Cloud and cloud services are two areas of discussion that still are on the forefront of state and local CIOs strategic IT plans. In fact, according to the latest statistics, Cloud computing and onDemand Cloud managed services are the fastest growing technology areas for state and local governments. The true definition of Cloud is still not widely agreed upon but what can be agreed upon is that Cloud is and will continue to be part of any IT organization's strategy and DNA. Cloud implementations can allow modernization of applications as well as keeping infrastructure refreshed at a regular basis. From a financial perspective, onDemand Cloud computing can have predictability which makes the budget planning cycle easier, consumption of resources as you need them and elliminates the cycle of capital dollar budget requests. Cloud can keep the organization’s risk against infrastructure failures and security breaches at a minimum. The question now is what is the right mix of private and public cloud, what makes sense, what is achievable and more importantly what is financially and technologically realistic. Over the past few years the notion of moving everything to a public cloud has been shown to be not the most prudent way to manage critical citizen services. Issues associate with federal requirements (CJIS) and disposition of sensitive data have shown to be strong barriers to complete public cloud adoption. In addition, most critical legacy applications are not conductive to deployments into a public cloud environment. Most critical legacy applications require to be re-architected which requires skillsets and millions of dollars that most states don’t have. The hybrid cloud concept isn’t something new nor ground breaking, but what is new is the realization that this is not as easy and one would think. The integration of the public cloud (AWS, Azure, Google, etc.) with an implementation of a onDemand private cloud (on premise or off premise) is an architecture that is not trivial. The management of the integration of the two environments with applications that reside in each of those environments requires specific skillsets as well as experience to be successful. State and local governments unfortunately, more often than not, do not have the skillsets nor experience that can accomplish the integration successfully. It is critical that state and local governments find partners that can make them successful. Partners that have a long history of deploying onDemand private clouds have an advantage in a few critical areas. (1), they have experience on how to link multiple cloud environments, (2), they know what is required from a network perspective, (3), they know how to design, deploy and support the infrastructure that can support applications and (4), they know how to manage the financial aspect of cloud onDemand computing services. Cloud computing and onDemand cloud managed services can be a financial benefit if implemented correctly. Having a truly dedicated partner to help you navigate the complex migration to a cloud world is the first critical step to a successful journey. Cloud and onDemand Cloud managed services are tenants that are here to stay, don’t be left behind!