At this year's Esri International User Conference, more than 15,000 participants from more than 130 countries gathered in San Diego, California. While the weather was perfect—not a single cloud in the sky—the word "cloud" buzzed throughout the conference.

During his opening speech, Jack Dangermond, president of Esri, stated, "Esri is moving GIS to the cloud." This statement set the tone for the entire conference, proving that GIS is evolving—the cloud platform is where the industry is headed. During the preliminary session, case studies illustrated the capabilities of ArcGIS Online—the web service based on cloud technology. Technical workshops offered at the conference provided insightful information on how to deploy ArcGIS in the cloud and how to use the ArcGIS Server in the Amazon Cloud.

As the word "cloud" is more frequently used throughout the GIS community, many of our clients are asking themselves:

• How can my organization benefit from the cloud?
• Which cloud provider do we choose?
• How secure is the cloud?

In order to provide answers and solutions to our clients, we've partnered with recognized cloud providers Amazon Web Services and Skygone. We recently went through a diligent evaluation process with Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) and were awarded a contract to provide public cloud hosting services to local, state, and federal government agencies.

The push to move GIS data and technology to the cloud speaks directly to our mission of supporting our clients' business needs by bringing them innovative and secure solutions to their toughest challenges. Stay tuned next week for our blog about how we can help clients take their IT infrastructure to the cloud.