The global cloud index is a tool developed by Cisco in an attempt to estimate global data center and cloud-based traffic growth and trends. A complementary resource to existing empirical studies around IP traffic, this report is an important measuring stick for vendors, enterprises, and anyone who likes to know where the proverbial hockey puck is traveling.
Putting aside discussions about Cisco’s long-term prognosis, there is no denying that the company that has huge exposure to internet traffic via its massive customer base. Generating some insights from that information, and teasing it out into macro trends, is a useful piece of work.
So what findings does this year’s global cloud index come up with? At a high level, when it comes to global traffic, annual global data center IP traffic is projected to reach 10.4 ZB (zettabytes) by the end of 2019, up from 3.4 ZB per year in 2014. At the same time, annual global cloud traffic is projected to quadruple, reaching 8.6 ZB (719 EB per month) by the end of 2019, up from 2.1 ZB per year (176 EB per month) in 2014, and is expected to account for more than four-fifths (83%) of total data center traffic by&helli
