CLOUD COMPUTING

Study Predicts Twelvefold Increase in Cloud Traffic

Rebecca Kutzer-Rice | Date: 12-05-11 | Comments

Although a recent study from Cisco determined that no global region is prepared for widespread adoption of advanced cloud applications, it also predicts that the world's cloud traffic will dramatically increase in the next five years.

We all know that cloud computing is experiencing rapid growth, but a new study by Cisco estimates shocking jumps in cloud adoption. The company's Global Cloud Index predicts 12 times more cloud traffic by 2015, compared with 2010.

Cisco estimates that global cloud traffic in 2015 will be 1.6 zettabytes (ZBs), 12 times more than the 130 exabytes (EBs) in 2010. In other words, individual months in 2015 will experience as much traffic as the entire year of 2010. In this new "zettabyte era" of cloud computing, the company expects that the cloud will account for 34 percent of total data center traffic.

The study predicts that data center traffic will increase by fourfold to reach 4.8 zettabytes by the end of 2015. For the research, Cisco characterized traffic by services delivered to the end user.

(Source: Cisco)

Cisco identified an evolution of data center traffic over the past decade. While peer-to-peer file sharing was the main form of Internet traffic in the early 2000s, most traffic now begins or ends in the data center. Advances in cloud applications, services and infrastructure will continue to transform data center traffic.

"The Global Cloud Index forecasts the transition of workloads from traditional data centers to cloud data centers," the company reported. "The year 2014 is expected to be a pivotal year-when workloads processed in cloud data centers (51 percent) will exceed those processed in traditional data centers (49 percent) for the first time. Continuing that trend, we expect cloud-processed workloads to dominate at 57 percent by 2015."

Traffic by consumers and businesses will comprise most cloud-based traffic in 2015.

The study also analyzed cloud preparedness in regions around the world, as defined by broadband ubiquity, download and upload speeds, and network latency. It analyzed these factors using 45 million records from nearly 150 countries around the world. Based on this analysis, Cisco determined: "None of the [world's] regions' current average network performance characteristics can support advanced cloud services today."

The study found that regions in the Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, North America, and Central and Eastern Europe are ready for the intermediate cloud applications such as streaming high-definition video. The Middle East, Africa and Latin America lag behind and can support only basic cloud services.