Thanks to the Cloud, Data Center Traffic Will Increase

Enterprises have started adopting the strategy of moving to the cloud. The level of efficiency this model has brought to the industry is unique, offering several benefits that were unavailable in the business environment until recently.

Because of the popularity of the cloud, it has been predicted that the next four years are likely to see a steady increase in the numbers related to cloud services that represent total data center traffic. This upsurge will signify almost three quarters of the total data center traffic. It will bring a rise in the total data center traffic, too, triple its current volume. These and other important predictions have been projected by Cisco in the fourth annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2013 – 2018). According to this index, data center traffic will grow from its current volume of 3.1 zettabytes in 2013, to an astounding 8.6 zettabytes in 2018. (One zettabyte equals a trillion gigabytes). This denotes an annual growth of about 23%.

There has been an indisputable growth of global cloud traffic as compared to that of the overall global data center traffic. In 2013, cloud traffic was approximately 54% of the total data center traffic and this is likely to escalate to 76% in the next 4 years. This 76% will not only include data center-to-user traffic, but will also include traffic that stays within data centers.

As the business environment focuses more on public cloud services, it is estimated that the shift to public cloud services will continue, ensuring that public cloud workloads increase by around 33% annually. In 2018, public cloud data centers will include about 31% of the cloud as compared to the 22% they were at in 2013, and private cloud workloads will witness a rise of 21%. It is estimated that by 2018, about 70% of cloud workloads will be private cloud workloads indicating that data center operations would need to develop the ability to create a hybrid private/public cloud environment in such a scenario. After all, survival in a changing industry does demand operational changes on the business front!

At Lifeline Data Centers, we believe in developing operational capabilities that are in line with the changing business environment, and the cloud is a major component of our business. To learn more about Lifeline, schedule a tour with us today:

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.