ABSTRACT
A move toward clouds represents a fundamental change in how we handle information. It is almost the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity supply from a hundred years ago, when farms and businesses closed down their own power generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities. Until the end of the nineteenth century, businesses had to run their own power-generating facilities, producing all the energy to run their machinery. As industrial technology advanced, generators grew more sophisticated but were still located at the site of a business and maintained by its employees. Power generation was assumed to be an intrinsic part of running a business (much as data processing is now). The invention of the alternating-current electric grid at the turn of the century overturned that assumption. Supplying electricity to many users from central stations achieved huge economies of scale, and the price of electricity fell rapidly. The transformation in the supply of computing promises to be as dramatic as that in electricity supply (Figure 1.1).
