A cloud environment is provided generally having at least one private data center possessing a controller/routing system and nonvolatile mass storage, a plurality of data objects retained in the nonvolatile mass storage, and a public cloud storage service provider linked to the controller/routing system. The public cloud storage service provider possessing a database containing policy decisions and metadata of the plurality of data objects. When data objects are uploaded to the cloud environment, the private data center is in possession of the data objects, the public cloud is not in possession of the data objects. The private data center is not in possession of the policy decisions and the metadata for the plurality of data objects, rather the public cloud storage service provider is. The public cloud storage service provider adapted to be communicatively linked to an end-user computing system by way of the controller/routing system. The end-user able to retrieve data objects from the cloud environment via the private data center that ascertains location information of one or more target data objects from one or more private data centers. The data objects retrieved do not pass through the public cloud service provider, but rather over data pathways independent of the public cloud service. The data center is independent of the public cloud storage provider.