For the past decade or so those in enterprise IT have wrestled with whether they should move certain business functions and data to the cloud or keep those functions on-premise.

Players on each side lobby for support. Employees in the pro-public camp argue the public cloud offers immediate access to computing resources and applications with the ability to automatically add and drop capacity, while the IT folks counter that the private cloud offers the highest levels of management visibility, control, security, and privacy.

But a few years ago a new option emerged: the hybrid cloud. This new cloud computing environment enables an organization to provide and manage some resources in-house on a private cloud while others are provided externally.

The hybrid cloud has quickly gained traction among enterprises because it seemingly provides businesses with the best of both worlds. Organizations can take advantage of the scalability and cost-effectiveness that a public cloud computing environment offers while reserving internal locations for the most sensitive applications and data.

Many enterprises balk at the idea of using a public cloud platform, and for good reason. There are several well-known security risks associated with public cloud services. When enterprises partner with a public cloud vendor they no longer control the server where their data lives.

By giving up that control they become dependent on the vendor to maintain security and ensure their employees have access to their data at all times. Honda experienced a data breach that affected 2.2 million customers and exposed names, email addresses, vehicle identification numbers (VINs), and credentials.