California Managed Cloud: Your Bridge to Modern Infrastructure Without the Headaches

If you've been stuck between keeping everything on-premises and jumping into the wild west of public cloud, you're not alone. That gap between "we need cloud scalability" and "we can't risk compliance issues" is where California Managed Cloud (CAMC) lives.

CAMC is CDT's answer to a pretty common problem: how do you get Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) benefits without hiring an entire team to manage it? They're basically offering you the good parts of Azure and AWS, but with the infrastructure management already handled.

The Fully Managed Route: Someone Else Handles the 3 AM Emergencies

Here's what "fully managed" actually means in practice. CDT takes care of the infrastructure layer completely—patching, updates, security hardening, all of it. Your team doesn't get woken up because a server needs an emergency patch or a configuration drifted out of compliance.

The security piece is worth paying attention to. They're maintaining compliance with SIMM and NIST standards, which matters if you're in a regulated space. SOCaaS (Security Operations Center as a Service) means there's a team watching for threats around the clock. Cloud Provider Interconnect handles the networking between different cloud environments, and the 24x7x365 monitoring covers the basics you'd expect from any serious managed service.

What this setup really buys you is focus. Instead of your developers spending half their week on infrastructure firefighting, they can actually work on the stuff your customers care about. 👉 Find out how managed cloud infrastructure can reduce your operational overhead

The Self-Managed Option: You Want Control, Not Hand-Holding

Not everyone wants or needs a fully managed service. If you've got the team and the expertise, the self-managed CAMC offering gives you the compliant, secured environment but lets you handle the configuration and day-to-day management yourself.

This makes sense in a few scenarios. Maybe you have specific performance tuning requirements that need constant adjustment. Or your team already has deep expertise with your particular stack and prefers direct control. You still get the benefit of starting from a secure, compliant foundation—you're just handling the ongoing management.

The infrastructure is still built to meet the same security and compliance standards, so you're not starting from scratch. You're just taking the wheel after the initial setup.

Who Actually Benefits From This Setup

CAMC is particularly useful for state and local government entities that need to modernize but can't afford compliance slip-ups. If you're migrating from legacy on-premises systems, having a managed path means you can move faster without increasing risk.

For organizations that don't have cloud expertise in-house, the fully managed option removes a major blocker. You get access to modern cloud infrastructure and recognized providers like Azure and AWS without needing to become cloud experts overnight.

Even if you do have the technical chops, the self-managed route can still save time. Starting with infrastructure that's already configured to meet compliance standards beats building everything from the ground up. 👉 Compare managed vs. self-managed cloud solutions for your specific needs

Making the Choice Between Managed and Self-Managed

The decision usually comes down to three things: team capacity, compliance requirements, and how much control you actually need.

If your IT team is already stretched thin or if cloud infrastructure isn't your core competency, fully managed makes sense. You're essentially buying back time and reducing risk. The compliance piece is handled, monitoring is continuous, and someone else is responsible when things break.

Self-managed works when you have the team capacity and want direct control over configurations. Maybe you're running workloads with very specific requirements, or your team prefers hands-on management. The key advantage here is flexibility—you can optimize and adjust without going through a managed service provider.

Both options give you access to the same underlying cloud providers and the same security baseline. The difference is who's responsible for keeping everything running smoothly day to day.

The real win with CAMC isn't just about moving to the cloud—it's about doing it in a way that doesn't create new problems while solving old ones. Whether you go managed or self-managed, you're getting infrastructure that's built with compliance and security baked in from the start.