Cisco Global Cloud Index Projects Cloud Traffic to Dominate Data Centers Cloud Traffic Will Represent More Than Two-Thirds of Global Data Center Traffic by 2017 and Will Grow More than Fourfold From 2012 to 2017
Ciscos Thomas Barnett, Director, Service Provider Thought Leadership, discusses the 2013 Cisco Cloud Index
SAN JOSE, Calif. Oct. 15, 2013 In the third annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2012 2017) issued today, Cisco forecasts that global cloud traffic, the fastest growing component of data center traffic, is expected to grow 4.5-fold a 35 percent combined annual growth rate (CAGR) from 1.2 zettabytes of annual traffic in 2012 to 5.3 zettabytes by 2017. Overall global data center traffic will grow threefold and reach a total of 7.7 zettabytes annually by 2017.
A zettabyte is one billion terabytes. For context, 7.7 zettabytes is equivalent to:
107 trillion hours of streaming music about 1.5 years of continuous music streaming for the worlds population in 2017.
19 trillion hours of business web conferencing about 14 hours of daily web conferencing for the worlds workforce in 2017.
8 trillion hours of online high-definition (HD) video streaming about 2.5 hours of daily streamed HD video for the worlds population in 2017.
Approximately 17 percent of data center traffic will be fueled by end users accessing clouds for web surfing, video streaming, collaboration and connected devices, all of which contribute to the Internet of Everything, which is the networked connection of people, data, process and things.
Other data center traffic is not caused directly by end users, but by data centers and cloud-computing workloads used in activities that are virtually invisible to individuals. For the period 2012 2017, Cisco forecasts that 7 percent of data center traffic will be generated between data centers, primarily driven by data replication and software/system updates. An additional 76 percent of data center traffic will stay within the data center and will be largely generated by storage, production and development data in a virtualized environment.
"People all over the world continue to demand the ability to access personal, business and entertainment content anywhere on any device, and each transaction in a virtualized, cloud environment can cause cascading effects on the network," said Doug Merritt, Senior Vice President, Product and Solutions Marketing, Cisco. "Because of this continuing trend, we are seeing huge increases in the amount of cloud traffic within, between and beyond data centers over the next four years."
From a regional perspective, the Cisco Global Cloud Index predicts that through 2017, the Middle East and Africa will have the highest cloud traffic growth rate (57 percent CAGR), followed by Asia Pacific (43 percent CAGR) and Central and Eastern Europe (36 percent CAGR).
Overview:
The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2012 2017) was developed to estimate global for data center and cloud-based Internet Protocol (IP) traffic growth and trends. The Cisco Global Cloud Index serves as a complementary resource to existing network traffic studies, providing new insights and visibility into emerging trends affecting data centers and cloud architectures. The forecast becomes increasingly important as the network and data center become more intrinsically linked in offering cloud services.
The Cisco Global Cloud Index includes a "workload transition" forecast, which shows the workload shift from moving from traditional data centers to more virtualized cloud servers.
The forecast also includes a supplement on Cloud Readiness Regional Details, which examines the fixed and mobile network abilities of each global region (from nearly 150 countries) to support business and consumer cloud-computing applications and services.
The Cisco Global Cloud Index is generated by modeling and analysis of various primary and secondary sources, including 40 terabytes of monthly traffic sampled from a variety of global data centers over the past year, results from more than 90 million network tests, and third-party market research reports.
Key Highlights/Findings:
Global data center traffic growth will increase threefold by 2017 - Cisco forecasts that global data center traffic will triple from 2.6 zettabytes in 2012 to 7.7 zettabytes annually in 2017, representing a 25 percent CAGR.
Global cloud traffic will grow faster than overall global data center traffic - The transition to cloud services is driving global cloud traffic at a growth rate greater than global data center traffic. Global data center traffic will grow threefold (a 25 percent CAGR) from 2012 to 2017, while global cloud traffic will grow 4.5-fold (a 35 percent CAGR) over the same period.
Global cloud traffic will account for more than two-thirds of total global data center traffic - Globally, cloud traffic will grow from 46 percent of total data center traffic (98 exabytes per month or 1.2 zettabytes annually) of total data center traffic in 2012 to 69 percent of total data center traffic (443 exabytes per month or 5.3 zettabytes annually) of total data center traffic by 2017.
Cloud traffic growth by region: The Middle East and Africa will have the highest cloud traffic growth rate from 2012 to 2017 - The Cisco Global Cloud Index now includes regional forecast data for cloud traffic growth.
o In 2012, North America generated the most cloud traffic (469 exabytes annually), followed by Asia Pacific (319 exabytes annually) and Western Europe (225 exabytes annually).
o By 2017, North America will generate the most cloud traffic (1.886 zettabytes annually), followed by Asia Pacific (1.876 zettabytes annually) and Western Europe (770 exabytes annually).
Workload transitions: From 2012 to 2017, data center workloads will grow 2.3-fold; cloud workloads will grow 3.7-fold - In 2012, 39 percent of workloads were process
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Cisco Global Cloud Index Projects Cloud Traffic to Dominate Data Centers Cloud Traffic Will Represent More Than Two-Thirds of Global Data Center Traffic by 2017 and Will Grow More than Fourfold From 2012 to 2017 
