Cisco Global Cloud Index Projects Cloud Traffic to Grow 12-Fold by 2015; Cloud to Be 51 Percent of Data Center Workloads by 2014

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

In the inaugural Cisco(R) Global Cloud Index (2010 – 2015) issued today, Cisco /quotes/zigman/20039/quotes/nls/csco CSCO -0.06% estimates global cloud computing traffic will grow 12-fold from 130 exabytes to reach a total of 1.6 zettabytes annually by 2015, a 66 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR). One zettabyte is equal to a sextillion bytes or a trillion gigabytes — 1.6 zettabytes is approximately equivalent to:
 
        —  22 trillion hours of streaming music.
        —  5 trillion hours of business Web conferencing with a webcam.
        —  1.6 trillion hours of online high-definition (HD) video streaming…

Cloud is the fastest growing component of data center traffic, which itself will grow 4-fold at a 33 percent CAGR to reach 4.8 zettabytes annually by 2015. Cloud is also estimated today to be 11 percent of data center traffic, growing to more than 33 percent of the total by 2015. Cloud is becoming a critical element for the future of information technology (IT) and delivery of video and content.

The vast majority of the data center traffic is not caused by end users but by the data centers and clouds themselves undertaking activities that are largely transparent to end users — like backup and replication. By 2015, 76 percent of data center traffic will remain within the data center itself as workloads migrate between various virtual machines and background tasks take place, 17 percent of the total traffic leaves the data center to be delivered to the end user, while an additional 7 percent of total traffic is generated between data centers through activities such as cloud-bursting, data replication and updates.

Overview
  
        —  The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2010 – 2015) was developed to estimate
            global data center and cloud-based Internet Protocol traffic growth
            and trends. As the network and data center are becoming intrinsically
            linked in the delivery of cloud services, this study complements
            existing network traffic studies to provide new insights and
            visibility into the emerging trends affecting data center and cloud
            architectures.
        —  The Cisco Global Cloud Index is generated from a modeling and analysis
            of various primary and secondary sources, including more than 30
            terabytes of data generated each month over the past year from a
            variety of data centers around the globe, measurements of more than 45
            million broadband-speed tests and third-party market forecasts.
        —  The Cisco Global Cloud Index also includes a "workload transition"
            forecast on the workload shift from traditional data centers to the
            cloud as well as a "Cloud Readiness" analysis of major geographic
            regions regarding their networks’ abilities to support various types
            of business and consumer cloud-computing services.
        —  The Cisco Global Cloud Index Forecast and Methodology, 2010 – 2015
            white paper provides the detailed findings of the study and a
            description of the methodology.
        —  The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2010 – 2015) Infographic provides a
            downloadable image available for use in blogs and social media.

Additional Cisco Global Cloud Index Details and Highlights

Cloud will account for one-third of total data center traffic

     
        —  Globally, cloud traffic will grow from just 11 percent (11 exabytes
            per month and 130 exabytes annually) of total data center traffic in
            2010 to more than a third of total data center traffic (34 percent
            specifically — 137 exabytes per month and 1.6 zettabytes annually) by
            2015.
        —  Greater virtualization and improved economies of scale will be a key
            driver of the cloud transition.
       

Global cloud traffic growing twice as fast as global data center traffic
     
        —  The transition to cloud services is driving global cloud traffic at a
            growth rate that is twice as great as global data center traffic.
            Global data center traffic will grow fourfold (a 33 percent CAGR) from
            2010 to 2015, while global cloud traffic will grow 12-fold (a 66
            percent CAGR) over the same period.
        —  Cloud data centers offer better performance, higher utilization and
            greater ease of management than traditional data centers.
            Virtualization serves as a major catalyst in enabling hardware and
            software consolidation, greater automation and an integrated security
            approach.
       

Global data center traffic growth: a four-fold increase by 2015
    
        —  Data center traffic is forecast to more than quadruple from 1.1
            zettabytes in 2010 to 4.8 zettabytes annually in 2015, representing a
            33 percent CAGR.
       

Data center traffic sources: Most stays within the data center itself

   
        —  Of the data center traffic in 2015, 76 percent stays within the data
            center itself, through such activities as storage and authentication
            across virtual machines.
        —  17 percent is data-center traffic being delivered to end users.
        —  7 percent is generated between data centers through activities such as
            backup and replication.
       

Peak end-user activity more than 2.5 times average in 2015

      
        —  Due predominately to the rise in video-based consumer services,
            data-center-to-user traffic has some significant peaks in activity.
            Much like prime time viewing hours, average amount of data center
            traffic per hour during peak periods is expected to rise up to 2.5
            times, requiring the need to plan for additional capacity from data
            centers and the cloud as well as from the network. The on-demand model
            of cloud is perfectly suited to serve this type of variable demand.
       

Workload transition

      
        —  In 2010, 21 percent of workloads were processed in a cloud-based data
            center with 79 percent being handled in a traditional data center.
        —  2014 is the first year where the balance of workloads shifts toward
            the cloud for the first time — 51 percent of total workloads will be
            in a cloud environment versus 49 percent in the traditional IT space.
        —  Overall, the data center workload from 2010 – 2015 is growing
            2.7-fold; however, the cloud workload from 2010 – 2015 is growing more
            than 7-fold over the forecast period.
       

Global cloud readiness
     
        —  To assess overall readiness, various attributes were analyzed:
            broadband ubiquity, average upload and download speeds, and average
            latency were assessed across each geographic region.
        —  All regions included in the study — Asia Pacific, Middle East and
            Africa, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and
            North America — are currently ready for basic cloud-computing
            applications, such as social networking and Web conferencing.
        —  For intermediate cloud-computing applications such as video chat and
            high-definition video streaming, Asia Pacific, Western Europe, Central
            and Eastern Europe, and North America were considered to have average
            network capabilities strong enough to support these services.
        —  No region was assessed to be able to support advanced cloud
            applications such as high-definition video conferencing and advanced
            gaming, in aggregate; however, certain countries within each region —
            such as South Korea and Japan — are currently able to do so.