Cisco: Global Cloud Traffic to Quadruple by 2019

Global cloud traffic will more than quadruple by the end of 2019, from 2.1 to 8.6 zettabytes (ZB), outpacing the growth of total global data center traffic, which is forecast to triple during the same time frame (from 3.4 to 10.4 ZB), according to the newly released Cisco Global Cloud Index.

Total global data center traffic, which is forecast to triple during the same time frame (from 3.4 to 10.4 ZB).

“The Global Cloud Index highlights the fact that cloud is moving well beyond a regional trend to becoming a mainstream solution globally, with cloud traffic expected to grow more than 30 percent in every worldwide region over the next five years,” said Doug Webster, vice president of service provider marketing, Cisco. “Enterprise and government organizations are moving from test cloud environments to trusting clouds with their mission-critical workloads. At the same time, consumers continue to expect on-demand, anytime access to their content and services nearly everywhere. This creates a tremendous opportunity for cloud operators, which will play an increasingly relevant role in the communications industry ecosystem.”

The report, which serves as a complement to the widely-cited Cisco Visual Networking Index, is generated by modeling and analysis of various primary and secondary sources.

Some key take-aways:

• By 2019, 55 percent of the residential Internet population will use personal cloud storage (up from 42 percent in 2014). 
• Annual global data center IP traffic is projected to reach 10.4 ZB by the end of 2019, up from 3.4 ZB
• per year in 2014.
• Annual global cloud traffic is projected to quadruple, reaching 8.6 ZB (719 EB per month) by the end of 2019, up from 2.1 ZB per year (176 EB per month) in 2014, and is expected to account for more than four-fifths (83 percent) of total data center traffic by 2019.
• New technologies such as SDN and NFV are expected to streamline data center traffic flows such that the traffic volumes reaching the highest tier (core) of the data center may fall below 10.4 ZB per year and lower data center tiers could carry over 40 ZB of traffic per year.
• By region, North America will have the highest cloud traffic volume (3.6 ZB) by 2019; followed by Asia Pacific (2.3 ZB) and Western Europe (1.5 ZB).
• By region, North America will also have the highest data center traffic volume (4.5 ZB) by 2019; followed by Asia Pacific (2.7 ZB) and Western Europe (1.8 ZB). 
• By 2019, 55 percent (more than 2 billion users) of the consumer Internet population will use personal cloud storage up from 42 percent (1.1 billion users) in 2014.
• Globally, consumer cloud storage traffic per user will be 1.6 gigabytes per month by 2019, compared to 992 megabytes per month in 2014.

Data center virtualization

• Overall data center workloads will more than double from 2014 to 2019; however, cloud workloads will more than triple over the same period.
• The workload density (that is, workloads per physical server) for cloud data centers was 5.1 in 2014 and will grow to 8.4 by 2019. Comparatively, for traditional data centers, workload density was 2.0 in 2014 and will grow to 3.2 by 2019.

IoE-Generated Data

• Globally, the data created by IoE connections will reach 507.5 zettabytes per year (42.3 zettabytes per month) by 2019, up from 134.5 zettabytes per year (11.2 ZB per month) in 2014.
• A smart city of 1 million will generate 180 million gigabytes of data per day by 2019.

Private vs. Public Cloud Growth

Public cloud, in which services are rendered over a network that is open for public use, is growing faster than private cloud, which includes cloud infrastructure operated for a single organization, in terms of workloads. However, throughout the five-year forecast, private cloud will continue to outpace public cloud in its degree of virtualization.

The Cisco Cloud Index projects:

• Public cloud workloads are going to grow at a 44-percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019 and private cloud workloads will grow at a slower pace (16-percent CAGR) from
• 2014 to 2019.
• By 2019, 56 percent of the cloud workloads will be in public cloud data centers, up from 30 percent in 2014. (CAGR of 44 percent from 2014 to 2019.)
• By 2019, 44 percent of the cloud workloads will be in private cloud data centers, down from 70 percent in 2014. (CAGR of 16 percent from 2014 to 2019.)

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/global-cloud-index-gci/index.html