Open cloud provider Rackspace has rolled out a complete revamp of its public cloud with Performance Cloud Servers – and according to Nigel Beighton, international VP technology and product, it represents a serious shift in how companies use their servers.

The architectural redesign of the Rackspace Performance Cloud Server comes with four times the total RAM, double the CPU performance and 132 times the I/O of its competitors, according to benchmark tests.

But Beighton argues that simply drooling over the figures is the short-sighted approach.

“The more interesting sub-context here is that this is responding to the changing nature of applications on cloud,” Beighton told CloudTech.

“When I look back over six months worth of data, we’ve had an increase of 200% over that six months of people taking what we call ‘fat slices’, which fundamentally takes the whole machine.

“What you are seeing here is a shift, a …