Cloud bursting is a scalability model that allows a company to use a hybrid cloud environment to handle peak or unpredictable workloads. Cloud bursting involves using the private cloud to host the core or critical applications, and using the public cloud to provide additional or temporary resources when the demand exceeds the capacity of the private cloud . Cloud bursting can help a company to: Improve the availability and reliability of the applications by replicating them across multiple cloud platforms and locations . Optimize the performance and efficiency of the applications by dynamically allocating and releasing resources based on the workload and traffic . Reduce the cost and complexity of the IT infrastructure by leveraging the pay-as-you-go and on-demand models of the public cloud .