Often called “the best of both worlds,” hybrid clouds combine on-premises infrastructure, or private clouds, with public clouds so organizations can reap the advantages of both.

The key point is that this approach moves away from a monolithic either-or policy for public vs. private cloud, but one that relies on adaptability and a best-of-breed approach, which is why it's rapidly becoming the most popular cloud posture.

Hybrid Cloud allows IT decision makers to have more control over both the private and public components than using a prepackaged public cloud platform.

Or, as Brooks said, “you get everything that you want.” This includes increased efficiency and the flexibility to meet disparate needs.

Advantages of hybrid cloud:

• Control - your organization can maintain a private infrastructure for sensitive assets.
• Flexibility - you can take advantage of additional resources in the public cloud when you need them.
• Cost-effectiveness - with the ability to scale to the public cloud, you pay for extra computing power only when needed.
• Ease - transitioning to the cloud doesn’t have to be overwhelming because you can migrate gradually - phasing in workloads over time.

To the cynics, the "private cloud" looks a lot like what we used to simply call an on-premises data centre or server room. The difference is that it's often virtualized software, and automation to organise your infrastructure like the public cloud.

While this offers some of the flexibility found in the public cloud, the big benefit for private cloud is that it gives you more control over security, data privacy, and compliance.

Private clouds are best suited for large organizations that need strict security, latency, and regulatory and data privacy levels. Businesses requiring high-performance access to file systems can also benefit.

Advantages of a private cloud:

• More flexibility your organization can customize its cloud environment to meet specific business needs.
• Improved security resources are not shared with others, so higher levels of control and security are possible.
• High scalability - private clouds still afford the scalability and efficiency of a public cloud.

When most people hear 'Cloud', it's the public cloud that they think of.

While this originally started out as applications hosted over the internet SAS (Software as a Service)today's public cloud often involves applications, infrastructure, or data storage, it's useful to think of these three services separately.

Public Cloud is best suited for data storage and archival, application hosting, latency intolerant or mission-critical web tiers, on-demand hosting for microsite and application, and auto-scaling environment for large applications. Advantages of public cloud:

• Lower costs - no need to purchase hardware or software, and you pay only for the service you use.
• No maintenance - your service provider provides the maintenance.
• Near-unlimited scalability - on-demand resources are available to meet your business needs.
• High reliability - a vast network of servers ensures against failure.