Evolution is supposed to be slow-moving and steady, giving those affected plenty of time to react. Revolution, on the other hand, is rapid and disruptive and usually leaves casualties in its wake. Nevertheless, revolution is still a process, which means it unfolds in stages, and it isn’t always easy (in fact, it rarely is) to see how one stage will affect another or how it will all come out in the end.
In that regard, the cloud is a typical revolution. What’s surprising, though, is that each stage so far has been a mini-revolution in itself, and it doesn’t look like we’re even close to finishing.
NASA CTO Chris Kemp spelled all this out plainly enough at the recent OpenStack Enterprise Forum, where he noted that demand for the cloud is quickly propelling the demand for hyperscale infrastructure, both within the traditional enterprise and in the hosted service provider market.
