Annual Global Data Center IP Traffic to Reach 4.8ZB in 2015

The Cisco Global Cloud Index is an ongoing effort to forecast the growth of global data center and cloud-based IP traffic. The forecast includes trends associated with data center virtualization and cloud computing.

Global Data Center IP Traffic: Already in the Zettabyte Era

Forecast Overview, Global data center traffic:

• Annual global data center IP traffic will reach 4.8 zettabytes by the end of 2015. In 2015, global data center IP traffic will reach 402 exabytes per month.
• Global data center IP traffic will increase fourfold over the next 5 years. Overall, data center IP traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33% from 2010 to 2015.

Data center virtualization and cloud computing transition:

• The number of workloads per installed traditional server will increase from 1.4 in 2010 to 2.0 in 2015.
• The number of workloads per installed cloud server will increase from 3.5 in 2010 to 7.8 in 2015.
• By 2014, more than 50% of all workloads will be processed in the cloud.

Global cloud traffic:

• Annual global cloud IP traffic will reach 1.6 zettabytes by the end of 2015. In 2015, global cloud IP traffic will reach 133 exabytes per month.
• Global cloud IP traffic will increase twelvefold over the next 5 years. Overall, cloud IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 66% from 2010 to 2015.
• Global cloud IP traffic will account for more than one-third (34%) of total data center traffic by 2015.

Regional cloud readiness:

• North America and Western Europe lead in broadband access (fixed and mobile). Asia Pacific leads in the number of subscribers due to the region’s large population.
• Western Europe leads in fixed average download speeds of 12.2 Mbps, followed by Central and Eastern Europe with 9.4 Mbps, making these regions the most cloud ready from a download speed perspective.
• Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe lead in average fixed upload speeds of 5.9 Mbps and 5.7 Mbps, respectively, making these regions the most cloud ready from an upload speed perspective.
• Western Europe and North America lead in average fixed latencies with 68 ms and 75 ms respectively, making these regions the most cloud ready from a latency perspective.

Evolution of Data Center Traffic
From 2000 to 2008, peer-to-peer file sharing dominated Internet traffic. As a result, the majority of Internet traffic did not touch a data center, but was communicated directly between Internet users. Since 2008, most Internet traffic has originated or terminated in a data center. Data center traffic will continue to dominate Internet traffic for the foreseeable future, but the nature of data center traffic will undergo a fundamental transformation brought about by cloud applications, services, and infrastructure. By 2015, one-third of data center traffic will be cloud traffic.

The Internet may not reach the zettabyte era until 2015, but the data center has already entered the zettabyte era. While the amount of traffic crossing the Internet and IP WAN networks is projected to reach nearly 1 zettabyte per year in 2015, the amount of data center traffic is already over 1 zettabyte per year, and by 2015 will quadruple to reach 4.8 zettabytes per year. This represents a 33% CAGR. The higher volume of data center traffic is due to the inclusion of traffic inside the data center.