In an ongoing attempt to make talk about "the Cloud" more tangible, here's the first in an occasional series looking at different "Views".

This time around a physical view: simply put, we know that the physical Cloud is a collection of massive data centres connected by massive bandwidth. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and many others (including HP) have been building out their data centres for a few years now. However, a post which caught my eye recently involves Microsoft's recent announcement that they will build their new datacentre in Chicago from up to 220 shipping containers, slotting them together in a modular fashion as needed. According to director of data centre services, Michael Manos: Microsoft are "trying to address scale with the cloud level services...trying to figure the best way to bring capacity online quickly."  Basically, you can build your Cloud out of shipping-container sized Lego bricks!

Alternatively, you could actually float your data centre directly on the sea: International Data Security are opening the first of 50 (it says) ship-borne floating datacentres in San Francisco. In particular the floating datacentres require less planning constraints, and use sea water for cooling resulting in 30-40% power reductions. 

Recently I read the sci-fi novel Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan which predicts that all manufacturing would be carried out on massive "raft" statelets which float offshore just outside international boundaries.

Someone out there's got to be planning that right now. ;-)