We store photos and send messages without stopping to think about where all that magic happens. We talk about the cloud as if it were some abstract, undefined place floating somewhere on the internet… but the reality is very different. Every email, every video call, depends on very specific physical infrastructure (data centres, kilometres of fibre optic cable, vast amounts of electricity, cooling systems… etc.)
And this is where a curious paradox arises: the more virtual the world becomes, the greater the dependence on the physical. The cloud does not float in the air, but is anchored to the ground.
From option to infrastructure
A few years ago, the cloud was used as an alternative technological option to traditional hosting and computing. Today, a large number of sectors depend on it. From companies that use cloud platforms for their day-to-day operations, to public administrations digitising essential services or healthcare systems storing patient records and processing clinical information, right through to people’s everyday activities such as accessing online banking, working from home or watching content on streaming platforms, amongst others.
This situation has clear precedents, such as electricity, water, or the creation of the transport network, which were also technological innovations, albeit with one major difference… namely, that the cloud is invisible to most users. We have no tangible sense of the data centres, the undersea fibre-optic cables needed to interconnect them, or the operational complexity per se. All this creates an invisible dependency that has transformed the cloud from an alternative option into a critical infrastructure.
We have already mentioned this in a previous article, and other elements such as energy and communications also contribute to this dependency. The data centres on which the cloud is based consume large amounts of electricity and require redundancy in communications. These are strategic factors that also tie us to the ground, necessitating medium-term planning to avoid any impact on cloud growth. There may be a physical limitation, for example in the electricity supply, which could hinder the growth of the data centre and, consequently, that of cloud activity.
We may also face other, more regulatory factors that can create dependency, such as digital sovereignty or state regulations, which can anchor our data to a specific location.
Distributed architectures and resilience by design as a response to physical dependency
Given the situation described, it is clear that in these scenarios we must rethink architectural design compared to traditional computing. Elements such as resilience cannot be afterthoughts added later, but must be included in the initial designs.
System distribution is another element that reduces dependency. As differentiating factors, we can mention multi-cloud approaches, combining public and private clouds (hybrid cloud), or deploying directly at the Edge to minimise data latency and processing time. These measures reduce associated risks but add a layer of operational complexity, requiring higher levels of automation and monitoring, amongst other things.
The key to resilience lies not in eliminating risks, but in understanding them and designing architectures capable of coexisting with them, to ensure business continuity under adverse conditions
The ‘physical’ that the digital does not show
The more invisible the cloud becomes to users, the more critical it is to the functioning of the world. Behind every digital process there are buildings, cables, servers, energy and people who design and operate that complexity.
We must be aware of the complexity of the cloud and digital services, as it changes the way we must approach their future in terms of capacity, sustainability, availability and dependency.
Perhaps the greatest sign of the cloud’s success is precisely that we hardly think about it. But the more it fades from our consciousness, the more important it is to remember and realise that it is not in the sky, but firmly grounded on the earth we all share.
