75% of Global Data Centers are Moving Towards Cloud – Cisco Report

If you need more evidence of an effect of cloud computing on the high technology and the impressive growth of Internet traffic, the Global Cloud Index report prepared by Cisco, will put everything in its place.

According to the study, by 2016 total volume of traffic passing through data centers around the world will grow by 4 times and reach the level of 6.6 zettabytes. The compound annual growth rate of total traffic volume of the cloud – the fastest growing segment of the traffic data centers – will increased from 683 exabytes in 2011 to 4.3 zettabytes by 2016 (an increase of 44 percent).

Cisco experts predict that two-thirds of all traffic data centers and server loads by 2016 will relate to cloud computing, and the average load on the cloud servers will be 4 times higher than conventional counterparts. Compound annual growth rate of cloud traffic generated by normal users, will grow faster than corporate cloud traffic – 46 percent for normal users against 37 percent for corporate users.

The biggest impact the projected traffic growth will be felt in the data center, where the traffic volume is 8 times greater than in the case of end-users. To illustrate the difference (as well as to demonstrate one of its popular products), Cisco gave the example of a web conference via WebEx-enabled camera desktop sharing function, VoIP and record. It turned out that the amount of traffic in the data center is 2 times higher than that of the end-users of the service.

One of the key takeaways from the study is that enhanced data center virtualization is a key networking benefit that is driving many organizations to cloud computing. In the past, one server carried one workload. However, with increasing server computing capacity and virtualization, multiple workloads per physical server are common in cloud architectures. The results include fewer physical servers to support higher processing demands, more efficient data center operations, and more ubiquitous access to network services and content for consumers and business users, says the report.

Cisco estimates that approximately 76% of data center traffic will not go beyond the data objects. This is due to the fact that this traffic will be mainly generated data on the storage of content, production information and data to develop. About 7 percent of the traffic will account for data replication and systems/software updates, and the remaining 17 percent will be generated by end users using cloud services to surf the web, check e-mail and streaming video.

The highest growth rate in 2016 will be characterized for the Middle East and Africa. Asia Pacific overtakes North America by 2016 and will become the largest market in the context of cloud traffic. North America and Western Europe lead in terms of the development of mobile broadband and fixed broadband access at regional level. The report also considered the number of owners of mobile devices and fixed broadband by region, and the number of M2M-connections by country. It is expected that Central and Eastern Europe will have the highest growth rate of penetration of mobile broadband.

The report also describes the network requirements of consumer and business applications. Usage of (on a particular server) applications is growing exponentially, and the compilers of the report suggests that by 2016 the volume of traffic generated by the application will increase by 42 times compared to the level of last year.