Infrastructure Considerations
As computing becomes more of a utility to which consumers subscribe, the natural question to ask is where will the critical points of this new infrastructure network lie? With data storage, transmission, power and reliability considerations all being wrapped into the computing utility, this becomes a superset of our legacy infrastructure networks.
Some commentators speak of data centers as digital real estate - no matter what your business is, you need to buy some. Of course, you could build yourself some, so the metaphor has obvious limits. But taking the metaphor and running with it, who controls this digital real estate?
The consequences of this move to computing as a utility are myriad. Stephenson explored some of them in the late 1990s in Cryptonomicon. The current protests in Iran offer another thought prompt.
Some useful reading:
On data centers.
Regarding networks as a whole
