Sun's announcement marks the information technology industry's latest step toward "utility computing, " a grid system in which companies pipe in data processing and storage from faraway server farms, says Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, a book on utility computing published earlier this week.

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Ordinary data centers use RAID 5 or 6 storage, which distributes data across 5 or 6 disks in the same server.

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The 7000 and the 5000 (names are not Cisco's strong suit) do the tricky work of unifying servers, data storage and virtualization software (a way to get one server to do the work of several so you get more bang from each).

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Plugged into an Ethernet network, Corona--which has a built-in Ethernet board--can pull all the applications and data it needs directly off a corporate server, without the need for local storage.

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Enterprise servers, the kind server that dominates IT department purchasing today, have dedicated storage and data center network access on each motherboard.

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Businesses with large data centers can significantly reduce capital expenditure by disaggregating or separating compute and storage resources in a server rack.

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Cloud is also driving evolutionary change in its components, like server microvisors for stronger security, low cost Flash storage for large data sets and energy-saving chips.

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