cheaper when done together with SOC 2. CPCSC is a Canadian federal contractor requirement we cover separately but can integrate.

How do you price on-prem engagements?

SMB Builds start at around $20,000, the same range as our standard SOC 2 offering. On-prem work does not automatically cost more. What can push the price up is the number of physical sites, the number of frameworks in scope, and enterprise complexity (multi-data-center, regulated industries, multi-region). We quote each engagement with fixed scope and fixed price after a 30-minute scoping call.

Are you only Canadian?

Based in Canada, working across North America. Most of our on-prem clients are in Canada and the US. We have done remote and on-site engagements in both countries.

Do you handle the auditor for us?

Yes. We act as the main point of contact between you and the auditor. We handle auditor communication, organize and submit evidence, defend your scope when it gets challenged, push back when an evidence request is overreaching, and walk the auditor through your control narrative. The audit firm is independent by design, but you are not on your own in the room.