In the tech world, there is a certain appeal to be able to walk up and touch a server. This is especially true when the payment comes due and you want to get a real feel for where your money has gone.

This can be a reality with hybrid cloud. You get the best of both worlds—access to public cloud resources while still maintaining control of your local machines. Hybrid cloud gives you location and proximity to your physical infrastructure. Hybrid cloud is also useful for processes that require speed and proximity.

Hybrid cloud blends the best of public and private services. For organizations that weren’t ready to make the move to public or private cloud because of concerns about availability, security, and control, hybrid cloud becomes a worthwhile alternative. Hybrid gives you the networking, management, security, and integration of a standard public cloud environment while being part of an internal environment.

While public cloud allows organizations to leverage low-cost services, private cloud allows in-house servers and permits businesses to have cloud access but still maintain full control of their hardware. Unfortunately, private cloud has scaling challenges while public cloud has potential problems with security.

“This means an organization can start with in-house computing resources, add external cloud resources to scale up, and then go back and replace those cloud sources either with more on premise infrastructure, or continue to leverage cloud solutions to balance manageability and security with the low-cost benefits of outsourcing to cloud providers where it makes sense,” says Andrea Knoblauch, a cloud and security strategist based in Canada.

Keeping up with the benefits of hybrid cloud can also be beneficial to IT professionals. “Taking an incremental approach to hybrid cloud gives CIOs a platform to lead real business change from the center, and avoid being bypassed or replaced,” says James Butler, chief technology officer at Trustmarque. “By driving the strategy and promoting the positive benefits of cloud, CIOs will reduce risks and maximize investments, rather than simply ignoring cloud and falling behind.”

Hybrid cloud allows organizations to have the advantages of scalability, security, external services, and more, giving them the benefits of both public and private while still having hardware in a local data center. Since many of the challenges of having a hybrid cloud environment have been solved, organizations are now able to select from colocation providers that can make hybrid cloud a reality.