The hybrid cloud stands for a cloud computing environment that uses a combination of on-premises infrastructure, private clouds and public cloud  services with orchestration between the two platforms or more.

Separate clouds become hybrid when those environments are connected as seamlessly as possible.
Hybrid cloud environments may include:

• At least 1 private cloud and at least 1 public cloud
• 2 or more private clouds
• 2 or more public clouds
• A bare-metal or virtual environment connected to at least 1 cloud-public or private

With such mix, organizations can reap the advantages of both. In a hybrid cloud, data and applications can move between private and public clouds for greater flexibility and more deployment options. So the public cloud can be used for high-volume, lower-security needs such as web-based email, and the private cloud (or other on-premises infrastructure) can be used for sensitive, business-critical operations like financial reporting.

In a hybrid cloud, “cloud bursting”is also an option. This is when an application or resource runs in the private cloud until there is a spike in demand, at which point the organization can “burst through” to the public cloud to tap into additional computing resources.