Cloud computing’s promise is straightforward. Past implementations of digital systems led to underutilisation and unused resources. As the cloud sales pitch goes, one box running one server means wasted energy, storage, and compute resources. Cloud systems provide an alternative, cutting the direct dependency between software and hardware by virtually allocating resources when they are required.

The impact of this change was soon evident in lower software costs and flexibly running applications based on their changing demands. Companies needed less hardware, and, where they started using public cloud services, no server-side hardware at all. But all this efficiency came with a new cost.